Africa

America’s Godzilla Continues Deadly Global Rampage

Followers of the Watch, Coriolanus is doing his best to keep up with the wake of destruction Donald Trumpf is leaving behind in his catastrophic warpath against the people of the United States and the world.

In no specific order of damage assessment, here we go. Against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom (D), and most likely the advice of the US Army Corps of Engineers, Trumpf ordered the release of 2.2 billion gallons of water from the Lake Kaweah and Lake Success reservoirs north of Los Angeles. But these waters would not reach Los Angeles anyway and will be needed for farmers later this year. This was a terrible waste of water that will punish Blue State Californians this upcoming spring and summer, particularly if a blistering heatwave sets in or another drought arises.

A buoy sits on dry cracked earth on a dry inlet of Shasta Lake on 30 Aug 2014 in Lakehead, CA. (Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Trumpf Endangering Passenger Air Travel

The FAA banned its employees from attending advisory panels set up to explore how to make air travel safer. “It appears that safety is being forced to take a back seat due to fear of retribution, which means we all lose,” said an FAA official. Trumpf has separately come under criticism for forcing out key aviation safety officials in the days before the recent Ronald Reagan Airport crash, at the recommendation of tech billionaire oligarch Elon Musk. Trumpf recently remarked that a high-speed railway project isn’t necessary because, according to him, a plane ticket can be purchased for only $2.

Trumpf Stops All Global USAID Activities, Ordering Personnel Home

USAID activities. This organization was created by President John F. Kennedy.

This monumentally idiotic ukase forces thousands and thousands of USAID staff and their families to abandon their homes and projects and return to the US within 96 hours. Food and medicines intended for vulnerable people in Africa and Asia are going to be wasted or looted, like in war- and disease-riven Sudan, costing thousands of innocent lives. Gizmodo reports that USAID was investigating Felon Musk’s Starlink contracts in Ukraine, one of which costs at least $23 million.

The Worst Person in the World.

America’s Godzilla has already destroyed the Consumer Financial Protection Board (CFPB) and intends on eliminating the Department of Education and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) which fights for safe working conditions in America’s factories and farms.

Trumpf Spreads Autism Misinformation in RFK Jr. Senate Confirmation Push

The nephew of JFK pockets half a million dollars a year from ant-vax charity groups. His cousin Caroline said that RFK Jr secretly vaccinated his own children. (Image: NY Post)

Godzilla cited inaccurate figures of autism diagnoses as a reason why the US Senate should confirm Robert F Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Trumpf wrote on Truth Social:

“20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong.”

That social media post wasn’t the first time Trumpf has floated misinformation about autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In a Dec 2024 interview with TIME magazine, Trumpf said he’d have a “big discussion” with Kennedy about potentially ending childhood vaccination programs, noting the “autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible.”

While Trumpf did not insinuate a tie between autism and vaccines in his Tuesday post, he has in the past. But wait, things get worse for Americans and national security.  Godzilla evicted former four-star Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan from her home with only three hours notice this week. Trumpf had fired Admiral Fagan, the first woman to ever lead the Coast Guard, on the second day of his regime. Admiral Fagan barely had time to gather her personal belongings and was forced to spend the night with friends.

Trumpf demanded and received the names of 5,000 FBI personnel that investigated him and the white supremacist terrorists that attacked the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. Remarkably, America’s first line of defense surrendered the names to Trumpf. The Fourth Reich can rescind the TS-SCI security clearances of these personnel, rendering them incapable of employment in the US Intelligence Community (USIC) and thus their termination from the FBI. These agents and analysts also become vulnerable to retaliation from the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, the FSB, drug cartels, the mafia, or the Hell’s Angels.

Moreover, Putin’s protege ordered CIA to offer buyouts to its entire workforce, to align it with Trumpf’s priorities. CIA is also freezing the hiring of job applicants already given a conditional offer. Some of those frozen offers are likely to be rescinded if the applicants do not have the right background for the agency’s new goals, which include targeting drug cartels, the reckless and unnecessary trade war, and undermining China.

What would this man below say about these craven capitulations to the Kremlin and the state of US national security?

Here’s what a Quebec (Canadian) newspaper had to say about America’s Godzilla.

Sources:

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/04/trumps-autism-rfk-jr-confirmation

https://nypost.com/2022/02/02/robert-f-kennedy-jr-anti-vax-crusade-is-making-him-millions/


 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/cia-offers-buyouts-entire-workforce-align-with-trump-priorities-wsj-reports-2025-02-05/

https://www.rawstory.com/faa-advisory-panels/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/live-blog/trump-canada-mexico-tariffs-live-updates-rcna190371

White Supremacist Leader Found Guilty of Conspiring to Destroy Regional Power Grid

Brandon Russell studied nuclear physics, was a Florida Army National Guardsman, and founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division. (Mugshot: Tampa Police Dept).

After a six-day trial, a federal jury found Brandon Russell (29) a resident of Orlando, FL, guilty of conspiracy to damage an energy facility. From Nov 2022 to 3 Feb 2023, Russell conspired to carry out attacks against critical infrastructure, specifically transformers located within electrical substations, in furtherance of Russell’s racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist beliefs. Russell posted links to open-source maps of infrastructure, which included the locations of electrical substations, and he described how a small number of attacks on substations could cause a “cascading failure.” Russell also discussed maximizing the impact of the planned attack by hitting multiple substations at one time.

Russell recruited a Maryland-based woman, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, to carry out the attacks in Baltimore and elsewhere. They planned to damage energy facilities involved in the transmission and distribution of electricity and to cause a significant interruption and impairment of the Baltimore regional power grid. The intended monetary loss associated with the planned attacks would have exceeded $75 million.

Russell faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to damage an energy facility. A sentencing date has not been scheduled.

Sarah-Beth-Clendaniel was sentenced to 18 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release.

Followers of the Watch may recall a previous post about these two dangerous miscreants, now rendered ineffective. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) may want to throw away the key on these two lunatics or send them to El Salvador or Guantanamo Bay.

Source:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/maryland-woman-sentenced-18-years-federal-prison-conspiring-destroy-baltimore-region

Ukraine Update

SBU Detains Two Russian Saboteurs Preparing Terrorist Attack in Rivne

Ukrainian security services prevented a mass casualty attack in the center of Rivne, detaining two Russian saboteurs. The suspects were supposed to leave an improvised explosive device (IED) in a bag near the administrative building of a law enforcement agency. The attackers planned to detonate the explosives by calling a mobile phone connected to the IED.

The attack was to take place when there were many law enforcement officers near the police station and the miscreants themselves would still be near the explosive device.

“In this way, the ‘Ruscists’ planned to kill the maximum number of police officers and ordinary citizens and at the same time eliminate the perpetrators of the terrorist attack as ‘unnecessary’ witnesses.”

The SBU officers exposed the Russian agents in advance and thwarted the plot. Both suspects were detained red-handed when they were trying to plant explosives near the district police department. At the scene, a bag equipped with an IED and additional covert surveillance devices with remote access function for the Russian special services was seized from the detainees.

The saboteurs are two 19-year-olds who were looking for “quick” money on Telegram channels now face twelve years prison and financial confiscation.

These two imbeciles below were lucky as they would have been blown up in the attack by their nefarious handlers who were concealed at a safe, remote distance. As noted here on Coriolanus, Ukraine’s security services are constantly improving.

Laser Weapon Deployed Against Russian Target

The Tryzub (Trident) is based on the UK DragonFire system.

Ukraine is already using laser technologies to hit Russian targets, said Colonel Vadym Sukharevskyi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces:

“Laser technologies are already hitting certain objects at a certain altitude.”

The commander first said in mid-Dec 2024 that Ukraine is among the few nations with laser weapon capabilities. According to Sukharevskyi, Ukraine’s laser system, called Tryzub, can down aircraft at altitudes exceeding two kms.

The Unmanned Systems Forces, established less than a year ago, already include combat and research units operating across air, land, and sea.

Russia recently attacked Ukraine with 102 drones; 59 were downed by air defense, and 37 went off radar.

The UK DragonFire Laser (Photo: UK MOD)

For Ukraine, this development is critically important, as it relies on the supply of anti-aircraft ammunition and missiles from its European partners. Another significant advantage is cost efficiency. Missiles cost tens of thousands of dollars, while a single laser shot costs several dollars.

Sources:

https://ssu.gov.ua/novyny/sbu-zatrymala-dvokh-ahentiv-rf-yaki-hotuvaly-terakt-bilia-raiupravlinnia-politsii-u-rivnomu

https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-using-laser-weapons/

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/01/31/7496112/

Ocean Surface Warming Over 400% Faster Than in 1980s

Sea surface temperature anomalies for 27 January 2025. The deeper the warm colors, the more anomalously high the sea temperature is. (NOAA)

The unexpected jump in global temperatures since 2023 has helped fuel a relentless assault of associated disasters around the world, including the Los Angeles fires and the deadly Valencia floods in Spain, leaving researchers scrambling for explanations.

Data from the world’s oceans now reveal that an alarming acceleration in sea surface warming likely contributed. A new study from the University of Reading in the UK finds the tops of our oceans are warming more than four times faster than in the late 1980s.

The Earth’s diminishing reflectivity may be contributing to this. The ocean’s dark surface helps it absorb heat, whereas white clouds and aerosol particles in the atmosphere help bounce the sun’s radiation back into space. In 2020, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted a new rule to cut back on sulfur pollution from shipping fuel, but because the aerosol particles in emissions acted as a seed for clouds, the regulation had the unintended effect of dimming the marine layer of clouds that blanket the ocean.

Excess ocean warmth has had wide-ranging consequences. In April 2024, 77% of the world’s coral reefs became imperiled in the most extensive bleaching event on record, threatening the livelihoods of a billion people and a quarter of marine life. Changing ocean temperatures also shift weather patterns, potentially intensifying droughts, downpours, and storms alike.

There is still time to change the course of Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) if we stop emitting fossil fuels (green line scenario). (Merchant et al., Environ. Res. Lett., 2025)

Our Future Unless We Do Something Now

The remains of beachside homes in California destroyed in the Palisades Fire, 16 Jan 2025. (Photo: Mario Tama / Getty Images)

Aftermath of the floods in Valencia, Spain, 20 Oct 2024. (Photo: David Ramos /Staff / Getty Image News)

Police officers in an inflatable boat look for residents to evacuate in Guipry Messac, western France (Photo: AP)

Sources

https://www.reading.ac.uk/news/2025/Research-News/Ocean-surface-warming-four-times-faster-now-than-late-1980s

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-ocean-surface-is-warming-over-400-faster-than-in-the-1980s

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/extended-reconstructed-sst

https://grist.org/oceans/why-earth-oceans-record-hot-streak/

NASA Images Reveal Mysterious Square Structure on Mars

The following images originate from NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) and its Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC), with the original photo accessible via Arizona State University’s Mars Image Explorer.

According to several AI calculations, the base of this Square structure is estimated to measure 235 meters on each side (approximately 770 feet). Interestingly, the width of the Great Pyramid in Egypt is nearly identical, at about 230 meters.

One of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Great Pyramid of Giza was built in 2600 BC over a period of 26 years. (Photo: Diego Delso)

The photo below was taken by NASA’s Viking One orbiter and released on 25 July 1976.

This image captured the public’s attention because of a feature that looks very much like a human face. Further observations confirmed that this is in fact just a hill in Mars’ Cydonia region. The human brain is wired to identify faces, even when they aren’t there. (Source: NASA/JPL)

Coriolanus shall be perusing through books like these over the next few days.

Megalomaniac racist DOGE czar Felon Musk expressed a desire to see this mysterious Martian square up close. Let’s send him forthwith.

Sources:

https://science.nasa.gov/planetary-science/programs/mars-exploration/

https://global-data.mars.asu.edu/

https://www.caclubindia.com/trending/square-structure-mars/

INTERPOL: Nearly 20,000 Live Animals Seized in Largest-Ever Wildlife and Forestry Operation

Tiger cubs rescued in the Czech Republic. (Photo: INTERPOL)

138 countries and regions joined forces to target fauna and flora trafficking worldwide

From INTERPOL:

Nearly 20,000 live animals, all endangered or protected species, have been seized in a global operation against wildlife and forestry trafficking networks, jointly coordinated by INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization (WCO).

Operation Thunder 2024 brought together police, customs, border control, forestry and wildlife officials from 138 countries and regions, marking the widest participation since the first edition in 2017.

Authorities arrested 365 suspects and identified six transnational criminal networks suspected of trafficking animals and plants protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Such species are illegally trafficked to meet specific market demands, whether for food, perceived medicinal benefits, “luxury” and collector items or as pets and competition animals.

Significant seizures include:

Indonesia: 134 tons of timber headed to Asia via ocean freight.
Kenya: 41 tons of exotic timber headed to Asia via ocean freight.
Nigeria: 4,472 kg of pangolins scales
Türkiye: 6,500 live songbirds discovered during a vehicle inspection at the Syrian border.
India: 5,193 live red-eared ornamental slider turtles concealed in passenger suitcases arriving from Malaysia at Chennai Airport.
Peru: 3,700 protected plants intercepted en route from Ecuador.
Qatar: Eight rhino horns found in a suspect’s luggage while transiting from Mozambique to Thailand.
United States: One ton of sea cucumbers, considered a seafood delicacy, smuggled from Nicaragua.
Hong Kong, China: 973 kg of dried shark fins originating from Morocco seized at the airport.
Czech Republic: Eight tigers, aged between two months and two years, discovered in a suspected illegal breeding facility.
Indonesia: 846 pieces of reticulated python skin, from the world’s longest snake species, concealed on board a ship.
Australia and the United Kingdom reported seizures of bear bile, often used in traditional medicine.

More than 300 firearms, vehicles and poaching equipment.

Source:

https://www.interpol.int/News-and-Events/News/2025/Nearly-20-000-live-animals-seized-365-suspects-arrested-in-largest-ever-wildlife-and-forestry-operation

US/Canada: Measles Cases in Texas, Manitoba

At least four cases of measles, including two involving school-aged children, have been reported in southeast Texas in less than two weeks, putting state health agencies on alert as other counties have also reported cases in Gaines, Harris, and Lubbock. 

For some communities, this is the first case of measles in more than 20 years.

About 1 in 5 unvaccinated people in the US who get measles will be hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Manitoba provincial public health officials are warning citizens of possible exposure to measles. Officials say there have been five confirmed cases of measles in southern Manitoba, all connected to an outbreak in Ontario. All of the affected individuals are from the same household and had recently travelled to Ontario. They have all been asked to isolate at home. 

81 cases of measles have been reported in Ontario in 2024 and 2025. 

Measles is a highly contagious airborne disease. General symptoms may include fever, cough, runny nose, watery eyes, and a full-body rash. This disease can cause serious health consequences and even death, especially for young and unvaccinated children. Up to three of every 1,000 children who become infected with measles may die from respiratory and neurologic complications. Vaccinations and “herd immunity” are the key to stopping the spread of measles.

