CIA

Heads of CIA and MI6 Issue Joint Public Call for Ceasefire in Gaza

CIA Director William Burns (L) and MI6 Chief Richard Moore (R) said their agencies had “exploited our intelligence channels to push hard for restraint and de-escalation” in the Middle East.

In an opinion piece for the Financial Times (linked below), the two spymasters said a ceasefire in Israel’s Gaza war “could end the suffering and appalling loss of life of Palestinian civilians and bring home the hostages after 11 months of hellish confinement.”

Burns has been heavily involved in efforts to broker an end to the Israeli war, travelling to Egypt in August for high-level talks aimed at bringing about a captive release deal and at least a temporary halt to the conflict.Burns said ending the war would require “some hard choices and some political compromises” from both Israel and Hamas.

The US and the UK are both staunch allies of Israel, though London diverged from Washington by suspending some arms exports to Israel because of the risk they could be used to break international law.

Burns and Moore stressed the strength of the trans-Atlantic relationship in the face of “an unprecedented array of threats,” including an assertive Russia, an ever-more powerful China, and the constant threat from international terrorism.

Nota Bene: When the two heads of Western intelligence make a public joint appeal, we should heed their good counsel. CIA and MI6 have access to a mountain of classified information A-to-Z about all the players and activities in the region derived from signals intercepts, HUMINT sources, satellite imagery, low-level informants, defectors, diplomatic cables, and simple wiretaps. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Cabinet should heed this joint communique.

Sources:

Bill Burns and Richard Moore: Intelligence partnership helps the US and UK stay ahead in an uncertain world (ft.com)

Heads of the CIA and MI6 issue joint call for a ceasefire in Gaza – War on Gaza – War on Gaza – Ahram Online

Organized Crime Increasingly Uses Commercial, Cargo Flights to Move Drugs, Arms, Gold

According to a report by risk intelligence company Osprey Flight Solutions (OFS), transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) have been increasingly using commercial and cargo flights in Latin America to move drugs, arms, and gold. OFS analyzed post-incident alerts between Feb 2021 to Feb 2024 on the seizure of illicit goods with connections to the US, Europe, and Africa.

For example, on 4 Jul Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) arrested a Chinese citizen attempting to board a flight bound for Hong Kong with 17 gold bars in coffee bags. Following his arrest, the PF found that the man was involved in another similar seizure on 8 May with a kg of gold. In 2023, Colombian antinarcotics found 1.5 tons of cocaine inside a shipment of 57 boxes containing vegetables and apples in a cargo aircraft bound for the US.

Data shows that alerts generated at Latin American airports, in warehouses, and aboard aircraft, increased by 147 percent between 2021 and 2023, with the highest numbers in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

Brazil recorded the highest number of seizures: 1,737. The incidents mainly had to do with gold and drug trafficking. According to the PF regarding drug seizures (cocaine, marijuana, skunk, ecstasy, amphetamine, and methamphetamine) at Brazilian airports, the amount jumped from 4.4 tons in 2021 to 9.8 tons in 2023, an increase of more than 120 percent.

Although the increase in alerts coincides with the return to normality of international flights, following the removal of COVID-19 travel restrictions, the data reflects greater international drug flow and demand.

Thiago Moreira de Souza Rodrigues, a security researcher from Fluminense Federal University in Rio de Janeiro says that “Global air traffic has grown a lot in the last three decades. So, surveillance, whether by radiometry, physical surveillance, dogs, in short, specialized personnel, is very complicated, always done by samples. Even if some drug shipments are seized, the volume that passes through is much greater than what is seized in the surveillance networks. In air traffic, although it is smaller and more spread out, shipments are multiplied by the large number of air routes and flows. If you take airports like the world’s major hubs, there are thousands of flights a week.”

TCOs use many methods to smuggle drugs and other illicit goods via air routes. Common tactics include placing goods in hidden compartments built into legal shipments, setting up export companies to conceal illegal shipments, corrupting airport authorities, and using smugglers who transport the goods on their flights.

“Since the golden age when drug trafficking began as a transnational economy, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, commercial air travel has always been used, and basically for the same reason, the link between airport employees on the ground, the logistical maintenance of the airport itself, the airlines, in short, the yield is so high that many people take the risk,” InSight Crime said in a report.

Mexico registered 700 alerts during the period studied, highlighting the flow of synthetic drugs via domestic flights from Culicán and Querétaro to cities on the US-Mexico border, such as Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez. Colombia, which came in third place with 488 alerts, recorded cocaine as the most common substance trafficked via air cargo through Bogotá, San Andrés Island, and on to Belgium, France, the UK, and Australia. Alerts at Colombian airports increased by 275 percent between Feb 2021 to Feb 2024.