Anti-VAXXERs are a threat to community health.  (File image/PNN)

Sources:

https://www.dshs.texas.gov/news-alerts/measles-health-alert-advisory-feb-5-2019

https://www.mrt.com/news/health_and_wellness/article/gaines-county-measles-cases-20146836.php

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/30/texas-measles-vaccinations-schools/

https://www.chvnradio.com/articles/5-cases-of-measles-confirmed-in-southern-manitoba-connected-to-outbreak-in-ontario

Grey Wolf‘s Silly Howl Spreads Joy

Russian Soldiers Glorify Murdering Unarmed Ukrainian Prisoners

Warning: Some Followers of the Watch may find the photos and video disturbing.

The Russians were eager to have the slaughter recorded. (Credit: East2West)

Russian soldiers filmed themselves shooting dead six Ukrainian prisoners of war in cold blood, audaciously proud of committing war crimes. Kiev has launched a criminal investigation and reported the sickening killings to the UN and Red Cross, insisting Russia cannot be allowed to brazenly flout the laws of war.

The Russian soldiers filmed themselves committing the illegal massacres of unarmed Ukrainians in the occupied Donetsk region. The POWs are seen lying face down on the ground in a wooded area next to a temporary hut. The Russians shoot at a drone flying overhead so it doesn’t film the heinous crimes they are about to commit.

Two Ukrainians kneel just before they are shot in the back. (Credit: East2West)

Three of the other prisoners lay on their fronts in the dirt and watched their friends murdered. (Credit: East2West)

Another soldier is forced to his feet and made to walk away with his hands up before being sprayed with bullets. (Credit: East2West)

Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets sent his findings to the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross:

“The Russian army has never been famous for its dignified treatment of prisoners of war, and here it once again demonstrates its helplessness and criminality. The lack of responsibility has turned the crime into a systematic one. We cannot turn a blind eye to this. Ukraine needs justice and responsibility for those who commit crimes and do not adhere to any norms.”

These are not the first war crimes Russian soldiers and Wagnerites have committed against Ukrainians. The ICC indicted and issued an international arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, but this is symbolic. Mongolia, an ICC signatory, did not arrest Putin when he visited Ulan Bator in late 2024. Donald Trump has signaled that he will be sanctioning the ICC to pressure them to remove the indictments against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin. After any future ceasefire is reached, there will be a new level of ethnic animus between Russians and Ukrainians following all of this bloodshed thanks to PIFWC Vladimir Putin and his willing accomplices.

Sources:

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3951841-russians-likely-execute-six-other-ukrainian-pows-ombudsman.html

https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-soliders-shot-disarmed-ukrainian-pows-filmed-execution/

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/401849

https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and

Israeli Cabinet Ministers Already Pushing to Continue Waging More War

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu– dubbed “Israel’s curse”– is facing pressure from within his cabinet. Hard-line coalition partners have threatened to topple the government if he does not resume Israel’s war in Gaza when a six-week ceasefire with Hamas expires. That could leave Netanyahu torn between his erstwhile allies at home and Donald Trump who says he wants to end the region’s wars. The “crime minister” is facing a nettlesome corruption trial that ensnared his wife Sara, an international arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the ICC, and a potential 9/11 Commission-style inquiry into his handling of the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack by armed Palestinian groups. Those guerillas seized hostages in order to conduct a prisoner swap which has been taking place since the ceasefire.

Rightwing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said:

“If, God forbid, the war is not resumed, I will bring the government down.”

Mr. Smotrich, when one belligerent doesn’t have F16s, air-defense weapons, tanks, satellites, or world-class hospitals while the other side does, it’s not called war, it’s called ethnic cleansing. So the horrific Nakba wasn’t really about releasing the Israeli hostages, was it?

In addition, Bezalel Smotrich stated that Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” half of the Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians to emigrate within two years. He would like the same in the West Bank.

Along that vein, the IDF has been conducting “counter terrorism operations” and Settlers are going on rampages against Palestinian homeowners and farmers in the West Bank. Israeli forces have killed 34 people, including six children so far this year. This is not new. Abuse against Palestinians in the West Bank has been going on for decades, regardless of whether there was a Democrat or Republican in the White House.

Do you wonder if this poor guy who had the temerity to throw stones at his oppressors is alive today? (Photo: 7 Oct 2015, Ramallah / AFP / ABBAS MOMANI)

So, where should these Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank go? Will they go to Jordan– which already hosts 2.2 million Palestinian refugees? Islamophobic America? And will they be compensated for their lost, destroyed, or seized homes?

White supremacist Christian Republicans certainly don’t want Muslims in the US and Trump is closing the door on non-white immigration. Would Democrats have accepted them? There are Democrats that blame the tiny 1.34% Muslim-American population for supposedly not supporting Kamala in 2024. (Even though Trump won only 21% of the Arab vote, Kamala 20%, and Stein 59%). Arab-Americans have become convenient scapegoats among some Democrats for Kamala Harris’ loss and what friends do Palestinians have in the Middle East?

Adjusting for inflation, US aid to Israel from 1951 to 2022 totaled $317.9 billion, making it the largest recipient of American foreign aid since World War II.

Hasn’t the hardworking American taxpayer– who doesn’t have universal healthcare like his Israeli counterpart– had enough of this fraud, waste, and abuse from his so-called ally?

Sources:

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-says-half-of-gazans-can-be-encouraged-to-leave-within-two-years/

https://www.aljazeera.com/

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-trump-ceasefire-gaza-f27c1dbbfba4bf268f5368aaceb47e29

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/how-smotrichs-west-bank-plan-actualises-second-nakba

Mexican Border States Prepare Migrant Shelters as Trump Begins Deportation Campaign

Workers begin the installation of a temporary shelter for possible deportees from the US in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, 22 Jan 2025. (AP Photo / Christian Chavez)

Mexico raised sprawling tents on the US border Wednesday as it braced for President Donald Trump to fulfill his pledge to carry out mass deportations. In an empty lot tight against the border with El Paso, Texas, cranes lifted metal frames for tent shelters in Ciudad Juárez.

Enrique Serrano, an official in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juárez is located, said the tents erected for Mexican deportees were just the initial phase of a potential larger operation, and something authorities would scale up if the number of migrants gathering on the border continued to mount. He suggested migrants from other countries expelled from the US would be relocated to Mexico City or southern regions of Mexico as they’ve done previously.

Nogales, Mexico — across from Nogales, Arizona — announced that it would build shelters on soccer fields and in a gymnasium. The border cities of Matamoros and Piedras Negras have launched similar efforts.

At a border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday night, one man shouted to journalists that he was being deported in a group that was arrested that morning in farm fields near Denver. Another man said he was in a group that had been brought from Oregon. Everyone carried their belongings in a small orange bag.

As previously posted here on Coriolanus, the Mexican government began a program of intercepting and resettling migrants throughout their country before they could arrive at the US border. These refugees are escaping poverty, misery, violence, and the effects of global climate change.

Newly-elected Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum, as a thoughtful, compassionate leader, was prepared for the Fuhrer and his cruelties. She had a plan ready: “México te abraza.”

President Sheinbaum’s “México te abraza,” or “Mexico embraces you” program includes welfare support for deportees, registration with the Mexican Social Security Institute, and transport so that returning migrants “can reach their places of origin.” (Photo: Moisés Pablo / Cuartoscuro)

At Trump’s inaugural convocation on 20 Jan 2025, the Episcopalian Bishop of Washington, the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, issued a scathing sermon about mercy and compassion to the oligarchal Trump Crime Family (TCF). Like hostages with no chance of escape, the TCF was forced to remain in their pews and listen to her, so they sat dumbfounded and squirmed. Look at Trump’s posture and the First Lady’s icy-cold expression. Priceless.

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/mexico-us-trump-border-migrants-f3e5daf10f550e871bfe98b29950bc6a

https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-14/mexico-has-a-plan-sheinbaum-addresses-uncertainty-a-week-before-trump-returns-to-the-white-house.html

Space Chorus Detected from Unexpected Source

“Bursts of electromagnetic radiation that share similarities with birdsong have long been observed close to Earth. A detection farther out in space confirms a key part of the theory of their origin, but also poses questions.“

Chorus waves play a leading role in the formation of aurora borealis. (Photo: OWEN HUMPHERYS – PA IMAGES)

From Nature:

“In the 1960s, scientists at the Halley Research Station in Antarctica began hearing mysterious waves originating over the Earth’s equator. Their radio receivers were picking up intense bursts of electrons shaking the magnetosphere, the layer created by Earth’s magnetic field that protects life from space radiation. When these signals were converted into sound, they produced a whistling sound that could be mistaken for the chirping of birds at dawn.”

Different types of plasma waves triggered by various mechanisms, occupy different regions of space around Earth. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith

“Later, it was discovered that this chorus is also heard on Saturn and Jupiter, and it was thought that it was governed by the magnetic field generated by the planets between their poles. The origin of this spatial trill is usually found close to them, in the case of Earth less than 51,000 kilometers (31,690 miles) above its surface. Now, a team has published a study in the journal Nature, the results of which suggest that it can also be located much further away, in deep space.”

“For more than 70 years, scientists have believed that chorus waves can only be generated in regions close to planets where a dipolar magnetic field is present, which has been proposed as the key factor controlling the generation and propagation of chorus waves,” explains Chengming Liu, a researcher at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Beihang University in Beijing, China, and one of the leaders of the study. “In our paper, we present an unexpected observation of chorus waves far from Earth, where a dipolar magnetic field is absent, and reveal a fundamental mechanism for chorus wave generation, which can operate anywhere in space.”

“The discovery is of scientific interest, but also of practical interest. Chorus waves can cause radiation that is dangerous for astronauts or satellites, and knowing in detail how they are produced would allow us to predict their occurrence and apply protective measures. “Chorus waves are some of the most intense waves in space. They can accelerate electrons to ultra-high energies and therefore cause radiation that affects humans and electromagnetic devices on spacecraft,” explains Liu. “Just as we worry about rain and wind on the Earth’s surface, we should worry about weather in space,” he points out.”

These are Juno Waves recorded from the Planet Jupiter:

Sources:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04211-6

https//www.nasa.gov

‘Dignity for All’: Idaho Bill Proposes Firing Squad as State’s Primary Execution Method

Firing squad executing a prisoner, circa 1890. (Vintage Images / Getty Images)

Eleven months after Idaho failed to execute a prisoner for the first time ever using lethal injection, Republican lawmakers have their targets set on using a firing squad as the state’s primary execution method. State Rep. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) introduced the bill which would make Idaho the only US state to give preference to a firing squad. Skaug sponsored a bill that became law in 2023 that added back the firing squad as a backup method of execution in the state, but only when lethal injection is not possible because of a lack of execution drugs.

Humanitarian and all-round good guy State Rep. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) who heinously introduced the firing squad bill. (Undated photo via the public domain).

The Idaho Department of Correction has since had more consistent access to pentobarbital, the state’s preferred chemical for lethal injections. The state prison system most recently bought a batch of the drugs in Oct 2024, court records showed. But nearly two years later — and after state prison officials failed to find a suitable vein for an IV in the body of 73-year-old death row prisoner Thomas Creech — Skaug now hopes to ensure that prisoners on Idaho’s nine-member death row are shot to death. Lethal injection would become the state’s backup method. In South Carolina any of the 30 death row inmates may request firing squad if lethal injection is unavailable.

Idaho’s death row at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Kuna houses male prisoners sentenced to death. Female death row inmates are housed at the Women’s Correctional Center in Pocatello. (Photo: Idaho Department of Correction)

Remarkable, the day after Bishop Mariann Budde chastises President Trump to have more compassion and show mercy, this avuncular-looking miscreant wants to enshrine capital punishment rather than ban it. This Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel Sanders doppelganger– Bruce Skaug– is my candidate for Worst Person of the World.

What would Kentucky-bred Colonel Sanders say about his evil twin in Idaho?

Sources:

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article298915055.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/south-carolina-firing-squad

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_death_row_inmates_in_the_United_States

Spain: Increased Cases of Hepatitis A in 2024

Spain is facing a worrying situation: 894 confirmed cases of hepatitis A mark the largest increase in cases in a decade. This unexpected viral outbreak raises questions about current public health measures. The highest number of cases occurred in Andalusia, Madrid, and Catalonia.

Map courtesy of worldatlas.com.

Below are the regions with the highest number of reported cases:

  • Andalusia: 166 cases
  • Madrid: 161 cases
  • Catalonia: 114 cases
  • Balearic Islands: High infection rate
  • Basque Country and Canary Islands: Notable increase

The high rate of infection in these areas underscores the need to strengthen preventive and control measures. The hepatitis A virus is spread mainly by fecal-oral transmission, which highlights the need to maintain high standards of personal and collective hygiene.

How many times have you seen someone exit the water closet without their hands? Coriolanus witnessed this too many times. On one occasion in a large metropolitan shopping mall, your author witnessed one such miscreant walk out of the thunder closet, pull up his pants, and exit the latrine without washing his hands. Coriolanus followed the neanderthal who went behind the counter of a bagel shop to resume work! Your humble author alerted two nearby constables who merely shrugged their shoulders and replied that no crime was committed (other than potentially spreading hepatitis A or other awful diseases to the public). That baker should have been beaten in place, then court-martialed.

Source:

Spain registers a large increase in cases of hepatitis A

Wagner Group Accused of Plotting Attacks on Chevron’s African Pipelines, Cooperating with Al Qaeda

The Kremlin’s new Afrika Korps. Wagnerites have been implicated in committing war crimes in Africa.

The Wagner Group has been accused of plotting attacks against Western infrastructure in Africa, including the US oil company Chevron’s pipelines, according to the leaked correspondence of Prigozhin’s Concord Group obtained by Ukraine’s Channel 24. Another accusation is that Wagner mercenaries have allegedly cooperated with terrorists, including Al Qaeda, in Africa. The obtained emails also shed light on a scandal involving food poisoning allegedly caused by the Concord Group.

The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the information.

In March 2021, Igor Smirnov wrote an email to Prigozhin’s Concord Group, saying that retired Russian officers were expected to take part in attacks on foreign infrastructure facilities in West Africa.

Smirnov, allegedly a former Russian intelligence officer who allegedly worked for oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was attempting to frame or warn the group. He claimed that “a group of Russians is contacting many armed groups in West Africa, including Ansaru, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria.”

“In exchange for attacks on Western oil companies, jihadists are helping to arm militants in the Niger Delta under a direct agreement with the Russians,” Smirnov said. “After the first attacks on Western companies, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb will take responsibility for that.”

Apart from military activities, the correspondence covers Concord Group’s food procurement schemes. In 2019, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team exposed Concord Group’s low-quality food deliveries to schools and kindergartens in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which resulted in the poisoning of hundreds of children.

Amid the scandal, many parents sent emails to Concord Group and demanded compensation.