According to the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC), only two percent of containers that travel around the world by air, sea, roads, and railways, are adequately inspected to detect contraband.

Sources:

Organized Crime Increasingly Uses Commercial, Cargo Flights to Move Drugs, Arms, Gold – Diálogo Américas (dialogo-americas.com)

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (unodc.org)

InSight Crime – Investigation and Analysis of Organized Crime

Indonesia Arrests Seven Over Pope Francis ‘Terror Threats’

A security detail of approximately 4,000 personnel, including snipers, soldiers, police and his personal security team of Swiss Guards, protected the Pope before he departed for the rest of his trip in Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore. Roads around key sites were re-routed or closed.

Indonesia arrested seven people for making online “terror threats” against Pope Francis during his visit to the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country this week. The 87-year-old pontiff made Southeast Asia’s biggest economy the first stop of an arduous Asia-Pacific tour, delivering a message of religious unity to counter extremism and intolerance.

Indonesia’s elite counter-terrorism unit Densus 88 arrested the suspects in Jakarta, West Sumatra, and Bangka. They are accused of posting statements and images online that threatened bomb attacks on the pope’s public meetings in Jakarta.

The first Jesuit pontiff’s schedule had included visits to Southeast Asia’s biggest mosque, Jakarta’s cathedral, the presidential palace, and the national football stadium.

Fortunately, no serious terrorist plots were exposed. Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an al-Qaida-linked terror group, was rendered ineffective years ago. Ji was responsible for the 2002 bombings on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people, the deadliest attacks in the country’s history.

In Papua New Guinea, a country that has struggled with tribal conflicts throughout its history, Pope Francis made a heartfelt appeal for peace. Earlier this year, 26 people were killed in a gunfight in Enga Province, a region that has been plagued by violence between tribal groups.

Sources:

Indonesia Arrests Seven Over Pope Francis ‘Terror Threats’ (hngn.com)

Pope Francis to Papua New Guinea: Protect nature, end tribal violence, embrace diversity | Catholic News Agency

Jemaah Islamiyah – Wikipedia

Missouri Reports First Confirmed Case of Avian Flu in Human; US Total Now 14

Missouri reported its first confirmed human case of bird flu in a person who reported no exposure to animals. The case brings the national total to 14 so far this year. The latest case in Missouri was in an adult with underlying medical conditions. He was hospitalized on 22 Aug and has since recovered.

“The patient has reported no exposure to animals,” the Missouri health department said. The information is preliminary and would require further investigation by health authorities.

The case of bird flu, also known as H5, was initially detected through the state’s normal influenza surveillance testing program. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also confirmed it to be a human case of the H5 subtype of flu.

Source:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/missouri-reports-first-human-case-bird-flu-in-state/story?id=113474247

Enlisted US Sailor Detained in Venezuela as Tensions Between the Two Countries Simmer

Undated photo of Venezuelan riot police detaining a protestor. Image: European Pressphoto Agency

An enlisted American sailor was detained by authorities in Venezuela and being held incommunicado. The sailor was “not authorized to travel, on official travel or approved leave” when he was detained. The State Department is working with the Venezuelan authorities to secure the sailor’s release.

The news of the sailor’s detention also comes just days after the Department of Justice announced the seizure of a private jet that was used by Venezuela’s leader, President Nicolás Maduro.

The sailor’s detention, which was first reported by CNN, seems to be the latest in a series of events that has showcased the growing tensions between the US and Venezuela. Those tensions have been building since Venezuela’s 28 July election between Maduro and Edmundo González, which officials from several countries say was stolen by Maduro.

The State Department has long warned US citizens not to travel to Venezuela, citing “a high risk of wrongful detention.”The travel warning also notes that Venezuela’s “security forces have detained US citizens for up to five years” and the US “is not generally notified of the detention of AMCITs in Venezuela or granted access to them.”

The unnamed sailor is just the latest in a string of service members to find themselves in the jail of a hostile nation after failing to heed travel warnings.

In May 2024, SSG Gordon Black was arrested in Russia and has been in prison there ever since. PVT Travis King drew international attention in July 2023 when he left a tour group and dashed across the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea, which detained him for about two months.

Source:

Enlisted US Sailor Detained in Venezuela as Tensions Between the 2 Countries Simmer | Military.com

US Egg Recall: Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Illnesses in Nine States

A salmonella outbreak linked to eggs sold in Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois has resulted in 24 hospitalizations and 65 illnesses in nine states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

The egg recall reported Friday applies to Milo’s Poultry Farms and Tony’s Fresh Market eggs including those labeled cage-free or organic.

Food recalls have reached a peak the US hasn’t approached since before the COVID-19 pandemic, an April report found. Recalled food products led to 1,100 sickened people and six dead in 2023, per the US Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.

People have been reported sick in California, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin, where most cases have been reported.

Symptoms of salmonella — including diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps — typically begin six hours to six days following infection, and most of those infected recover without treatment within a week. Children younger than five years, adults 65 years and older, and people with weakened immune systems may experience more severe illnesses that require medical treatment or hospitalization.

Sources:

Egg recall: Salmonella outbreak linked to illnesses in 9 states (axios.com)

Despite Warnings, Sarajevo Police Use Controversial Chinese-Made Body Cameras

Sarajevo police officers from the traffic unit wear Hytera body cams at a press event for the launch of the pilot program on 1 July. D/CIA William Burns recently visited Sarajevo and presumably advised his Bosnian counterpart of the perils associated with Chinese technology.

Amid a growing push for transparency, Sarajevo police have chosen to use body cameras from a controversial Chinese company that is under scrutiny in Canada and the EU and blacklisted in the US over national security concerns.

Despite those warnings, which also include charges from the US Justice Department of industrial espionage, the Sarajevo Canton’s Interior Ministry decided to purchase 200 police body cams in 2023 from Hytera, a partially state-owned Chinese manufacturer, for a pilot program launched on 1 July.

This local-level episode comes amid an evolving conversation across Europe over the use of Chinese telecommunications equipment in government programs. While the US has been the strictest — banning surveillance cameras and other equipment made by Chinese giants like Huawei, ZTE, Dahua, and Hikvision — European governments like Britain, Germany, France, and the Baltic states are also updating their procurement systems amid growing probes into security risks caused by Chinese firms.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere across the Balkans, budget-conscious governments have increasingly turned to affordable Chinese equipment with little public debate about the potential security implications.

In the case of the 200,000-euro ($222,000) sale of the police body cams — small video cameras worn by an officer to record arrests and provide evidence from crime scenes — Sarajevo Canton Interior Minister Admir Katica has not said publicly that the equipment is made by Hytera or that the company has been blacklisted in the US and is under increased scrutiny.

Unidentified Chinese military computer installation. Source: “Chinese Hackers Persist in Attacking US Networks” by Bill Gertz, 2 Oct 2012. Chinese intelligence services, including the MSS, have the manpower and computers to conduct massive worldwide surveillance and hack Western networks.

Sources:

Sarajevo Police Use Controversial Chinese-Made Body Cams, Despite Warnings (rferl.org)

https://www.fcc.gov/supplychain/coveredlist

American Warzone: Junior Sailor Fatally Shot in San Diego; Multiple People Shot Near Lexington, KY

18-year-old sailor Albert Lee Soto died Saturday after being shot in San Diego, according to the US Navy and police. He was assigned to the destroyer Pinckney. Police received reports at 12:49 a.m. of shots fired in San Diego’s East Village neighborhood, and a responding officer found Soto suffering from at least one gunshot wound. After CPR was administered at the scene, Soto was transported to a local hospital and died from his wounds shortly after.

Soto was involved in an altercation with a group of men inside a nearby nightclub before the shooting, but detectives have not confirmed whether the two incidents involving the sailor are related. The suspects in Soto’s shooting are described as four Black males wearing dark clothing who were last seen running eastbound on F Street.

Individuals with pertinent information are urged to contact the San Diego Police Department Homicide Unit at (619) 531-2293 or Crime Stoppers at (888) 580-8477.

To the east, a manhunt is underway for 32-year-old Joseph A. Couch, suspected in shooting at least five people along Interstate 75 in a rural area south of Lexington, KY. All the victims are in stable condition. The Kentucky State Police urged people to stay indoors as the suspect is “armed and dangerous.”

Joseph A. Couch is “armed and dangerous.” (Imagery: NBC News)

State Firearms Data:

Kentucky: 108,833 firearms licenses reported; 54.6% of adults have firearms at home. In average year, 728 people die and 1,036 are wounded by guns in the Bluegrass State.

California: 406,360 firearms licenses reported; an estimated 28.3% of adults have guns in their homes. In an average year, 3,299 people die by guns in the Golden State.