In response to the accusations, in August 2019, Prigozhin accused Navalny and his associate Lyubov Sobol of orchestrating the poisoning, according to the leaked correspondence. He claimed that Navalny and Sobol “extorted 300 million rubles ($3 million) to avoid stirring up a scandal regarding the children.”

These accusations fit the modus operandi of the Kremlin and the Wagner Group. Create chaos, then arrive with a solution (Wagnerites). 127 confirmed cases of food poisoning were blamed on Yevgeny Prigozhin who had to pay compensation and poor Alexei Navalny died later in a Siberian gulag. Prigozhin himself would die in a mysterious aviation disaster after an explosive detonated while his plane was in mid-flight. This coincidence occurred after his failed coup d’etat against Vladimir Putin.

Sources:

https://kyivindependent.com/prigozhins-wagner-group-accused-of-plotting-attacks-on-chevron-cooperating-with-al-qaeda-leaked-emails-show/

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/11/01/putins-chef-ordered-to-pay-for-mass-child-poisonings-a68014

Roadrunner Brings His Rescuer Gifts Every Day

Germany: Thousands Protest Rightwing AfD Congress

Police officers clash with protesters during a demonstration near the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party congress in Riesa, Germany, on 11 Jan 2025. Note that polizei officers can be identified with their numbers if they are abusive. Anyone arrested in Germany must be seen by a judge within 24 hours or they must be released. (Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / Reuters)

Thousands of protesters shouting “No to Nazis” gathered in the German town of Riesa, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party held a key convention approving co-leader Alice Weidel as candidate for chancellor in next month’s snap election.

The meeting, which brought 600-odd delegates together on Saturday, eventually got under way two hours behind schedule after police cleared thousands of protesters mounting blockades in the AfD stronghold town, located in the eastern state of Saxony.

Saxon left-wing politician Nam Duy Nguyen was beaten by a police officer during the protests and was temporarily unconscious. A companion of the state parliament member was also hit in the face and injured. The police seemed to efficiently clear the path of protestors for the AfD.

Neo-Nazi Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD party, gestures after she was elected as top candidate for chancellor in the upcoming general elections at the party congress in Riesa, Germany, on 11 Jan 2025. Ms.Weidel apparently has an unpleasant voice, reminding listeners of nails scratching against a blackboard. (Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / Reuters)

Alice Weidel’s grandfather, Hans Weidel, was a prominent Nazi judge. Appointed directly by Adolf Hitler, he was responsible for sentencing opponents of the Third Reich.

So much for the American taxpayer-funded De-Nazification and Marshall Programs following the Second World War.

Sources:

https://www.politico.eu/article/hidden-nazi-heritage-germany-far-right-leader-afd-alice-weidel-hans-weidel-warsaw/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/11/german-protesters-attempt-to-block-far-right-afd-congress

France Hands Over Last Army Base in Chad Ahead of 31 Jan Deadline

French soldiers in the Sahel. The last of them left the Abéché military base in Chad on 11 Jan 2025 as part of a withdrawal agreement.

In late Nov 2024, Chad abruptly ended military cooperation with its former colonial ruler, and French troops began leaving the country in late Dec 2024. Chad was the last Sahel country hosting French soldiers with approximately 1,000 personnel. French soldiers and fighter aircraft have been stationed in Chad almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1960, helping to train the Chadian military.

Per CIA, the Chad population is approximately 19,000,000 and GDP per capita is $1,800.

Anti-French sentiments have swept Chad, with thousands of people protesting for French military departure after Boko Haram insurgents killed 40 Chadian soldiers in the Lake Chad region in Oct 2024. The Chadian government accused France of failing to provide support or intelligence, leading to demands for French troops to withdraw and the termination of the defense pact.

Chadians waving Russian flags. (Photo: Denis Sassou Gueipeur / AFP)

Chad is rich in natural resources: petroleum, uranium, natron, kaolin, fish (Lake Chad), gold, limestone, sand and gravel, and salt. The Russian Wagner Group has been increasing its presence in other Sahel countries protecting mining operations that funnel resources back to Moscow to finance Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the Central African Republic (CAR), where Wagner is ubiquitous, mercenaries have killed or driven out artisanal miners and taken over processing operations across the northern and eastern regions. In Sudan, Wagner has smuggled millions of dollars in gold from the country.

Undated photo of Wagner mercenaries, a new “Afrika Korps” for the Kremlin. Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses Wagnerites of committing war crimes in Africa and the US designated them a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).


The French geo-political and military footprint in Africa continues to shrink while the Kremlin (and Beijing) increase their influence operations on the Dark Continent.

Sources:

https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20250111-france-hands-over-second-army-base-in-chad-ahead-of-31-january-deadline

https://www.dw.com/en/why-chad-ended-its-military-deal-with-france/a-71173204

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx6462wl07o

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/12/mali-atrocities-army-and-wagner-group

https://adf-magazine.com/2023/03/wagner-group-targets-chad-for-sahel-expansion/

https://ascir.org/2021/11/18/why-china-is-building-africas-railways/

North Korea Intensifies Surveillance of Chinese Phone Users Along Border

North Korea has intensified its crackdown on Chinese mobile phones along its 840-mile border with China as part of efforts to tighten internal controls by limiting communication with the outside world. The border has been previously described as “porous” and there are 25 official border crossings between North Korea and China.

Authorities recently caught a Musan resident attempting to make a call to China. “The state security department’s radar bureau detected and arrested them within one minute of placing the call. They remain in state security detention,” a source reported.

Along the border, Ministry of State Security radar units use specialized equipment to track specific frequencies and signals, enabling real-time detection of calls to China. When agents detect Chinese telecommunications frequencies in residential areas, they immediately raid the suspected location.

The bridge over Tumen River in Yanbian, Jilin Province, connects China to North Korea. (Photo: IC)

In Yanbian, China, an ethnically Korean region on the border with North Korea, many people have relatives on the other side of the river. But these relationships are frequently kept secret. Ethnic North Koreans on the Chinese side of the border have difficulties finding spouses.

A view from the Chinese side of the bridge. A portrait of Kim Il-sung hangs on the North Korean side. (Photo taken in 2014: IC)

The Friendship Bridge over the Tumen River is for railway use only and connects North Korea to Russia. They share a ten-mile terrestrial border and a 12-mile maritime border.

Kim Jong-un wants to limit outside information from entering North Korea, a practice that has gone on for decades. There is nothing to suggest that this is affecting smuggling across the border. Moreover, there is no information that North Koreans calling migrants and relatives in the Russia Far East Oblast have been geo-located and arrested like the poor victims cited in the article. So this crackdown may also be tied with Pyongyang’s recent tilt towards Moscow, away from Beijing.

The North Korean supremo enjoying a cigarette with light refreshment while his people starve and his soldiers get slaughtered in Russia. (Photo: Reuters)

Sources:

https://www.dailynk.com/english/n-korea-intensifies-surveillance-of-chinese-phone-users-along-border/

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/887269.shtml

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/north-korean-migrants-vladivostok-12172018161113.html

Flight Crew ‘Astonished’ to See Glowing Objects ‘Zig-Zagging’ at 45,000 Feet Over the Bahamas

(Photo: NBC News Miami)

A Florida-bound flight crew witnessed strange orbs glowing and darting around in the night sky while flying over the Bahamas at high altitude.

“All of a sudden I heard traffic control say, we have a foreign object, can you please identify,” Flight Attendant Cassandra Martin recounted.

The flight attendant with Surjet, a private carrier, claimed that she and two pilots saw objects that left them awestruck and searching for answers as they returned to Fort Lauderdale in an empty plane. Good thing her Smartphone was handy.

(Photo: NBC News Miami)

“It started as white and then it just got green and almost like an electric some type of energy around it.”

Cassandra Martin described the objects as changing in color and exhibiting “daunting” flying capabilities while returning on a flight from the Bahamas. (Photo: NBC News Miami)

One explanation rendered for the Bahamian incident is a phenomenon called “ball lightning.” Below are some photographs for comparison.

Former NASA astronaut Dr. Leroy Chiao nearly collided with a pair of metallic orbs while flying his Grumman AA5BTiger in Texas last summer. He said the orbs showed “no visible means of propulsion” when they whizzed by within 20 feet of his plane.

Astronaut Dr. Leroy Chiao gives a thumb up shortly after landing aboard the Soyuz-TMA-5 spacecraft in Kazakhstan in April 2005. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

“They came right at me,” said Dr. Leroy Chiao, who was the commander of Expedition 10. He said the spheres were “perfectly smooth” and emphasized he witnessed the orbs on a sunny, cloudless day with good visibility.

The DOD investigates sightings and imagery of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) and you can read about their findings here: https://www.aaro.mil/

Sources:

https://nypost.com/2025/01/04/us-news/ex-nasa-astronaut-dr-leroy-chiao-says-metallic-orbs-he-saw-had-no-visible-means-of-propulsion/

https://nypost.com/2025/01/11/us-news/florida-flight-crew-astonished-to-see-glowing-objects-zig-zagging-at-45k-feet-over-the-bahamas/

China Suddenly Building Fleet of Special Barges Suitable for Taiwan Landings

Artist’s impression of the special barge being used as a pier to land tanks and troops across an otherwise unsuitable beach. The tanks are transported by civilian roll-on roll-off (RORO) ferries. (Image: navalnews.com)

From navalnews.com:

“China is building at least five new special purpose barges which appear tailor made for amphibious assault. The barges may provide the PRC (People’s Republic of China) with a unique way to offload large numbers of tanks directly onto Taiwanese roads.

A number of special and unusual barges, at least three but likely five or more, have been observed in Guangzhou Shipyard in southern China. These have unusually long road bridges extending from their bows. This configuration makes them particularly relevant to any future landing of PRC forces on Taiwanese islands.

Each barge has a very long road span which is extended out from the front. At over 120 meters (393 ft) this can be used to reach a coastal road or hard surface beyond a beach. The barges are reminiscent of the Mulberry Harbors built for the allied invasion of Normandy during World War Two.”

The Global Firepower Index (GFI) ranks China’s military third out of 145 countries; Taiwan is ranked 22nd. Besides an outright D-Day style invasion of Taiwan, Beijing can blockade the island republic with its much larger navy, cut its underseas cables with anchors as the Russians have been doing in the Baltic Sea, and quarantine Taipei into eventual submission.

As previously reported here on Coriolanus, half of the US Navy’s amphibious ships are in dire condition. The USN 7th Fleet is headquartered at Yokosuka, Japan.

“Zero Day” is an upcoming Taiwanese TV series about a fictional invasion of their island which may be a way to psychologically ready their population for the realities of a potential war with Beijing. In 2022, there were at least ten Taiwanese soldiers serving in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Said one of the soldiers: ‘There’s a big chance that this will happen to Taiwan.’

Sources:

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/01/china-suddenly-building-fleet-of-special-barges-suitable-for-taiwan-landings/

https://www.globalfirepower.com/

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/4563961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Day_(Taiwanese_TV_series)

Farmer Uncovers Large Rare Ancient Hunt Mosaic in Turkiye

This mosaic spans 84 square meters (Image Copyright Elazığ Museum)

A farmer planting an orchard in eastern Türkiye has uncovered a rare, largely intact mosaic dating back to the late Roman period, offering a glimpse into ancient hunting practices.

The mosaic includes dramatic depictions of animals such as a rare Anatolian leopard, may be the largest of its kind ever discovered in the country.

A team of conservators has been working to protect the mosaic. (Photo: Elazığ Museum)

The mosaic “is the first of its kind to have survived to the present day as a whole and in its portrayal of animals, all of which were once found here. There may be larger mosaics elsewhere in Türkiye, but those consist of geometric patterns or mythological subjects.”

One researcher speculated that the mosaic may have been part of a Roman official’s residence: “an expression of power.”

The mosaic survived empire changes and wars over the mileenia.

Turkiye is choc-a-bloc with antiquities and historical relics. Below is the fabled city of Cappadocia:

Underground city in Cappadocia, Turkiye.

Hotel carved from stone in Cappadocia, Turkiye.

Source:

https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/01/07/turkish-farmer-uncovers-rare-ancient-hunt-mosaic-likely-the-largest-of-its-kind-in-turkiye

Food Poisoning Cluster on Cathay Pacific Flights Inbound From Nepal to Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Center of Health Protection (CHP) announced a food poisoning cluster of passenger groups on Cathay Pacific flight CX640 from Nepal to Hong Kong. This is the second cluster discovered in two days with the same airline flying from the same region. The cause of the food poisoning cluster is still under investigation.

The first cluster involves 16 individuals from an inbound flight from Kathmandu to Hong Kong. The second cluster on flight CX640 involves 20 individuals from distinct family groups.

All involved passengers reported symptoms like vomiting, nausea, and fever shortly after their arrival in Hong Kong.

Per CIA, Nepal has a population of 31,122,387 and per capita GDP is $4,000.

After monsoon season in 2023, Nepal recorded several cases of water- and food-borne illnesses, including a massive cholera outbreak.

Sources:

http://www.travelradar.aero

https://kathmandupost.com/health/2023/07/26/food-poisoning-water-and-vector-borne-diseases-on-the-rise

Gorilla Infant Rescued From Airplane Cargo Hold Recovers at Istanbul Zoo

Zeytin, a 5-month-old male gorilla infant who was rescued at Istanbul Airport, drinks milk in a specially created section of a zoo, in Istanbul, Turkiye, 12 Jan 2025. (Photo: Khalil Hamra / AP)

The 5-month-old endangered gorilla was discovered in a box on a Turkish Airlines flight from Nigeria to Thailand and named Zeytin, which means olive.

Shy, Zeytin plays in a specially created section of a zoo, in Istanbul, Turkey, 12 Jan 2025. (Photo: Khalil Hamra / AP)

As a major international hub, Turkish customs officers have intercepted other illegally traded wildlife, including Nile crocodiles and monitor lizards. Wildlife officials are considering returning the endangered primate back to his original habitat.

Poor Zeytin was separated from his mother and should be fostered within a troop of gorillas so he could be properly socialized. (Photo: Khalil Hamra / AP)

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gorilla-airplane-cargo-istanbul-zoo-turkish-airlines/

https://www.iucnredlist.org/search?query=gorilla&searchType=species

Staggering Toll of US Failure in Afghanistan on Taxpayers is Laid Bare by Government Auditor

Map: USCENTCOM

Excerpt:

“The US failure in Afghanistan was caused by a system that rewarded generals, diplomats, contractors, and policymakers who reported successes on the ground, rather than the grim reality of a bloody insurgency.

The result, said one US military adviser, was that the system “became a self-licking ice cream” as more money was committed to justify the billions already spent.”

Soldiers bear the remains of US Army SPC Michael A. Dahl, Jr., of Moreno Valley, CA from a transport plane at Dover Air Base, DE, 19 Oct 2009. (Photo: Cliff Owen / AP)

The SIGAR report which will be released imminently will reveal that experts and government officials now believe decisions made as early as 2002 meant the war was doomed to failure.

The analysis will highlight how American ignorance of Afghan culture, the impact of local corruption, and weak cooperation among US agencies have all contributed to a war effort that has returned the country to the Taliban, at the cost of more than 2,400 American lives and two trillion dollars.

The 1971 Pentagon Papers (linked below) regarding US involvement in Vietnam is quite similar in analysis. US leadership realized the Vietnam War was unwinnable, no matter the number of Soldiers sent or bombs dropped, as the French realized in 1954.

US servicemembers coming home from Vietnam in 1965. (Photo: Harry Groom / Newsweek)

The beneficiaries of all these wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were the military-industrial complex and reconstruction contractors which made Mammon-like fortunes, as well as generals getting opportunities to add stars, medals, and ribbons to their uniforms.

Below is the commander of an army that hasn’t been to war in centuries.

Head of Switzerland’s army: Corps Commander Thomas Süssli — © DDPS/DDPS

Sources:

https://www.sigar.mil/

https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers

https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers

Apple Computers Facing “Blood Minerals” Lawsuit in Africa So CEO Tim Cook Personally Donates One Million Dollars to Trump Inaugural Fund

The DRC has a population of 115,403,027; 75% of them live under the poverty line.

Global tech companies have been exploiting miners in Africa for decades. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), various armed groups – including both Congolese army and rival armed rebel groups, among them the M23 – occupy mines and trading routes, forcing miners to work for free. These resources have been called “conflict” or “blood minerals.”


Minerals from these mines, including tungsten, tin and tantalum (often referred to as the 3Ts), have been illegally smuggled through Rwanda for several years, and eventually exported to tech companies such as Apple, Tesla, and Samsung.

Slave labor miners being exploited by armed gangs in the DRC. (Photo: Mark Craemer)

The DRC filed criminal charges against Apple Computers over the use of conflict minerals. A criminal complaint was filed in Dec 2024 against Apple’s subsidiaries in France and Belgium, where the Congolese government alleges Apple uses conflict minerals laundered through international supply chains – which the American tech giant denies.

So, what does Apple CEO Tim Cook do? He “personally” makes a one million dollar donation to Trump’s inaugural committee. Cook recently visited Mar-a-Lago in Florida for a meeting with Trump. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was also spotted at the dinner table with Trump and Cook. Both Tesla and Apple require those “blood minerals” from Africa. There is no coincidence that Trump has designs on Greenland with its vast treasure of minerals and resources under the tundra ready for excavation.   

Two oligarchs sharing a laugh. According to Forbes, Tim Cook is worth $2.3B; $1M seems cheap for him. Photo: Reuters

Apple CEO Tim Cook has joined a chorus of Big Tech executives making sizeable donations to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump, as did Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Trump has also met with Jeff Bezos and many other high-profile executives in the Big Tech industry.

Meta, Amazon, and Uber have donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. OpenAI’s Sam Altman also made a $1 million donation. Outside of Silicon Valley, companies including Ford, Toyota, GM, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Coinbase, and more have donated millions to the Trump inauguration fund.

The era of oligarchal kakistocracy is settling in comfortably before the peaceful transition of power takes place on 20 Jan 2025. Expect the Trump administration to pay back all of these donors in the transactional manner he is known for. Worse, the wealth disparity between America’s oligarchs and the hoi polloi will be the greatest after the next four torturous years.

Sources:

https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20250103-drc-case-against-apple-brings-new-hope-in-conflict-minerals-crisis

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/reports/tackling-conflict-minerals/

Apple CEO Tim Cook donates $1M to Trump’s inauguration fund – 9to5Mac

The Dutch Set Up “Government-in-Exile” When Third Reich Invaded 10 May 1940. Too Bad US Won’t Do Same With Trump-Putin-Musk Cabal

The Netherlands hadn’t seen war in 125 years when the Third Reich brutally invaded and occupied the country on 10 May 1940. Queen Wilhelmina fled to the UK and established a “Government-in-Exile” until normalcy could be restored to her beleaguered nation.

Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy, Prime Minister of the exiled Dutch government about to speak on the BBC, 23 Sep 1941.

If a Vladimir Putin puppet made it back to the White House a second time, the Quisling known as Donald Trump, then the US truly lost the Cold War. And the American people are not used to losing wars.

A hand-colored woodcut illustration of British soldiers after setting fire to the White House during the War of 1812, the last time America lost a war on its homeland until Nov 2024. (Image: AP)

For half of America the next four years will feel like an occupation force under the Trump administration. Vulnerable darker-skinned migrants will be herded up for deportation and a brain drain will emaciate the resistance. After 20 Jan 2025, there may also be a mass exodus of national security veterans and Assistant US Attorneys (AUSAs) who opposed Trump, like Jack Smith, as well as progressive media luminaries. 

Former D/CIA Michael Hayden led the charge of 130 former Republican national security officials denouncing Donald Trump in 2020.

Too bad the US can’t set up a government-in-exile in Canada or the UK like the Dutch did in 1940, so our allies could continue dealing with trustworthy counterparts. Until these Quislings are defeated in the ballot box (mid-terms for Congress in 2026 and 2028 for President), Americans may feel like the Dutch or French did from 1940 to 1945 and our allies will be circumspect in sharing their intelligence with us.

Texas Encourages Monitoring and Reporting of Animals Affected by New World Screwworm

From the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife (TPWD):

TPWD is asking hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts in South Texas to be on the lookout for animals affected by the New World screwworm (NWS) after a recent detection in Mexico.

This detection, found in a cow at an inspection checkpoint in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas near the Guatemalan border, follows the progressive northward movement of the NWS through South and Central America.

New World screwworm favorability analysis. (image: casasglobal.org)

As a protective measure, animal health officials are asking those along the southern border of Texas to monitor wildlife, livestock and pets for clinical signs of NWS and immediately report possible cases.

New World screwworms are larvae or worms of the NWS fly (Cochliomyia hominivorax), which cause a painful condition known as NWS myiasis. NWS flies lay eggs in open wounds or living tissue holes such as nostrils, eyes, or mouth. These eggs hatch into dangerous parasitic larvae, and the worms burrow or curl into the flesh with sharp mouth hooks. Wounds can become enlarged, and an infestation can often cause serious and fatal damage or death to the infected animal.

Screwworms infestations have been confirmed in Florida. (Image: USDA APHIS)

NWS primarily infests livestock, but it can also affect humans and wildlife, including deer (deer) and birds.

The parasite was last eradicated from the US in 1966, with costly efforts by federal and state animal health officials, livestock producers, and veterinarians. Eradication efforts have continued in Central America, but the pest is considered widespread in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and countries in South America.

NWS infestations begin when a female NWS fly is attracted to the smell of a natural wound or opening on a live, warm-blooded animal, where she lays her eggs. These openings can include wounds as small as a tick bite, nasal or eye openings, a newborn’s belly button, or genitals.

A female NWS fly can lay up to 300 eggs at a time and can lay up to 3,000 eggs during her lifetime. The eggs hatch into larvae (worms) that burrow into an opening to feed. After feeding, the larvae fall to the ground, burrow into the ground, and emerge as adult NWS flies. Adult NWS flies can fly long distances, and the movement of infested cattle or wildlife can increase the rate of spread.

Sources:

https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20241230a

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/cattle/ticks/screwworm

Montenegro Cracks Down On Firearms After New Year’s Massacre

The Montenegrin government has announced a raft of new gun-control measures, following a mass shooting that killed 12 people, including two children.

Relatives mourn during a commemoration service for victims of New Year’s Day mass shooting in Cetinje, Montenegro. (Photo: 4 Jan 2025, Reuters)

The proposed law will mandate the reverification of existing weapons licenses and impose severe penalties for those who fail to surrender illegal weapons within a two-month period. Hunting clubs would be verified and the authorities would establish an anonymous tip line where citizens can report illegal weapons possession for a reward.

Montenegro has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe. In the country of just over 620,000 people, there are about 245,000 firearms in use. Other estimates suggest the figure is lower. According to 2022 police data provided to RFE/RL’s Balkan Service, there are over 100,000 legally owned weapons in Montenegro, while illegal firearms are estimated to number between 40,000 and 80,000.

With one police officer per 141 inhabitants, Montenegro remarkably has the second highest number of police officers per capita in Europe (after Monaco) yet has a large organized crime presence.

Despite the large constabulary, Cetinje (the site of the massacre) had only a minimal police presence despite being home to 120 known organized crime members and having experienced a similar massacre in August 2022. Then, an attacker killed ten people and wounded six before being killed by a passerby.

Restricting firearms will not be an easy task for Podgorica with its long tradition of gun ownership. Moreover, Montenegro is ranked fifth in Europe for organized criminality by the Global Organized Crime Index.

Source:

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-new-gun-control-measures-cetinje-shooting-response/33263200.html

Pennsylvania US Army Veteran Charged With Attempting to Join Lebanese Hezbollah

Undated photo of Jack Danaher Molloy courtesy of the FBI.

Jack Danaher Molloy (24) has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges of attempting to support the foreign terrorist organization (FTO) Lebanese Hezbollah and making false statements to an agency of the US. As alleged, Molloy —a dual citizen of the US and Ireland, who previously served on active-duty status in the US Army—traveled to Lebanon in Aug 2024 and attempted to join Hezbollah, an organization formed in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and has conducted numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli and Western targets. While in Lebanon, Molloy was told by multiple individuals that the time was not right, and that he needed to take other steps before he could join LH. Molloy then traveled from Lebanon to Syria in Oct 2024 in an effort to fight for Hezbollah in Syria. When that failed, he returned home. Met by FBI agents at the airport, Molloy lied to them about his attempts to join an FTO (18 USC 1001 violations).

The maximum sentence for the material support offense is a term of imprisonment of 20 years, a fine of $250,000, or both. Each of the false statement charges carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.

Jack Molloy is missing some marbles if he thought he could walk into a Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) recruitment office in the middle of a war with Israel and just sign up. After LH dismissed this “mejnun,” they probably tipped off Lebanese Army G-2 who then tipped off the LEGATT, RSO, or CIA CoS in Beirut. His Irish passport probably saved him from an “OBE” award (one behind the ear) from suspicious actors in Lebanon or Syria. FBI intervention most likely prevented an attack against Jewish or Israeli targets in the US.

Instead of getting desperately needed psychiatric care, Molloy will languish in a BOP facility for 28 to 36 years. He will probably be close to 60 when he is finally released and will not have contributed towards his social security retirement during his lengthy incarceration. He would be better off making his way to Ireland after his release, as their social safety net is superior to America’s.

An indictment and a criminal complaint are accusations. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/upper-st-clair-man-who-traveled-lebanon-and-syria-goal-joining-hizballah-indicted

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/media/1379546/dl?inline

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/media/1382696/dl?inline

Russia-Appointed Officials in Crimea Declare Emergency as Oil Spill Reaches Sevastopol

(Map courtesy of Global News)

More than 86,000 tons of contaminated sand and soil have been removed along the region’s shoreline since the original spill. Up to 200,000 tons in total may have been contaminated with mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the oil spill an “ecological disaster.”

Rescuers and volunteers work to clean up tons of fuel oil that spilled out of two storm-stricken tankers more than two weeks ago in the Kerch Strait, in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. (Photo: Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)

Water pollution, the war, and fishing have been killing dolphins in the Black Sea for some time now and this spill won’t help these poor sea mammals that some ethicists correctly assert should be treated with the same rights as human beings.

Sources:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap-russia-oil-spill-88871-jpg/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221222-how-the-war-in-ukraine-is-killing-marine-mammals

https://inf.news/en/animal/6848e299d25bc0eedde64f94646465aa.html

Rescue Dog’s Heartwarming Response to Deaf Cat

Nakba Update: IDF Upholds Ceasefire with Lebanon but Still Strangling Palestinians in Gaza

After decimating Lebanon’s infrastructure and killing enough Known or Suspected Terrorists (KSTs), as well as innocent bystanders and medical personnel (3,580 killed, over 15,000 wounded), the Israeli Death Forces (IDF) accepted a ceasefire. So they continued their Nakba in Gaza.  At least four people in the al-Tabin school shelter for displaced people in Gaza City were killed. And the IDF continues blockading humanitarian relief into Gaza.

Opposition leader Yair Golan questioned why Benjamin Netanyahu has not struck a deal to stop the bloodbath in Gaza.

“The most important test is to end the war in Gaza,” said Golan, who heads the opposition coalition the Democrats.

“If it is possible to reach an agreement with Hezbollah, why can’t we reach an agreement with Hamas and free the hostages? The fighting continues only because Netanyahu is politically dependent on a fanatical and messianic group that wants to win the war,” Golan concluded.

Women and children queue for bread at a bakery in Khan Younis. “NHI” is when people die of starvation, disease, exposure, or untreated wounds. Winter is fast approaching.  (25 Nov 2024 Photo: UNRWA)

The Gaza Health Ministry said 44,056 people have been killed and 104,268 wounded since 7 Oct 2023.  The real toll is probably higher because thousands of bodies are buried under rubble or in areas that medics cannot access.

The Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count and more than half of the fatalities are women and children. The IDF reported it has killed over 17,000 militants without providing evidence or proving their guilt in a court of law. That means 27,056 Palestinian deaths were innocent non-combatants. The Likud government will no doubt encourage an exodus of Palestinians from Gaza in the near future.

In the occupied West Bank, at least 760 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,769 injured by the IDF and lunatic Settlers. This is pure homicide and simply ethnic cleansing. Those maniacs recently attacked IDF Major General Avi Bluth (see previous post).

The incredibly unpopular Netanyahu faces a bribery and corruption trial which has dogged him for years, but the proceedings have been held in abeyance because of the war. The longer the conflict goes, the better it is for the “Crime Minister” and the 100 or so hostages be damned. Possibly a third of them are dead, some killed accidentally killed by the IDF.

This clever protestor above holds her version of the iconic poster below.

The Chief of Staff to Benjamin Netanyahu is being investigated over allegations of altering documents relating to the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack to portray the Prime Minister in a more favorable light. The Israeli police Lahav 433 major crimes unit questioned Tzachi Braverman for over five hours. Inevitably the loathsome Netanyahu will have to face a 9/11 Commission-style inquiry into his handling of 7 Oct 2023.  Israel, now described as a Pariah State, is defending itself of genocide charges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague. Netanyahu and ex-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague and international arrest warrants have been issued for them.    

In a statement that should not surprise anyone, French President Emmanuel Macron breathtakingly said that Paris would not honor the ICC arrest warrant against Netanyahu in a dazzling display of duplicitous dissembling. As previously posted, French diplomacy is chaotic. And do diplomats at the Quai d’Orsay wonder why France lost complete influence over Lebanon in a span of ten years? The leader of La Francophonie, consisting of Arab, Muslim, and African populations, just shot himself in the foot with both barrels. Curiously, no journalist asked President Macron if France, an EU and NATO member, as well as signatory to the Rome Statutes, would honor the similar ICC arrest warrant for indicted war criminal Russian President Vladimir Putin? And of all places, INTERPOL is based in Lyon, France.