EveryStat – EveryStat.org

Junior sailor fatally shot in San Diego (militarytimes.com)

Multiple people shot near Kentucky highway, ‘armed and dangerous’ person of interest ID’d (nbcnews.com)

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear says a shooting has occurred on Interstate 75 – Washington Times

4. California – Gun map: Ownership by state – statistics and rates (cbsnews.com)

British Four-Year-Old Heroine Uses Amazon Alexa to Save Mom During Epileptic Fit‌ ‌

Lyla Leathem with a trophy and certificate for helping her mother. (LEAH BIGGS VIA SWNS)

When her mother suffered an epileptic seizure on 25 Aug, quick-thinking Lyla Leathem ran upstairs and asked Alexa to call her great-grandmother after she was unable to unlock her mother’s phone. Lyla explained to her great-grandmother that her mother had “a big fit” in the night and bitten her tongue. Lyla’s great-grandmother then rushed over from her home and helped stay-at-home mother Leah Leathem. She was treated at her home and recovered.

Family members had previously shown Lyla how to use Alexa for phone calls as her mom often suffers from nocturnal seizures which can be “life-threatening.” But they had no idea the youngster had listened – until she was called into action.

Proud Leah Leathem with quick-thinking Lyla. (LEAH BIGGS VIA SWNS)

Sources:

4-Year-Old Hero Uses Amazon Alexa To Save Mom During Epileptic Fit‌ ‌ – MEA Magazine

At Least 51 Killed, 219 injured in Russian Missile Strike in Central Ukraine

An Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile launcher. Russian forces have been firing such missiles from mobile launchers across the border into Ukraine. (Credit: Maxim Shipenkov/EPA, via Shutterstock)

At least 51 people were killed and 219 were injured on 3 Sep in one of Russia’s deadliest attacks in a single strike since its all-out invasion of Ukraine. Two missiles struck a building of the Military Communications Institute in a morning attack on the city of Poltava in central Ukraine.

The victims didn’t have time to evacuate to a bomb shelter after hearing the air-raid alert. 15 people may still be under the rubble as search teams were continuing to work at the scene.

The Prosecutor-General’s Office announced that it launched an inquiry after President Zelensky ordered a “full and prompt investigation” into what happened.

The attack is believed to be the deadliest single strike since May 2022 when 87 soldiers were killed at a military training center in the northern Cherniv region. Ukraine’s defense readiness came under scrutiny after the strike on Poltava, and some observers questioned why a large number of people were left vulnerable to a single attack.

Vladislav Seleznev, a Ukrainian military analyst and former spokesman for the General Staff of the Ukrainian military, said Ukraine can blame the Kremlin for the strike on Poltava, but there must also be a clear understanding of Kiev’s responsibility.

President Zelensky had previously requested 25 Patriot air defense systems to fully defend its airspace and protect the entire country from Russian missile attacks.

Sources:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-strikes-poltava/33105117.html

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskyy-27ea21c05a2fc336ac4fdbbce31b77bc

Former Aide to New York Governors Charged with Acting as Agent of Chinese Government

Undated image of Linda Sun.

A former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo was charged with acting as an agent for the Chinese government.

Linda Sun, a former deputy chief of staff to Hochul and a Cuomo aide, was charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registrations Act, visa fraud, alien smuggling, and money laundering, according to an unsealed copy of the indictment.

Her husband and co-defendant, Chris Hu, was also charged with conspiracy to launder money and commit bank fraud as well as misusing means of identification.

Sun acted as “an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government while her husband, Hu, facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars in kickbacks for personal gain.”

Prosecutors allege Sun blocked Taiwanese diplomacy and ensured then-Governor Andrew Cuomo praised China for help during the Covid-19 emergency. The defendants used shell companies, iCloud accounts and WeChat messages – with everything in Mandarin – in their alleged crimes.

Sun and Hu were arrested at their palatial Long Island residence and both pleaded not guilty to all charges in federal court Tuesday afternoon. Sun’s bond is set at $1.5 million and her husband’s is set at $500,000. Both will have their travel limited to NYC, Long Island, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is scheduled to testify at a Congressional hearing on 10 Sep regarding his response to the Covid-19 response.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Former High-Ranking New York State Government Employee Charged with Acting as an Undisclosed Agent of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party | United States Department of Justice

BREAKING: Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to Testify at Public Hearing on September 10 – United States House Committee on Oversight and Accountability

American Warzone: Man Kills Four People on Train Near Chicago

Rhanni S. Davis (30) of Chicago was charged with four counts of first-degree murder after he allegedly killed four people on a Chicago Transit Authority train in Forest Park, Illinois, early Monday.

The Forest Park Police Department received a 911 call about three people shot on a westbound train at the CTA Blue Line station in Forest Park, just west of Chicago, around 5:30 a.m. local time.

Authorities cleared the station, finding four victims. Three were pronounced dead at the scene and the fourth died later in a hospital.

Law-enforcement agencies used video surveillance to help identify the alleged murderer. The suspect was taken into custody and a firearm was recovered. The shooting appears to have been an isolated incident with no immediate additional threat to the community.