An INTERPOL Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant, but an alert to governments that the individual is wanted for alleged crimes. While many Red Notices are publicly visible at www.interpol.int, many are not, as in the case of PIFWCs Netanyahu and Doav Gallant.   

To help Netanyahu control the narrative and crush any dissenting voices in Israel, the Likud cabinet has approved a proposal to cut all government links with Haaretz – a move that could cripple the 105-year-old newspaper financially and force it to shut down. The al-Jazeera News Bureau in Israel was previously banned.

The “Crime Minister” is counting the days until President-elect Donald Trump takes over. Once Trump is in, Netanyahu can proceed full steam ahead with ethnic cleansing Palestinians in the West Bank under the contented eye of US Ambassador Mike Huckabee who refers to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria. Moreover, knowing that he’ll be supported by the full might of USCENTCOM, Netanyahu can resume focusing his ire on Iran. Of course, the American taxpayer will continue funding this warmonger.

Sources:

Netanyahu aide investigated by police over 7 October timeline

Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in raid on occupied West Bank town | Occupied West Bank News | Al Jazeera

Netanyahu aide investigated by police over 7 October timeline

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/3c87/live/88e7f150-a35e-11ef-bc62-3d90412554cd.jpg.webp

Death toll in Gaza from Israel-Hamas war passes 44,000, Palestinian officials say | AP News

Russia-Ukraine Update

Kremlin Expels UK Diplomat; Ex-British Soldier POW; Russian Senior General Replaced; Confirmation of North Korean Casualties

Through South Korean intelligence channels, the US confirmed that 500 North Koreans had been killed in a Ukrainian attack with British Storm Shadow missiles last week. A high-ranking North Korean commander may have also been liquidated. Kiev struck “firstest with the mostest” and the North Koreans troops learned they were now in a real war– not in showcase parades– and they can be killed unexpectedly. This won’t demoralize Pyongyang, but will erode any fighting spirit in the young North Korean conscripts. Vladimir Putin warned South Korea they would be making a “big mistake” if Seoul provides Ukraine with its high-tech mass casualty producing weapons. South Korea is a top-ten weapons manufacturer in the world. But the South Korean military establishment is not easily intimidated having spent decades dealing with North Korea, as well as deploying their soldiers to foreign combat zones, like Vietnam or Iraq.

South Korean commandos about to demonstrate extraordinary martial arts feats during a rehearsal for welcoming ceremony of the Seoul International Aerospace & Defense Exhibition (ADEX) at the Ministry of National Defense in South Korea, 29 Oct 2013. (Xinhua/Park Jin-hee)

Second Secretary Edward Pryor Wilkes (Undated photo / FSB)

Authorities in Moscow have ordered a British diplomat accused of espionage to leave the country. Edward Pryor Wilkes was allegedly sent to Moscow to replace one of six British diplomats accused of spying in August, according to the FSB.

The FSB claimed Wilkes “deliberately provided false information when obtaining a permit to enter our country, thus violating Russian law.” It also alleged that his activities showed “signs of intelligence and subversive work” threatening national security.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry revoked the diplomat’s accreditation and ordered him to leave the country within two weeks. State media reported that Britain’s ambassador to Moscow was summoned over the allegations.

The British Foreign Office said the expulsion order was “not the first time that Russia has made malicious and baseless accusations against our staff. We will respond in due course.”

The agency accused the directorate of being transformed into “an intelligence service tasked with inflicting strategic defeat on Russia” following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

James Scott Rhys Anderson (22), former UK Army Signalman

A Russian court ordered the arrest of James Scott Rhys Anderson, a British national, on charges of mercenary activity and participation in Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

Anderson, as part of Ukraine’s International Legion, illegally crossed into Russian territory and took part in hostilities within the Kursk region, according to the Kursk Regional Court’s media service. He was captured by Russian forces in an unspecified manner.

A hearing was held behind closed doors because of the sensitive nature of the allegations, which include crimes considered particularly severe.

Lieutenant General Alexander Sanchik. (Undated photo: Gavriil Grigorov / POOL / TASS)

Russia’s military has replaced the commander of one of its six operational groups fighting in Ukraine.

Lieutenant General Alexander Sanchik was reportedly appointed acting commander of Russia’s “South” group of forces. Sanchik succeeds Colonel General Gennady Anashkin, who was removed as part of a “planned rotation,” according to the Defense Ministry.

Pro-war military bloggers reported over the weekend that Anashkin was removed after misleading his superiors about settlements he allegedly claimed were captured near the Ukrainian town of Siversk. Some bloggers claimed the alleged misinformation led to “unjustified losses” on the front lines.

The “South” group has been active in recent weeks near the towns of Kurakhove, Chasiv Yar and Siversk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. It consists of units drawn from Russia’s Southern Military District.

Sanchik previously attended a 15 May meeting with President Vladimir Putin as acting commander of the Eastern Military District.

A career officer, Sanchik served as deputy commander of the Eastern Military District in 2023 and commanded the district’s 35th Combined Arms Army in 2020. Putin promoted Sanchik to Colonel-General in February 2022, shortly before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In retaliation for expelling the Second Secretary, Whitehall will select a suitable Russian diplomat to be dubiously named Persona Non Grata. As for the young British mercenary, he will no doubt be part of any future prisoner swap Kiev and Moscow conclude. The Zelensky government must demonstrate its loyalty to the International Legion by making James Anderson’s release a priority. Seoul must deliver any powerful weapons to Kiev before the Trump administration can interfere next year. Lastly, if Russian bloggers are correct that Colonel-General Gennady Anashkin caused useless Russian casualties in this horrible war of attrition, his fate is in the hands of a cold-blooded KGB veteran.

Sources:

Russia Expels British Diplomat Over Alleged Espionage Activities

Russia Opens Criminal Case Against Brit Accused Of Terrorism, Mercenary Activities

US official confirms North Korean casualties in Russia’s Kursk – Radio Free Asia

Russian Military Replaces Senior Commander in Eastern Ukraine – RBC – The Moscow Times

CDC Confirms H5N1 Bird Flu Infection in Child in California

Photo by Jonathan Cooper on Pexels.com

This is the first reported avian influenza H5 virus infection in a child in the US. Consistent with previously identified human cases in the US, the child reportedly experienced mild symptoms and received flu antivirals. The child, in Alameda County CA, is recovering and an investigation into the child’s possible H5N1 exposure source is ongoing.

California public health authorities also detected avian flu in raw milk from a produced in Fresno County. No illnesses have been reported and pasteurized milk is safe to drink.

Human infections with bird flu viruses are rare, and no person-to-person spread has been detected in California or the US. Including this most recent case, 55 human cases of H5 bird flu have now been reported in the US during 2024, with 29 in California.

CDC’s risk assessment for the general public is low. However, people with exposure to infected or potentially infected animals, such as birds, dairy cattle, or other animals (including livestock), or to environments contaminated by infected birds or other animals, are at higher risk of infection.

Americans could be in trouble over the next four years as President-elect Donald Trump’s selections to head the US health agencies have no experience in dealing with public health emergencies and have been pilloried as quacks. If anti-vaccination Robert F. Kennedy Jr is confirmed by the US Senate to become Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), expect American preventable mortality rates to increase.

Sources:

State Reports Single, Possible Case of Bird Flu Virus in Child with Mild Symptoms

CDC confirms H5N1 Bird Flu Infection in a Child in California | CDC Newsroom

California Acts to Protect Public Health: CDPH Warns Against Drinking Single Lot of Raw Milk Following Bird Flu Detection; Secures Voluntary Recall

Bird flu is getting worse. Disease experts worry Trump and RFK Jr. will mangle response like COVID | Salon.com

INTERPOL: Operation Serengeti Nets 1,006 Cyber-Crime Suspects in Africa

Authorities across 19 African countries have arrested 1,006 suspects and dismantled 134,089 malicious infrastructures and networks thanks to a joint operation by INTERPOL and AFRIPOL against cybercrime.

Operation Serengeti targeted criminals behind ransomware, business email compromise (BEC), digital extortion, and online scams.

More than 35,000 victims were identified with cases linked to nearly USD 193 million in financial losses worldwide.

Cyber-crime suspects detained in Angola. (Photo: INTERPOL)

In Kenya, officers cracked a case of online credit card fraud linked to losses of USD 8.6 million. The funds, stolen through fraudulent scripts run after altering the banking system’s security protocol, were promptly redistributed by the group via SWIFT to companies in the UAE, Nigeria, and China. Nearly two dozen arrests have been made so far.

Eight people, including five Chinese nationals, were arrested in Senegal for a USD 6 million online Ponzi scheme affecting 1,811 victims. A search of their apartment uncovered over 900 SIM cards, USD 11,000 in cash, phones, laptops, and copies of victims’ ID cards.

Nigerian authorities arrested a man accused of running online investment scams. He made over USD 300,000 by luring victims through messaging platforms with false promises of cryptocurrency returns.

In Cameroon, authorities arrested a group suspected of trafficking victims from seven different countries to run a multi-level marketing scam. After paying a “membership fee”, victims were promised employment opportunities or training but once in Cameroon, they were held captive and obliged to lure others into the scheme to gain their freedom. Initial estimates show that the group had already pocketed at least USD 150,000 in fees.

Angolan investigators dismantled an international criminal group running a virtual casino in Luanda. The group, which primarily targeted Brazilian and Nigerian gamblers, defrauded hundreds through its online platform, offering a percentage of winnings to members who recruited new subscribers. Some 150 arrests were made, with officers seizing 200 computers and more than 100 mobile phones.

Operation Serengeti was carried out with funding of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the German Federal Foreign Office and the Council of Europe.

Participating countries:

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Operational partners:

Cybercrime Atlas, Fortinet, Group-IB, Kaspersky, Team Cymru, Trend Micro, Uppsala Security

Source:

Major cybercrime operation nets 1,006 suspects

Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party

By Peter Beinart for The New York Times.

Illustrations and captions added by Coriolanus. We are grateful to him and trust he will appreciate the accents to his finely crafted editorial.

During the presidential campaign, journalists trying to assess the electoral impact of Israel’s war in Gaza often focused on Arab and Muslim voters, particularly in Michigan. That’s understandable. In the heavily Arab-American city of Dearborn, MI, which supported Joe Biden in 2020, results show that Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris by about six percentage points.

But viewing Gaza’s political repercussions merely through the lens of identity misses something fundamental. Over the past year, Israel’s slaughter and starvation of Palestinians — funded by US taxpayers and live-streamed on social media — has triggered one of the greatest surges in progressive activism in a generation. Many Americans roused to action by their government’s complicity in Gaza’s destruction have no personal connection to Palestine or Israel. Like many Americans who protested South African apartheid or the Vietnam War, their motive is not ethnic or religious. It is moral.

Both the 1968 and 2024 Democratic candidates were loyal VPOTUS to their one term predecessors and wanted to continue their policies. And Just like in 1968, nationwide anti-war protests gripped the US in 2024. The 1968 protestors were not pro-South Vietnamese, just as the 2024 protestors were not pro-Hamas. They were both simply anti-war.

The outrage has been particularly intense among Black Americans and the young. This spring, encampments expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people rose on more than 100 college campuses. In February, the Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation’s most prominent Black congregations, called the war in Gaza a “mass genocide” and demanded that the Biden-Harris administration stop funding it. In June, the NAACP urged an end to weapons shipments as well. A June CBS News poll found that while most voters over the age of 65 supported arms sales to Israel, voters under the age of 30 opposed them by a ratio of more than three to one. And while only 56 percent of white voters favored cutting off weapons, among Black voters the figure was 75 percent.

Those pre-election polling numbers may explain some of what we saw Tuesday night. Kamala Harris is far more youthful than Joe Biden. Yet, early exit polls — from CNN, The Washington Post, Fox News and The Associated Press — suggest she suffered a sharp decline among voters under the age of 29 compared with Mr. Biden’s result in 2020. Ms. Harris is Black, yet according to CNN and The Washington Post, she did slightly worse than Mr. Biden among Black voters. One exit poll, from Fox News and The Associated Press, suggests she did significantly worse.

Surely, many young and Black voters were dissatisfied with the economy. Some may have been attracted to Mr. Trump’s message on immigration. Others may have been reluctant to vote for a woman.

But these broader dynamics do not fully explain Ms. Harris’s underperformance, because she appears to have lost far less ground among voters who are older and white. Her share of white voters equaled Mr. Biden’s. Among voters over age 65, she actually gained ground.

Which brings us back to Ms. Harris’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Despite overwhelming evidence that the Democratic Party’s most devoted constituents wanted to end sales of weapons to Israel, the Biden administration kept sending them, even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel expanded the war into Lebanon. And not only did Ms. Harris not break with Mr. Biden’s policy, she went out of her way to make voters who care about Palestinian rights feel unwelcome. When antiwar activists interrupted a speech of hers in August, Ms. Harris snapped, “If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that.” At the Democratic National Convention, her campaign rebuffed a plea from activists to let a Palestinian-American speak from the main stage. And just days before the election, the Harris surrogate Bill Clinton told a Michigan crowd that Hamas had forced Israel to kill Palestinian civilians by using them as human shields.

All this provided Mr. Trump an opportunity. According to The Times, his campaign found that undecided voters in swing states were about six times as likely as other swing-state voters to be motivated by the war in Gaza. Mr. Trump wooed them. He pledged to help “the Middle East return to real peace” and lambasted former Representative Liz Cheney, a Republican with whom Ms. Harris had chosen to campaign, as a “radical war hawk.” Like Richard Nixon, who in 1968 appealed to antiwar voters by promising “an honorable end to the war in Vietnam,” Mr. Trump portrayed himself — however insincerely — as the candidate of peace.

The US has spent a record $17.9 billion on military aid to Israel since the war in Gaza began in Oct 2023. This is only a partial amount of the US financial support provided during this war. The Gaza Health Ministry said the IDF killed 44,056 people and wounded 104,268 since 7 Oct 2023. The IDF claims 17,000 of these deaths were militants.

For months now, commentators close to the Palestinian rights movement have feared exactly this scenario. In August, the Palestinian American analyst Yousef Munayyer warned that “unless Harris takes some steps to break from Biden’s Israel policy, the same issue that helped tank an already vulnerable Joe Biden with his base could put major obstacles in her path to victory.”

But people who are passionate about Palestinian rights rarely occupy influential positions in Democratic campaigns. For decades, the party’s politicians and operatives have treated the struggle for Palestinian freedom as a taboo. They’ve grown so accustomed to sequestering it from their stated commitment to human rights that, even amid what prominent scholars call a genocide, Ms. Harris thought it wiser to campaign with Ms. Cheney than, say, Representative Rashida Tlaib. Despite overwhelming evidence, her campaign could not see that among progressive voters, the Palestine exception no longer applies.

There is only one path forward. Although it will require a fierce intraparty brawl, Democrats — who claim to respect human equality and international law — must begin to align their policies on Israel and Palestine with these broader principles. In this new era, in which supporting Palestinian freedom has become central to what it means to be progressive, the Palestinian exception is not just immoral. It’s politically disastrous.

For a long time, Palestinians in Gaza and beyond have been paying for that exception with their lives. Now Americans are paying, too. It may cost us our freedom.

Palestinian children queue up for food in Gaza. 90% do not receive enough food daily. (Data and Photo: World Food Program)

2024 Election

Peter Beinart (@PeterBeinart) is a contributing Opinion writer at The Times. He’s also a professor at the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York, an editor at large of Jewish Currents and writes The Beinart Notebook, a weekly newsletter. His book “Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza” is forthcoming.

Sources:

Opinion | Democrats Ignored Gaza and Brought Down Their Party – The New York Times

United States Spending on Israel’s Military Operations and Related U.S. Operations in the Region, October 7, 2023-September 30, 2024 | Costs of War

Japan: Police Finally Identify School Shoe Thief

Police set up security cameras at a Japanese school after students’ shoes started disappearing and the culprit was ultimately identified as a furry footwear fan — a weasel (itachi イタチ) .

The Gosho Kodomo-en kindergarten in Koga, Fukuoka Prefecture, contacted police for help after 15 shoes vanished from the school in early Nov 2024, and three more were taken the following day.

Police set up three security cameras in the school to catch the culprit in the act.

A single shoe vanished during the night of 11 Nov and police reviewed the captured footage to identify the perpetrator.

The video shows a weasel appearing from behind a wall and raiding the cubbyholes where the children store their indoor shoes. The animal spread shoes across the floor and made off with one item of footwear.

Animal experts said the weasel had likely given birth recently and was using the shoes to line its nest. The school said the cubbyholes are now being covered with netting at night to keep furry thieves at bay.

Japanese weasels were introduced to Sakhalin Island (and other areas of Japan) to help control rodents. Above, an itachi (イタチ) caught a frog for dinner.

Source:

Watch: Serial shoe thief at kindergarten identified as a weasel – UPI.com

‘Are We Not Humans?’ Fury in Beirut as Massive Israeli Strike Kills 20

Before impact. Beirut’s Shayah neighborhood (Photo: Fadel Itani / UPI)

After impact. (Photo: Fadel Itani / UPI)

Chiyah neighborhood of Beirut (Photo: Fadel Itani / UPI)

A massive Israeli air strike on central Beirut has killed at least 20 people, Lebanese officials say, in the latest attack on the capital amid an escalation of Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah.

The strike happened without warning at about 04:00 (02:00 GMT) on Saturday, and was an attempt to assassinate a senior Hezbollah official, Israeli media reported. The attack was heard and felt across the city, and destroyed at least one eight-story residential building in the densely populated Basta district.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said a so-called bunker buster bomb was used, a type of weapon previously used by Israel to kill senior Hezbollah figures, including former leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Emergency workers used heavy machinery to remove the rubble and retrieve bodies.

More than 60 people had been injured and the number of victims was expected to rise as DNA tests would be carried out on body parts that had been recovered.

“It was a very horrible explosion. All the windows and glasses were over me, my wife and my children. My home now is a battlefield,” said 55-year-old Ali Nassar, who lived in a nearby building.

“Even if one person is hiding here…Should you destroy buildings where people are sleeping inside? Is it necessary to kill all the people for one person? Are we not humans? That’s what I’m asking.”

According to the Israeli public broadcaster Kan, the attack was an attempt to kill Mohammed Haydar, a top Hezbollah official. Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri said none of the group’s leaders were in the building hit, and Haydar’s fate remained unclear.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented.

Also on Saturday, the IDF carried out further air strikes on the Dahieh, the area in southern Beirut where Hezbollah is based, saying they were buildings linked to the group.

Israeli attacks have also hit the south, where an Israeli ground invasion is advancing, and the east, where air strikes in the city of Baalbek killed at least 15 people, including four children.

Lebanese officials say a ‘bunker buster’ bomb was used in the devastating strike.

In AKZ-L (Lebanon), more than 3,670 people have been killed and at least 15,400 injured since Oct 2023, with more than one million forced from their homes. With the onset of winter, more innocent and homeless Arabs will die of exposure. The IDF has killed scores of Lebanese medics while destroying the country’s medical infrastructure. PIFWC Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party have certainly incubated the next two generations of anti-Israelis and antisemites. Netanyahu can’t wait until Donald Trump becomes POTUS next year. But having a Democratic president in the White House these past four years haven’t really stalled or delayed the Likud Party’s plans to ethnically cleanse Israel of Palestinians anyway.

The imminent and unholy Repub-Likud alliance in 2025 will also bode poorly again for Iranians and chances of a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Sources:

Israel hits Lebanon with widespread bombing and shelling, killing at least 47 – UPI.com

‘Are we not humans?’: Anger in Beirut as massive Israeli strike kills 20

Israel: Fanatical Settlers Attack IDF Major-General Avi Bluth in West Bank

This past weekend, lunatic Settlers in the West Bank attacked IDF Central Command Major-General Avi Bluth, ludicrously calling him a “traitor” and “Israel hater.”

Head of IDF Central Command Major-General Avi Bluth. He escaped unharmed and must have been shocked to face an intifada from the very citizens he has sworn to protect and defend.

Since Oct 2023, Israeli security forces and fanatical Settlers have killed at least 763 Palestinians in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to facilitate the seizure of lands and homes by religious zealots. A few of these maniacs possibly like the Settler pictured below have been sanctioned by the Biden Administration.

Palestinian Alice Kisiya (R), whose family land was taken over by armed Israeli settlers, confronts a rabid Settler in the area of al-Makhrour in the occupied West Bank, near Beit Jala, on 22 Aug 2024. (Photo: AFP / Hazem Bader)

The above pictured Israelis celebrate the death of Palestinian resistance leader Yahya Sinwar at a southern kibbutz, 17 Oct 2024. Note the elation on the faces of the celebrants as if this was V-E Day 1945. They are unaware of twice-GOP Presidential candidate NYS Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s famous words, “You can’t shoot an idea with a gun,” as if the IDF killing of one man erases Palestinian nationalism. Urbane Israelis in Ramat Aviv or Haifa wonder how much taxes these kibbutzers pay or whether they ever served in the IDF like them or MG Avi Bluth. (Photo: AP)

Above, Israeli Police officers arrest an ultra-Orthodox Jew as they block a main road during a protest against IDF conscription in Jerusalem, 19 Oct 2017. Israeli police arrested 40 people in protests by a fringe group within Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. (Photo: Ariel Schalit / AP)

Israeli border police stand guard near Orthodox Jews in the Old City’s Christian quarter, after an incident in which Haredi Orthodox Jews spat at a Christian procession carrying a cross through Jerusalem’s Old City in 2023. Israeli police arrested five suspects. (Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Ultra-Orthodox Jews defied COVID regulations. Above, Israeli security forces arrest an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man as they close a synagogue in Jerusalem (Mar 2020). COVID infection rates in ultra-Orthodox communities were markedly higher than the rest of Israel. (Photo: Ahmad Gharabli / AFP / Getty Images)

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man (L) and a secular man (R) above argue during a protest against the strict religious codes favored by the ultra-Orthodox in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. (Photo: Reuters/Landov)

So, is it any wonder that an IDF Major-General may be attacked by his own people when you see the fanaticism emanating from the religious sectors of Israel? Many military veterans have favorite commanders or generals and Coriolanus is no exception. I can’t imagine being in a security detail or in the entourage of my favorite (unnamed) general under attack by maniacs. Luckily MG Avi Bluth and his staff escaped unharmed.

For years Israel has been undergoing a political civil war between secularists and fundamentalists, ultra-nationalists and peace activists, Sabras and newcomers, Ashkenazis and Sephardics, and Likudniks versus Laborites. So far, the religious right-wing and their coalition have been winning in the kaleidoscope of the Knesset, keeping Israeli Crime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power (for now).

Besides facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will be facing a criminal or Knesset inquiry into his handling of the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack which killed more than 1,200 citizens and the capture of over 200 hostages.

Sources:

Israel: Some ultra-Orthodox Jews are ignoring the coronavirus rules | CNN

Israelis Clash Over Strict Religious Codes |

Israeli police arrest 5 Jews for allegedly spitting on Christian pilgrims amid spate of attacks – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

US issues new batch of sanctions targeting West Bank settlers amid rampant violence | The Times of Israel

Passengers Stop Man from Opening American Airlines Plane Cabin Door Mid-Flight

Passengers on American Airlines Flight 1219 stopped a Canadian man who allegedly tried to open the airplane’s cabin door mid-flight by restraining him with duct tape and flex cuffs.

The suspect reportedly told a flight attendant he needed to exit the plane and began acting erratically when he was denied.

The man tried to open an emergency door while the jetliner was airborne.

“He was sitting at the emergency exit and he cracked open the window that was protecting the handle,” reported a passenger. “He ripped down the handle where it exposed some of the emergency exit and all the wind came rushing down.”

“The guy was screaming ‘I want to get out,’” reported a witness.

The unhinged man allegedly assaulted a flight attendant, injuring her wrist and neck.

A passenger sprung into action by restraining the man and securing him with duct tape and flex cuffs provided by the crew. The suspect remained restrained on the floor for the rest of the flight.

After landing, law enforcement and FBI agents boarded the plane to detain the man for a medical evaluation. The flight attendant was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, while the suspect was taken off the plane in a wheelchair.

The FAA and FBI are working together to investigate the incident further. No charges have been filed.

“The safety and security of our customers and team members is our top priority and we thank our team members and customers for managing a difficult situation,” American Airlines said.

Luckily enough passengers had the wherewithal to overcome and restrain the unhinged man before a catastrophe occurred. Air travel remains one of the safest methods of travel, but occasional incidents like this challenge aviation security experts to come up with non-lethal solutions to neutralize unruly or dangerous passengers without harming innocent people or endangering the flight.   

Source:

Passengers Stop Man from Opening Plane Door Mid-Flight By Duct Taping His Wrists And Ankles Together: Officials | IBTimes

Man subdued on an American Airlines flight after trying to open an emergency exit | CTV News

North Korean Defector: NK Soldiers Will Desert ASAP in Ukraine

North Korean supremo Kim Jong-un meets with his loyal and adoring troops in Mar 2024 (Photo: AP)

Entire units of North Korea’s troops fighting for Vladimir Putin will desert as soon as they get to the frontline, a defector has claimed.

Hyun-Seung Lee, spent 3 1/2 years with an artillery and reconnaissance battalion in the early 2000s. His time in the army included training for six months alongside the Storm Corps. Lee says the troops in Russia will be looking to escape the battle in Ukraine “from the beginning.” 

Leaked footage shows the North Koreans (AKA “Norks”) training in Russia (Credit: Telegram)

He believes the troops are not ready for the frontline and will be used as “human shields” by Russian soldiers in “meat attacks.”

Kim Jong-un has sent his Storm Corps, the country’s equivalent of special forces, to fight for the Kremlin as his war continues to stall. The 10,000-strong force is set to be used on the battlefield in the coming days as the Russian tyrant looks to claw back Kursk. 

Questions have been raised about how well the North Korean soldiers will fight having not seen combat since the Vietnam War and with the units armed, clothed, and led by the Russians.

In one clip the Norks appear to be practicing Russian (Credit: Telegram)

Lee said the young soldiers in North Korea will have been forced to go and they won’t be that committed to the fighting. 

He said: “It will be individuals at first, but more like as time passes, I think there’ll be like a larger number of group defections, including officers.”

That’s because, Lee says, the Russians will likely treat them as “expendable” and even more poorly than their own troops. 

He said: “Russian soldiers don’t respect them as their fellow warriors and the NORKs will die without any impact.”

North Korean soldiers could be thinking twice about defecting as it could see their families thrown in prison. Pyongyang has a guilty by association policy; if the North’s soldiers are seen defecting by colleagues their families could be put in jail.

Lee said: “They would be socially not respected, there’s criticism [they would face] from the community and organizations.”

High-ranking families would likely face a more severe punishment if authorities knew their relative had fled.

But Lee, whose family fled Pyongyang in 2014, said some families might not even know their brother, son or father are in Russia fighting as North Korea keeps all troop movements secret. The troops will be watched over by a Worker’s Party political officer who will administer two hours of ideological training a day.

Inside North Inside North Korea’s ‘Elite’ Storm Corp Special Forces

The Storm Corps is made of ten units, including a sniper’s unit, a light infantry unit, and a paratroopers unit, according to Lee Hyun Seung.

Lee emphasized they are not comparable to Western special forces. He said North Korea didn’t have the equipment to continually train troops for combat as ammunition and bombs would need replacing.

Instead, they trained “for show” so they could march in parades or for propaganda videos. Lee said those soldiers are drawn from North Korea’s working class and will be ambivalent about fighting for the regime. 

The defector added: “They are just seeking food and then they’re seeking career advancement. I’m sure nowadays, these, you know, young soldiers they don’t have like a real loyalty to the regime. They just got order command from the Supreme Commander, and then they have no choice but to, you know, [go] to Russia.” 

Ukrainian military intelligence had leaked to the press that a score of North Korean soldiers had already deserted but were soon recaptured by Russian security services. Another report suggested that up to 40 NK troops had been killed in recent fighting in Kursk. Coriolanus posted that the Ukrainian military targeted a Russian command and control center and possibly wounded a North Korean general and other HVTs.  The Ukrainians will continue using their PSYOP program to induce defections and undermine the morale of the NORKs while targeting their HVTs. Kiev has less than two months to catastrophically damage the Russian and North Korean armies before Trump takes over the White House and kowtows to Vladimir Putin.

Source:

I was a North Korean soldier – Kim’s terrified troops will FLEE Putin’s army when they reach Ukraine frontline – The US Sun | The US Sun

Cluster of Ventura County, CA Farmworkers Diagnosed with Rare Leptospirosis

Ventura County lies west of Los Angeles, CA.

Ventura County public health officials said they’re investigating a rare and potentially severe disease diagnosed in several workers in county berry fields.

The illness, leptospirosis, is caused by bacteria found in contaminated water or soil. The disease can be spread by urine from animals including rodents and livestock.

In severe cases, the condition can cause kidney damage, liver failure, or meningitis and can be fatal.

Public health officials report the local cases appeared to have emerged between Sep 2024 and Nov 2024. They do not know the exact cause but said farmworkers harvesting or handling berries grown under hoops may be at higher risk of infection.

There are 18 cases, but the numbers are fluctuating. Some of the cases have been confirmed and others are presumed to be leptospirosis.

Farm worker. (Photo: VCStar)

Public health officials said leptospirosis is not considered a risk to the general public as the illness is not spread from person to person and it’s safe to eat berries.

Some patients reported severe symptoms like meningitis, an infection that can cause inflammation of membrane around the brain and spinal cord. Other cases involved mild symptoms like headache and fever.

Public health strongly advised agricultural workers and employers to take precautions to reduce the risk of leptospirosis:

  • Wear waterproof protective clothing and equipment while working outdoors including gloves, long-sleeved shirts, pants and boots or shoes.
  • Cover cuts and scratches with waterproof bandaging.
  • Wash hands, arms and exposed skin thoroughly with soap and water after working in the fields, especially before eating or drinking.
  • Employers should take measures to keep pest populations under control.