In an average year in Illinois, 1,657 people die and 4,994 are wounded by guns.

With a rate of 13.2 deaths per 100,000 people, the Land of Lincoln has the 35th-highest rate of gun deaths in the US.

Sources:

Man charged in fatal shooting of 4 people on train near Chicago – ABC News

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

US Justice Dept Indicts Hamas with One Hand; US State Dept Negotiates with Hamas with Other

Demonstrators in Tel Aviv, Israel, hold placards showing support for hostages who were kidnapped during the 7 Oct 2023 attack.

The Justice Department announced criminal charges against Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other senior militants in connection with the 7 Oct 2023 rampage in Israel, marking the first effort by US law enforcement to formally call out the masterminds of the attack.

The seven-count criminal complaint filed in federal court in NYC includes charges of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to murder US nationals, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, resulting in death. It also accuses Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah of providing financial support and weapons, including rockets, that were used in the attack.

The charges come as the White House says it is developing a new cease-fire and hostage deal proposal with its Egyptian and Qatari counterparts to try to bring about an agreement between Israel and Hamas to end the nearly 11-month war in Gaza. A US official, who was not authorized to talk publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was no reason to believe the charges would affect the ongoing negotiations.

A State Department spokesman said that reaching a cease-fire and release of the 100 or so remaining hostages “will require both sides to show flexibility. It will require that both sides look for reasons to get to yes rather than reasons to say no.”

The full unsealed complaint is linked below.

A criminal complaint is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

The fabled Pushmi-Pullyu from the Dr. Dolittle canon.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Announces Terrorism Charges Against Senior Leaders of Hamas | United States Department of Justice

dl (justice.gov)

US charges Hamas leader, other militants in Oct. 7 attack on Israel (voanews.com)

US issues new call for Israel, Hamas to reach cease-fire pact (voanews.com)

Canada Turning Away More Foreigners Amid Rise in Anti-Immigration Sentiment

At a 2020 rally, protesters called on the federal government to grant permanent status to all refugees across Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. (Michael Charles Cole/CBC)

Canada is taking steps, both official and unofficial, to curb the number of people coming to the country, highlighting the way in which immigration has become a political flashpoint ahead of a federal election.

The ratio of refused visitor visa applications to approved ones was higher in recent months than at any point since the height of the Covid pandemic. Immigration officials rejected more applications than they approved in January, February, May, and June 2024. At the same time, the number of approved study and work permits dropped. And in July, Canada refused entry to nearly 6,000 foreign travelers, including students, workers and tourists – the most since at least January 2019.

Recent polling has shown a sharp change in how Canadians perceive of immigration, amid a mounting cost of living crisis. One immigration lawyer in Nova Scotia said his firm has seen an increase in rejections – and mounting hostility towards the firm’s clients. The sudden growth of the Canadian population stressed the affordable housing and medical care infrastructure.

The immigration minister said he would reassess the number of people applying for permanent residency. PM Justin Trudeau added his government would scale back the controversial temporary foreign workers following a surge in applications. The program was recently condemned by a UN special rapporteur for being a “breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery”.

The prime minister also mentioned reducing the number of permanent residents Canada accepts each year, dramatically upending years of increased immigration levels under his tenure. In late 2023, the federal government said it would freeze permanent resident targets over the next three years to ensure inflows were “sustainable”. Ottawa intends to bring in 485,000 permanent residents in 2024, but only 500,000 in both 2025 and 2026.

Sources:

Canada turning away more foreigners amid rise in anti-immigration sentiment | Canada | The Guardian

UN envoy calls Canada’s use of migrant workers ‘breeding ground for slavery’

Read more

Russia Orders French Researcher Accused of Spying Held for Six More Months

French researcher Laurent Vinatier during a court hearing in Moscow, Russia, on 31 July 2024. © Yulia Morozova/Reuters

A court in Moscow on Tuesday ordered a French researcher to remain in jail until at least February 2025, on the first day of his trial for unlawfully collecting sensitive data. Laurent Vinatier was arrested in June for gathering information on Russia’s military without being registered as a “foreign agent”.

The 48-year-old French national has been charged with collecting information on Russia’s “military and military-technical activities” and he faces up to five years in prison if convicted. After he was first arrested, he admitted to the charge of not having registered as a foreign agent, saying he did not know that he was legally required to do so. Vinatier has been held in pre-trial detention since June, despite several requests to be placed under house arrest.

Vinatier is a specialist on the former Soviet Union and worked with the Swiss NGO Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD), which helps to mediate conflicts outside of standard diplomatic channels. He was reportedly working on mediation efforts in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

His detention has increased tensions between Moscow and Paris, already strained since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and France’s subsequent support of Kiev. Arrests on charges of spying and collecting sensitive data have become increasingly frequent in Russia since the start of the war.

After the biggest post-Cold War prisoner exchange between Russia and the West in early August, which did not include Vinatier, France called on Moscow to free all people “arbitrarily detained in Russia.”

Source:

Russia orders French researcher accused of spying held for six more months (rfi.fr)

Indigenous Mothers Fight to Search Former CIA Experiment Site in Montreal, Quebec

Anthropologist Philippe Blouin poses with Mohawk mothers Kahentinetha and Kwetiio at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal. (Image: Alexis Aubin/AFP)

Between 1957 and 1964 (though possibly beginning as early as 1948), psychiatric experiments were conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, a psychiatric teaching hospital affiliated with McGill University. Scottish-American psychiatrist Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron led and conducted these experiments which exposed patients to electroshocks, hallucinogenic drugs, and sensory deprivation. The program is widely believed to have been partly funded by the US CIA as part of their top-secret MKULTRA program, as well as the Canadian government.

Today, a group of Indigenous women are trying to stop the bulldozers at a former Montreal hospital which they believe could hold the truth about children still missing from that grisly half-century-old CIA experiment. They have spent the last two years trying to delay the construction project by McGill University and the Quebec government.

The mothers are relying on archives and testimonies that suggest the site contains unmarked graves of children formerly interned at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Allan Memorial Institute, a neighboring psychiatric hospital.

In the fall of 2022, these activists obtained an injunction to suspend work on a new university campus and research center at the site — a project worth Can$870 million (US$643 million).

In recent years, Canada has opened its eyes to past atrocities. Generations of Indigenous children were sent to residential schools where they were stripped of their language, culture, and identities in what a 2015 truth and reconciliation report said amounted to “cultural genocide.”

Between 1831 and 1996, some 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their homes and placed in 139 such schools. Several thousand never returned to their communities.

In May 2021, the discovery of unmarked graves of 215 children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia started a national reflection on this dark chapter of Canadian history, while sparking searches for more graves across Canada.

“It was not only residential schools, it involved hospitals, sanatoriums, churches, and orphanages too,” said Kwetiio (pictured above).

Last summer, sniffer dogs and specialized probes were brought in to search the hospital’s expansive and dilapidated buildings. They managed to identify three areas of interest for excavations. But, according to McGill and the government’s Societe Quebecoise des Infrastructure (SQI), “no human remains have been discovered.”

The Indigenous activists were not satisfied with the search and want another investigation conducted by a party unaffiliated with the government or the university.  

Sources:

Montreal MKULTRA Experiments | The Canadian Encyclopedia

Indigenous mothers fight to search CIA experiment site in Montreal – Raw Story

‘The American People Deserve to Know’: Dems Demand Answers from Trump on $10M Egypt Donation

Donald Trump with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah-el-Sisi on 23 Sep 2019.

On top of his stumbling campaign, Neanderthalic VP running mate JD Vance, imminent due dates for criminal and civil liabilities, and hideous, incoherent speeches, ex-President Donald Trump has another headache to deal with. On 2 Aug, Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. David reported that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi “sought to give” Donald Trump “$10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign.” The journalists also noted that in January 2017 — five days before Trump was sworn in as president — almost $10 million was withdrawn from a bank in Cairo.

A month after that article was published, Leonnig and David report that the top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) — have sent a letter asking Trump “if he ever illegally received money from the government of Egypt, and whether money from Cairo played a role in a $10 million infusion into his 2016 run for president.”

“As members of the House minority,” Leonnig and David explain, “Raskin and Garcia do not have the power to subpoena documents or witnesses, and Trump is under no obligation to respond to their inquiries. But the Democrats said the public deserves answers now that Trump is running for president again.”

Should Donald Trump elect to answer the inquiry (the entire six-page letter is linked below), his legal team would advise him to answer truthfully. Making false statements (18 U.S.C. § 1001) in “any matter within the jurisdiction” of the federal government of the US, is punishable up to five imprisonment as well as a fine. This law generally prohibits knowingly and willfully making false or fraudulent statements, or concealing information, even by merely denying guilt when asked by a federal agent. One of the charges George Santos pleaded guilty to was making false statements to the House of Representatives.