Officials inform that rodents are the most common source of the disease but livestock, dogs and cats can also be infected. People should keep pets away from ponds, lakes and other natural bodies of water and prompt veterinary care for animals that become sick.

The CDC reports that some infected people may have no symptoms. Leptospirosis sometimes occurs in two phases with initial symptoms that improve but are followed by more severe conditions like kidney/liver failure or meningitis.

An estimated one million severe cases of leptospirosis in humans occur every year, causing about 58,900 deaths. The disease is most common in tropical areas of the world but may occur anywhere. Outbreaks may arise after heavy rainfall.

Sources:

Cluster of Locally Acquired Leptospirosis Infections – Ventura County Public Health

Public health investigates cluster of leptospirosis infections

About Leptospirosis | Leptospirosis | CDC

Leptospirosis – Wikipedia

First Freight Train from China Arrives in Afghanistan as Beijing Increases Ties

A direct freight train link between Afghanistan and China was inaugurated this month. (File photo)

The first train carrying goods from China to Afghanistan arrived in Mazar-e Sharif on 23 Nov after crossing through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Kabul reported. The Taliban said 55 containers arrived in Afghanistan after a 22-day journey, marking the inauguration of the first direct train link between China and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The train is expected to take Afghan goods back to China for sale there. Since the Taliban returned to power in Aug 2021, no country, including China, has formally recognized the extremist group — which has been accused of massive rights violations — but Beijing has attempted to increase ties as part of its economic push in the region, including its Belt and Road initiative.

Central Asia Rail Routes Map courtesy of Ansher Global

China, the world’s factory, is also building a massive railway system on the Dark Continent which will connect east and west Africa, a concept the previous European colonial powers never conceived.   

China has pledged $75 billion of funding to Africa and her projects have employed tens of thousands of Ethiopians and Djiboutians.

The West is involved in devastating and costly wars while Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative is quietly and peacefully securing China’s future economic hegemony. Beijing will soon have access to critical minerals in Afghanistan needed for the telecommunications and computer manufacturing industries.  

Ukrainians are fighting for their very survival from the Kremlin onslaught while the US wastes precious economic and military resources funding Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians while the IDF devastates Lebanon with US-provided weapons.  The US already wasted billions of dollars fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan while China invested her time and resources wisely to expand her influence globally while subtly beginning her conquest of space.

Sources:

Keynote Address by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to Conference: U.S.-China Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative and Corresponding Ideas in Chinese and Western Philosophy 4/13-4/14/2017 NYC

Freight Train Arrives In Afghanistan From China As Beijing Looks To Increase Ties

Simultaneous Comeuppance for Two Right-Wing Doppelgangers

Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro (R) and his Floridian doppelganger ex-Congressman Matt Gaetz (L)

Last week Brazil’s federal police charged former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and 36 accomplices of being part of a criminal conspiracy designed to obliterate Brazil’s democratic system through a right-wing coup d’état attempt on 8 Jan 2023. Bolsonaro had proudly described himself as the “Trump of Brazil,” had accelerated the arboricide of the earth’s lings, the Amazon Rain Forest, for the sake of making money.  

Among the accused are Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, as well as a cadre of senior defense, foreign affairs, and justice ministers. Also charged are a far-right congressman and blogger.


In a scene quite similar to the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021, Jair Bolsonaro supporters generate chaos in Brasilia, Brazil, by invading the Supreme Court, National Congress, and the Planalto Palace on Sunday, 8 Jan 2023. Mounted police and helicopters helped safeguard democracy. (Photo: Mateus Bonomi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Meanwhile to the north, Bolsonaro’s American junior doppelganger received a concomitant bit of comeuppance. Reactionary Trump acolyte Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) rashly resigned his congressional seat after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him to be his Attorney-General. His annual salary was approximately $174,000. Matt Gaetz, previously arrested on DUI charges in 2008 which his father allegedly influenced the case in his favor, was embroiled in a congressional Ethics Committee investigation and was confident his sins would remain secret from the American public. Joel Greenberg, an accomplice of Matt Gaetz, was already and convicted and sentenced to 11 years for sex trafficking of a minor and a litany of other crimes.

Official Press Release from Ethics Committee (18 June 2024):

“On April 9, 2021, the Committee announced it had initiated a review into allegations that Representative Matt Gaetz may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct”.

For years, Republicans successfully prevented the release of the damaging investigation findings of Congressman Gaetz’s alleged peccadillos and acts of moral turpitude. When a reporter from CNN asked Gaetz about reports of a second sexual encounter with a 17-year-old girl, six minutes later Gaetz withdrew his nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump’s next attorney general.

Both right-wing disgraced doppelgangers Jair Bolsonaro and MAGA militant Matt Gaetz are considered innocent of all charges and accusations until both defendants are proven guilty in their respective courts of law.  

“The moral arc of the university is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Sources:


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/21/jair-bolsonaro-charged-coup-plot

The rise and fall of Matt Gaetz in eight wild days

Friend of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz sentenced to 11 years in prison in sex trafficking case

Cat Rescued After Five Days Stuck Up Tree

Pope Francis Urges Inquiry into Gaza Genocide Allegations; Eight More Paramedics KIA in Lebanon

Lebanese girls run for cover after Israel’s attack on Ras al-Nabaa, Beirut (Photo: Adnan Abidi / Reuters)

The Israeli Death Forces (IDF) continue murdering Lebanese medical personnel, a clear and blatant violation of the Geneva Convention and Laws of War. At least 3,481 people have been killed and 14,786 wounded in IDF attacks against AKZ-L.

In addition to destroying Lebanon’s medical infrastructure, the IDF is annihilating ancient sites and ruins. 300 prominent cultural and archaeological experts petitioned UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay to listing Lebanese cultural sites under “enhanced protection“.

They urge UNESCO to protect Baalbek and other heritage sites by establishing “no-target zones” around them, deploying international observers and enforcing measures from the 1954 Hague Convention on cultural heritage in conflict.

Above, Palestinian children line up for food in Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip, on 17 Oct 2024. The UN warns of an imminent famine in Gaza this winter. When civilians die of starvation, disease, or untreated wounds, this is “NHI”—No Humans Involved. (Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana / AP)

Pope Francis has called for an investigation to determine whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, tackling the issue for the first time in excerpts from an upcoming book.

“According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide,” the pope said in excerpts published on Sunday by the Italian daily La Stampa.

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), an Ashkenazi Jew, issued this statement:

Continuing to provide Israel with the offensive weapons it uses on civilians is morally wrong.

During the five-year long Bosnian Civil War (1991-95), with small arms fire and artillery, Bosnian Serbs exterminated 38,239 Muslim civilians, including killing 8,000 Bosniaks and raping scores of women in the infamous 1995 Srebrenica Massacre.

But the Bosnian Army, which lost 30,000 soldiers in combat, was able to effectively fight back with US aid and mujahadeen volunteers, unlike the Muslims being slaughtered in the AKZ by the Israelis today. Bosnian Serbs suffered counter-atrocities committed by outraged Bosnian Muslims. See figures below for military and civilian casualties from the 1991-1995 Bosnian Civil War.  

Above, a heavily armed Bosnian Serb soldier leads his comrades through a field during a combing operation to locate and kill Muslims near Srebrenica (31 May 1993 photo: Reuters)

Above, forensic experts from the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague work on a pile of partly-decomposed bodies found in a mass grave in the village of Pilica. Does the image look familiar? (24 July 1996 photo: AFP)

The Israeli Death Forces (IDF), with precision weapons, drones, SIGINT, satellites, and jets, easily surpassed the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) war crimes achievement of killing 38,239 Sunni Muslims which took the Serbs four years. Israel has liquidated at least 43,846 Sunni Muslims and wounded 103,740 in Gaza in just over one year. This figure does not include Western journalists, international volunteers, or UN personnel.  

Coriolanus initially estimated that the IDF will have liquidated approximately 50,000 Sunni Muslims in AKZ-G by 1 Jan 2025. But at the current IDF murder-death-kill rate, the number will be closer to 45,000 deaths in Gaza as the IDF is shifting its lethality to AKZ-L, exterminating Shias, Sunnis, and Maronite Christians while destroying the Lebanese medical infrastructure.  

Bosnian Serbs, convicted for committing war crimes by the ICTY, must be scratching their heads flabbergasted, wondering why they were punished for killing Muslims wholesale but the Israeli Death Forces have carte blanche to do the same with impunity in the Middle East.

Sources:

Pope Francis urges inquiry into Gaza genocide allegations | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Srebrenica massacre – Wikipedia

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia | United Nations<br /> International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

UNESCO petitioned to save Lebanon’s heritage sites from Israeli strikes

Bernie Sanders: No more arms sales to Netanyahu » Senator Bernie Sanders

US Reportedly Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia with Long-Range Weapons

A US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) being launched. These weapon systems have a 300 km range. (AP file photo)

President Joe Biden’s administration has lifted restrictions that have prevented Ukraine from using American-provided weapons to strike deeper inside Russian territory.

It was not immediately clear how far-reaching such permission would be. This represents a major shift in US policy amid long-standing pleas by Kiev to allow such actions.

Ukraine would likely utilize ATACMS rockets (pictured above).

The US administration has been seeking ways to shore up support for Ukraine ahead of Biden’s departure on 20 Jan 2025 when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House. This sends a message to the Kremlin that the US and Kiev are no going to sit around and wait for Trump.

Ukraine’s targeting priorities will likely be in Russia’s Kursk region, using them to strike command-and-control sites, arms depots, artillery batteries, and airfields.

The latest decision by Biden is likely in response to North Korea sending thousands of troops to Russia amid reports that some have already engaged in fighting in Russia’s Kursk region.

The Kremlin has warned that the allowance by the US or other Western allies to use long-range weapons targeting Russia would be seen as a major escalation.

Since its February 2022 full-scale invasion, Russia has used its long-range weapons and warplanes to attack deep inside Ukraine, hitting civilian and infrastructure sites along with military targets.

After Russia launched one of its largest air strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure on 17 Nov, all Ukrainian regions will experience temporary restrictions on power consumption as winter sets in.

The latest Russian attacks were condemned by the EU, NATO, and other Western allies. Germany announced they were sending more air defense systems to Ukraine following the massive Russian drone attack.

North Korean soldiers conducting military training in an undisclosed location. (Photo: KCNA/Reuters)

Knocking out the North Korean cannon-fodder at cantonment areas may be an option for the UAF to de-moralize them and cause mass desertions. Ukraine has approximately two months to make battlefield gains and punish Russia before Trump takes office and kowtows to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kiev will want to negotiate from a position of strength next year. From a personal/professional perspective, CIA and DIA personnel may warn their colleagues in Ukraine’s intelligence services of which USIC personnel harbor pro-Trump/pro-Kremlin sympathies.  The HUR will deal more with their NATO partners for intelligence-sharing and operations.

Sources:

U.S. Reportedly Allows Ukraine To Strike Russia With Long-Range Weapons

Germany to deliver additional air defence supplies to Ukraine | Euronews

US Confirms First Case of Aggressive Strain of Mpox

The US is the sixth country outside of Africa to confirm a case of the strain, called clade I, since Aug 2024. A California man recently returned from a trip to eastern Africa.

Mpox, formerly known as monkeypox, is a viral infection that causes painful lesions, often accompanied by flu-like symptoms. It is classified into two distinct groups: the more aggressive strain, clade I, and a somewhat milder strain, clade II.

Clade II was behind the global outbreak in 2022, which resulted in at least 32,000 infections and 58 deaths in the US.

The US has an adequate supply of the two-dose Jynneos vaccine, which is available to men who have sex with men and other high-risk groups. The Department of Health and Human Service informs that two doses of the vaccine or a previous infection should protect against severe illness from clade I.

The US administered approximately 1.2 million vaccine doses from May 2022 to Jan 2023. Health officials want to expand that coverage, since just 23% of the population at significant risk has been fully vaccinated.

Mpox typically starts with a rash that progresses to small bumps on the skin, followed by fluid-filled blisters that eventually scab over. People may also experience a fever, headache, muscle aches, back pain, low energy or swollen lymph nodes.

Some people infected by clade II in the US have described the lesions as exceedingly painful. They have historically appeared on the face, chest, palms of the hands and the soles of the feet, but during the 2022 outbreak, people developed lesions around the genital and anal region or inside the mouth and throat.

Sources:

California Reports First Known U.S. Case of Emerging Mpox Strain

Clade I Mpox Outbreak Originating in Central Africa | Mpox | CDC


https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/us-first-mpox-case-aggressive-strain-rcna167403

China: Student Kills Eight, Wounds 17 in Mass Stabbing After Failing Exams

The Wuxi stabbing incident comes days after a car drove into a group of people outside a sports centre in China’s southern city of Zhuhai, killing 35 people. (Photo: Ng Han Guan / AP)

Eight people were killed and 17 others injured when a 21-year-old former student went on a stabbing spree at a vocational college in China’s eastern city of Wuxi on Saturday evening.

The knife attack took place at the Wuxi Vocational College of Arts and Technology, in eastern Jiangsu province. The 21-year-old suspect, surnamed Xu, was apprehended at the scene and confessed to the attack.

Local police said Xu had failed his examinations and could not graduate, and that he was dissatisfied with his pay at an internship. According to preliminary investigations, he decided to vent his frustrations by attacking others.

Videos circulating on western social media platforms including X showed injured people lying on the street after the attack while others rushed to help. A keyword search on Chinese social media platform Weibo turned up no related videos or images of the attack.

The incident comes days after a driver rammed his car into groups of people outside a sports center in the southern city of Zhuhai, killing 35 people and injuring 43 others.

Two years ago, a 48-year-old man who unleashed a knife attack on a kindergarten. Three people were killed and six injured in the stabbing incident in China’s Jiangxi province.

The “world’s factory” is a pressure cooker. Psychological and mental health conditions are having an ever-growing impact on the Chinese society. Substantial changes to the country’s social fabric in the past decades, economic pressure, and inequality all increased the burdens on people’s mental well-being. Estimates show that the number of patients suffering from mental disorders in China surpassed 160 million in 2019, ranking the country as one of the most affected by mental health-related diseases. During the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s strict containment measures and their subsequent impacts on daily lives further escalated the risk of mental health problems among its citizens.  

Had this lunatic an assault weapon like in the US, there would have been much more deaths and injuries. Knives are the choice of weapon for lone actor maniacs in China because of the inaccessibility of firearms.  

Family members, co-workers, relatives or classmates may be reluctant to inform authorities of someone they suspect may become unhinged or they may not recognize the symptoms. China can expect more such horrific incidents as the number of mentally ill people rise and the government unable identify and treat all of the patients, even with their penetrating and enormous surveillance system. China has 1,418,100,510 people and 2,098 psychiatric hospitals to treat them.

Sources:

Student kills eight in mass stabbing in China after failing exams | China | The Guardian

China: 3 killed,6 hurt in kindergarten knife attack in Jiangxi; Suspect at large | Hindustan Times

Mental health in China – statistics & facts | Statista

American Warzone: Two KIA, Ten WIA in Shootings Near New Orleans Parade

Two people were killed and ten others were wounded in a pair of shootings on Sunday linked to a New Orleans second line parade, prompting police to shut down the event.

The shootings occurred within about a 45-minute span Sunday afternoon along the route of the second line parade organized by the Nine Times Social Aid & Pleasure Club.

The first shooting was reported at 3:38 PM and wounded nine people. The second occurred 45 minutes later, killing two people and wounding one.

No weapons from either shooting have been recovered, and it was unknown if the incidents were connected.

America is a warzone like pictured above and Louisiana leads the nation with gun violence with the third-highest rate in the US. In an average year, 1,153 people die and 3,345 are wounded by firearms. Louisiana has the 6th-highest societal cost of gun violence in the US at $3,085 per resident each year. Gun deaths and injuries cost Louisiana $14.3 billion each year, of which $457.6 million is paid by taxpayers.

Sources:

NOPD Investigating Homicide, Shooting Incidents in Fifth District – NOPD News

Pair of shootings near New Orleans parade leaves 2 dead, 10 wounded – UPI.com

Gun-Violence-in-Louisiana-2024-05.pdf

Shin Bet Allegedly Warned Benjamin Netanyahu of 10/7 Attack Hours Before It Began

Indicted war criminals Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (C) at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv receiving security assessment on 8 Oct 2023. (GPO)

At 2:58 AM on 7 Oct 2023, the Shin Bet allegedly forwarded a warning about unusual Hamas cellular phone activity, interpreted as preparations for a potential attack.  The information was passed to the national security council, which reports to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Instead of arousing an alert and defensive measures, the warning was ignored. Egyptian intelligence (EGIS) had previously warned Israel about an imminent “terrible operation,” but had no granularity to provide specific details.

Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar, 6 Nov 2022. (Photo: Moshe Shai / Flash90)

Shin Bet agency chief Ronen Bar arrived at the Tel Aviv HQ early the morning of 7 Oct 2023, received updated information about a suspicious occurrence in the Gaza Strip area, and held security consultations. A dedicated team dubbed “Tequila” was then deployed to the Gaza area as an advance force to investigate the unusual information. Armed Palestinian groups soon began their offensive to seize Israeli hostages in order to trade them for Palestinians being held without trial or hearing in indefinite security detention. Amnesty International estimates that up to 2,000 Palestinians, like the young man below, were being held prisoner and being tortured or abused prior to 7 Oct 2023 with no hope of release.

IDF soldiers abusing Palestinian man in Hebron, the West Bank, who allegedly resisted arrest for the simple crime of being Palestinian. (Photo: 22 Sep 2016, Reuters)

Days after 7 Oct 2023, the Prime Minister’s Office stressed that PM Benjamin Netanyahu had not received an early warning regarding the surprise attack and only at 6:29 AM with the outbreak of fighting did he receive an initial update on the situation.

Palestinians ride on an IDF vehicle taken from an IDF base overrun by muqawama fighters near the Gaza Strip border, 7 Oct 2023. (Photo: Abed Abu Reash / AP)

The Shin Bet and IDF chiefs each publicly took responsibility for their failures after the surprise attack that killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and 250 hostages seized. But Netanyahu, as is characteristic of him, did everything he could to avoid responsibility. He used the 7 Oct attack to implement his plans to de-populate the Gaza Strip and destroy southern Lebanon and its medical infrastructure to make the area absolutely inhospitable to Lebanese Shias. While the world watched the horrors of the Gaza Nakba, Israeli settlers continued their pogrom against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Though it’s possible the warning was transmitted to a senior PMO official, rather than directly to Netanyahu, given the seriousness of the matter it seems inconceivable the PM wouldn’t have been immediately informed.

Netanyahu, already embroiled in a bribery and corruption case, has also been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague for war crimes (along with ex-DM Yoav Galland). He desperately does not want a commission of inquiry into the events of 7 Oct 2023, similar to the US 9/11 Commission Report. Netanyahu (and Russian President Vladimir Putin) are also licking their lips at the prospect of a right-wing Trump presidency only months away.

Sources:

Shin Bet Warned Netanyahu of 10/7 Attack Hours Before It Began – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم

Egypt intelligence official says Israel ignored repeated warnings of ‘something big’ | The Times of Israel

Israel/OPT: Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests  

‘This is Life or Death’: Former HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius Says Trump’s RFK Jr. Nomination May ‘End Up Killing People’

Make America Healthy Again: Pictured above are the Judas Goats ready to lead their fellow Americans to the Promised Land of an abattoir. Notorious anti-vaccination proponent RFK Jr (R) is enjoying McDonald’s with America’s new rulers. Photo: Social media.

Republican, evangelical, and conservative opinion makers encouraged scoffing at COVID prevention measures. Some of those fanatics themselves perished of COVID, like Meat Loaf front-man and Trump acolyte Michael Lee Aday (pictured below).

The Republican Party seems to somehow benefit from useless American deaths from either non-vaxxing, business de-regulation, lack of medical insurance, military misadventures, or insane gun laws. An average 42,000 people die every year from gun violence. During the 2024 campaign, the Trump/Vance response to US school shootings was “get over it” or “it’s a fact of life.”

A significant number of preventable COVID deaths occurred under President Trump’s first administration because people refused to wear masks, get vaccinated, or avoid large crowds. People were identified as COVID “super-spreaders,” including then-President Trump who was called out as “America’s Dracula” on national TV.   

Are the majority of lawyers who handle the estates of deceased people in probate court Republicans? Are the majority of funeral parlor owners in the US Republicans? Are the majority of health insurance company CEOs Republicans? Are the majority of firearms company CEOs Republicans?

A select sector of the US economy simply benefits from useless American deaths which will continue unabated and no doubt increase under the Trump regime.

Moreover, an MIT study informed that a large portion of America’s older population has very little savings in bank accounts, stocks and bonds, and dies “with virtually no financial assets” to their names. Approximately 46% of senior citizens have less than $10,000 in financial assets when they die. Most of these people rely almost totally on Social Security payments as their only formal means of support.

Source:

2012-08-americans-die-virtually-financial-assets (1).pdf

Husband Really Didn’t Want His Wife to Get a Cat

IDF Kills Ten in Southern Lebanon Preceding US Secretary of State Blinken Visit to Israel and Start of America’s DNC Convention

Israel Defense Forces killed at least ten people during an overnight strike in southern Lebanon, including a mother and her two children. This was the deadliest Israeli strike in southern Lebanon since October 2023. Hezbollah retaliated by firing 55 rockets into northern Israel, causing some fires but no casualties.

This was a calculated move by war crimes-indicted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to cause a counterattack from the Shia Crescent during critical negotiations with Hamas to reach a cease-fire and release the remaining Israeli hostages (which includes eight AMCITs).

Moreover, the 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) gets underway shortly in Chicago. Any reprisal attack from the Shia Crescent during the convention would demonstrate to Democrats the dangers that Israelis must endure (ignoring the fact that the perils are caused by none other then the bellicose Likud Party).

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III, D/CIA William Burns, and D/DIA Director Lt Gen Jeffrey A. Kruse, as well as the hardworking American taxpayer, must be wondering how and why Benjamin Netanyahu keeps insulting their intelligence with his lethal provocations and brutal policies.

More than 40,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza and over 500 Palestinians have been murdered in the West Bank since October 2023. The Likud Party should simply change its name to the Tsaba (War) Party.

Sources:

Israel kills 10 in southern Lebanon strike ahead of Antony Blinken’s visit – UPI.com

240520-panel-report-eng.pdf (icc-cpi.int)

GOP Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Unravelling and Getting Ridiculed

Former President Donald Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania which was reported to have empty seats and video shows supporters trickling out during one of his rambling speeches. The oldest man to ever run for President also shouted out “North Carolina!” forgetting that he was conducting his rally in Pennsylvania. And with less than 90 days before Election Day, the frustrated 45th President has been unable to stick Kamala Harris with a famous nickname, a shtick to attack enemies he may have learned years ago at the fabled Friar’s Club in NYC .

While Trump historically came up with effective epithets such as “crooked Hillary,” “sleepy Joe,” “Sloppy Steve” (Bannon), or “Lyin’ Ted” (Cruz), the ex-president has yet to come up with nicknames for Harris or Minnesota Governor Tim Walz that have stuck. Trump’s attempts at branding Kamala Harris with “Laffin’ Kamala,” “Lyin’ Kamala,” or “Crazy Kamala” have been ineffective on his Truth Social platform.

Responding to a Republican commentator who remarked Kamala Harris is “beautiful,” Donald Trump replied:

“I say that I am much better looking than her. I’m a better-looking person than Kamala.”

A Democratic strategist responded: “This guy has lost his f—— marbles” and Team Kamala weighed in: “Trump melts down over Kamala Harris being on the cover of TIME Magazine.”

Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party have effectively commandeered the media narrative since President Biden exited the race on 21 July. And after the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the two candidates should see a two to four-point boost in polls. Meanwhile, as Trump prepares for his televised debate with Kamala Harris on 10 Sep, he must also be distracted by his imminent sentencing date on 18 Sep for his 34-count felony conviction in NYS.

Watch below or click here.

Watch below or click here.

‘More empty seats’: Reporter shows people ‘trickling out of’ Trump’s rally as he’s talking – Raw Story

Trump likely in state of ‘panic’ due to ‘ineffective’ nicknames for Kamala Harris: report – Raw Story

‘Lost his marbles’: Trump ridiculed for claiming to be ‘better looking’ than Kamala Harris – Raw Story

USAF Security Personnel Exchange Gunfire With Unknown Assailants

USAF security personnel exchanged gunfire with an unknown shooter in a passing vehicle who twice within two hours opened fire on an entrance to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, early Saturday morning. There were no casualties and the San Antonio Police are investigating.

The motive, number of assailants, or how many rounds were fired are still being determined. The entrance was closed for several hours and the base was not locked down. US and NATO bases in Europe have been on high alert after several attempts by Kremlin-linked saboteurs and infiltrators were thwarted.   

In an average year, 4,122 people die and 7,726 are wounded by firearms in Texas. The Lone Star State has the 29th highest rate of gun violence in the US. Texas firearms licenses in 2021: 1,006,555. 45.7% of Texans say they live in homes with guns.

Sources:

Guards at San Antonio Air Force base exchange fire with unknown shooters – UPI.com

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/07/09/politics/intelligence-russian-sabotage-threat-us-bases-europe/index.html

Gun-Violence-in-Texas-2024-05.pdf (everystat.org)

Lockouts at Canada’s Two Largest Railroads May Disrupt US Supply Chain

Canada’s two largest railroads are starting to shut down their shipping networks as a labor dispute with the Teamsters Union threatens to cause lockouts or strikes that would disrupt cross-border trade with the US. The union represents 10,000 workers at both railroads and they seek cite crew scheduling, rail safety, and worker fatigue has their main sticking points.

Both the Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) and Canadian National (CN) railroads, which haul millions of tons of freight across the border, have stopped taking certain shipments of hazardous materials and refrigerated products. They are threatening to lock out Teamsters Canada workers starting Thursday if deals are not reached. On Tuesday, CPKC will stop all shipments that start in Canada and all shipments originating in the US that are headed for Canada. CN barred container imports from US partner railroads.

The two railroads handle about 40,000 carloads of freight each day, worth about $1 billion. Shipments of fully built automobiles and auto parts, chemicals, forestry products and agricultural goods would be hit hard, especially with harvest season looming.

Analysts expect work stoppages to last only a few days, but if they continue, there could be significant supply chain disruptions. Both railroads have extensive networks in the US, and CPKC also serves Mexico. Those operations will keep running even if there is a work stoppage.

Sources:

Lockouts at Canada’s 2 largest railroads may disrupt US supply chain (voanews.com)

Nearly 68M People Suffering from Drought in Southern Africa

About 68 million people, 17% of the population in Southern Africa, are suffering the effects of an El Nino-induced drought that has wiped out crops across the region. The drought, which started in early 2024, has hit crop and livestock production, causing food shortages and damaging the wider economies.

This is southern Africa’s worst drought in years, owing to a combination of naturally occurring El Nino — when an abnormal warming of the waters in the eastern Pacific changes world weather patterns — and higher average temperatures produced by greenhouse gas emissions.

Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi have already declared the hunger crisis a state of disaster, while Lesotho and Namibia have called for humanitarian support. Heads of state from the 16-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) were meeting in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare to discuss regional issues including food security.

Sources:

Nearly 68M suffer from drought in Southern Africa, SADC says (voanews.com)

Kiev Opens Investigation into Alleged Beheading of Dead Soldier

Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska speaks at a Russian war crimes exhibition in London (Undated image: James Manning/AP/REX/Shutterstock)

Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office is investigating an allegation that a Ukrainian soldier participating in the recent Russia incursion was beheaded. A video circulating on social media on 16 August showed a Russian soldier beside a pole with a severed head.

The Telegram channel DeepState identified the Russian soldier in the video as a member of the 155th Marine Brigade, which is deployed near the Kolotilovka checkpoint in the Belgorod region. Ukrainian forces were fighting in that area on 12 August.

Authorities in Kiev are also investigating a 18 June report that Russian troops beheaded a Ukrainian soldier in the eastern Donetsk region.

The desecration of soldiers’ bodies, including mutilation and beheadings, is a war crime.

Sources:

Kyiv Opens Investigation Into Alleged Beheading Of Dead Soldier (rferl.org)

Ukrainian Prosecutor Says Russian Troops Beheaded Ukrainian Soldier (rferl.org)

Melting Arctic Permafrost Could Release Mercury into Waters as Temperature Rise

Flowing across Alaska to the Bering Sea, the Yukon River erodes the permafrost along its banks and carries with it sediment downstream.

As our planet warms, permafrost which contains large amounts of accumulated mercury, is eroding faster and releasing this highly toxic metal into the environment.  Though the mercury released from melting permafrost doesn’t pose a toxic threat today, its impact will grow over time. Mercury gradually accumulates in the food chain, beginning with plants, fish, and animals that humans eventually consume.

Natural atmospheric circulation causes pollutants to move towards higher latitudes. This results in mercury accumulating in the Arctic where it is absorbed by plants which then die and become part of the soil. This freezes in the permafrost – where the ground stays frozen all year round – and over thousands of years, mercury concentrations build up in the soil. In this form, mercury isn’t particularly dangerous. But this toxic metal is released when the soil thaws, and the Arctic is warming four times faster than the global average. This poses a major environmental and health threat to the five million people living in the Arctic and more than three million people who live in areas where the permafrost is expected to disappear completely by 2050.

Unless mankind does something soon, the earth as we know it today won’t be the same for future generations.

Sources:

Melting Arctic permafrost could release a ‘mercury bomb’ as temperatures rise | Euronews