Sources:

Copy of the official six-page letter to ex-President Donald Trump: 2024-09-03.JBR to DJTrump re. Egypt.pdf (house.gov)

‘The American people deserve to know’: Dems demand answers from Trump on $10M Egypt donation – Alternet.org

What Are the Penalties for Lying to Congress? – FindLaw

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-congressman-george-santos-pleads-guilty-fraud-and-identity-theft

Norway’s Forests Have More Than Tripled in One Hundred Years

Norwegian forest development since 1919. Forest volume has more than tripled (dark blue); logging has long been fairly steady (yellow); forest growth (red) has decreased in recent years. (2024 Data and graphic: Landskogtakseringen/NIBIO).

In good news for the world, Norway has tripled its forest volume over the past 100 years to one billion cubic meters of forest; ten percent grew in the last ten years alone. These forests valuably convert the world’s carbon dioxide to oxygen. In 2023, approximately 18 million tons of CO2 (and greenhouse gasses) were absorbed by Norwegian forests.

Several factors account for this phenomenal growth. In the 1960s, schoolchildren planted almost 100 million spruce trees in Norway. Another factor has been higher temperatures and longer summers, as well as increased amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Jane Goodall believes that planting one trillion trees before 2030 can reverse global climate change. See how this can be accomplished here: A platform for the trillion trees community. | 1t.org.

Sources:

Statistics Norway: “Standing forest volume has passed 1 billion cubic meters”, 30 Aug 2024

NIBIO: “Major changes in The development trend for Norwegian spruce forests”, 6 Feb 2024

Energy and climate: “What is it that is happening to our forest?”, 21 May 2024

Why We Believe Planting 1 Trillion Trees Can Save the Planet | TIME

Our forest has more than tripled in a hundred years (forskning.no)

Florida Man Sentenced to Prison for Felonious Actions During 6 Jan Capitol Attack

Richard Cook (38) of Boca Raton, FL, was sentenced to 18 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution. He was convicted on 10 May 2024 of felony and misdemeanor offenses related to his conduct during the 6 Jan 2021 breach of the US Capitol.

Cook joined a mob that relentlessly attacked USCP officers in one of the most violent areas of the Capitol riot – the Lower West Terrace Tunnel. The defendant entered the Tunnel on two occasions to join a collective push against police officers as the seditionists tried to gain access to the Capitol building. While Richard Cook joined in collective pushes, one USCP officer screamed in pain as the weight of the rioters’ pushes pinned him between a shield and a door. The FBI arrested Cook on 9 March 2023 in Florida.

USCP officers might be upset with this fairly light sentence as there has been an unevenness across the US judiciary towards the punishments of these insurrection defendants. Part of the problem lies in what charges were initially specified against the suspects, what the Justice Dept could prove in court, and plea agreements. Also, some defendants may have cooperated against fellow conspirators, reducing their sentence.  

In the 43 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,488 seditionists have been charged in nearly all 50 states for attacking the US Capitol, including nearly 550 suspects charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement personnel. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.

Source:

District of Columbia | Florida Man Sentenced to Prison on Felony and Misdemeanor Charges for Actions During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-capitol-riot-obstruction-2cdba47baa5cea8177d651de751760a6

CIA: Plot to Attack Taylor Swift’s Vienna Concerts Intended to Kill Thousands

Undated image of Taylor Swift.

The suspects in the foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Vienna earlier this month sought to kill “tens of thousands” of fans before the CIA discovered intelligence that disrupted the planning and led to arrests. The CIA notified Austrian authorities of the plot, which allegedly included links to the Islamic State (IS).

A 19-year-old Austrian man, inspired by the Islamic State, allegedly planned to attack outside the stadium, where over 30,000 fans were expected to gather, with knives or homemade explosives. Another 65,000 fans were likely to be inside the venue. Investigators discovered chemical substances and technical devices during a raid of the suspect’s home. The intelligence and subsequent arrests ultimately led to the cancellation of three sold-out Eras Tour shows. Three suspects are in custody whose names have not been released because of Austrian privacy rules.

CIA Deputy Director David Cohen publicly addressed the failed plot during the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit this week in Maryland.

The Vienna plot drew comparisons to a 2017 attack by a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, that killed 22 people. The bomb detonated at the end of Grande’s concert as thousands of young fans were leaving, becoming the deadliest extremist attack in the UK in recent years.

Source:

Plot to attack Taylor Swift’s Vienna shows was intended to kill thousands, CIA official says (voanews.com)


Reports: F-16 Crashed in Ukraine

Ukrainian Air Force F-16 fighter jets fly in an undisclosed location over Ukraine. A single Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jet costs approximately $63 million, while the cost of training a basic qualified F-16 fighter pilot could be as high as $5.6 million.

A Ukrainian F-16 fighter jet was reportedly destroyed in a crash on 26 Aug, according to a US official quoted by The Wall Street Journal. The incident occurred during a massive Russian missile barrage across the country. But initial reports indicate the jet wasn’t shot down by enemy fire, but the jet likely went down as a result of pilot error. The Ukrainian Air Force wouldn’t confirm the crash or the status of the pilot. The crash occurred just weeks after the first F-16s arrived in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said F-16s were recently used for the first time in combat to shoot down Russian missiles.

Meanwhile, Ukraine used domestically-manufactured drones to strike both deep and near Russian targets. A strategic oil facility 900 miles inside Russia was struck, as well as field artillery infrastructure 35 miles from the Ukrainian border. The Ukrainian military is conducting damage assessments.

Sources:

Reports: F-16 Crashed In Ukraine Earlier This Week (rferl.org)

Top 10 most expensive fighter jets in 2024 (aerotime.aero)

Ukraine launches drone strikes targeting Russia’s strategic oil infrastructure – UPI.com

Six More Deaths Reported in Multistate Listeria Outbreak Linked to Boar’s Head Deli Meat


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported six additional deaths in connection with a multistate listeria outbreak traced to Boar’s Head deli meat. This brings the total number of fatalities to nine, with over a dozen others sickened.

Since the outbreak began, 57 people have been hospitalized across 18 states, making it the largest listeriosis outbreak since 2011, when more than 30 people died from contaminated cantaloupe. On 25 July, Boar’s Head issued a recall of its Strassburger Brand Liverwurst, produced at its Jarratt, VA facility, after concerns arose about contamination with the bacterium Listeria monocytogenes. The recall was later expanded to include seven million pounds of meat—every item produced at the facility.

The deaths have been reported in Florida, Tennessee, New Mexico, South Carolina, Illinois, New Jersey, and Virginia. The affected victims range in age from 32 to 94, with a median age of 77.

Listeria is a hardy germ that can remain on surfaces, like meat slicers, and foods, even at refrigerated temperatures. It can also take up to 10 weeks for some people to have symptoms of listeriosis. Do not eat recalled deli meats. Some of the products have sell by dates into October 2024.

Source:

Listeria Outbreak Linked to Meats Sliced at Delis | Listeria Infection | CDC

Russian Agitprop Stoking Right-Wing Canadians; South Asians and Sikhs Targeted with Anti-Immigrant Hate

These proud and somber Sikhs represent several branches of the Canadian Armed Forces, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); one of them seems to be entitled to wear the kilt. (Undated public domain imagery taken at a memorial service).

Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly announced new sanctions against Russia as a counter to the Kremlin’s disinformation activities aimed at Canada.

Ukraine and the West have long been a target of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaigns. Since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia has used a variety of information warfare tactics to destabilize the Ukrainian government and undermine the legitimacy of democratic governments around the world.

Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) has raised concerns about Russian online state-sponsored disinformation campaigns aimed at distorting Canada’s effort to help Ukraine defend itself. The most prevalent claim was “Ukrainian nationalism is a neo-Nazi movement,” a false narrative that has long been debunked by numerous fact-checkers. The Kremlin also actively spread the unsubstantiated claim that chemical and biological weapons are being covertly developed in Ukraine.

These Kremlin agitprop tactics are also incubating hatred towards South Asian and Sikh communities. Far-right Canadian influencers like Jeremy Mackenzie or Tommy Robinson have ramped up attacks against Canadians of South Asian origin – particularly Sikhs – telling them to “go back to their country,” while blaming immigrants for societal ills, like unemployment or lack of affordable housing. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network reports there has been a visible increase in content targeting of South Asians in Canada.

A hate crime was reported to police in Peterborough, Ontario on 26 July 26 after a Sikh man alleged he was spat on and “had his turban knocked off and stepped on.” Other incidents were recently outlined by the World Sikh Organization (WSO) in a press release, including another victim who was allegedly attacked had his turban removed and stolen in Scarborough, Ontario, and another man in Sudbury, Ontario, who was attacked and threatened to be run over for wearing a kirpan, a Sikh article of faith.

The WSO stated they are “deeply troubled by recent hate attacks on Sikhs” and an “alarming rise in online harassment of Sikhs across Canada” in recent months.

White supremacist group Diagolon, led by Jeremy Mackenzie, shared a post calling for “first world countries…to quarantine India,” otherwise Indians will “colonize every first world country” and called for the “deportation of all Indians.”

 “They have to go back” is a phrase which advocates for the deportation of Indian immigrants en masse from Canada, is reminiscent of a trend gaining popularity in Europe called “remigration,” which argues for ethnically cleansing the continent of non-Europeans through forced deportations.

Growing anti-immigrant sentiments and racism took a violent turn in the UK this summer with rioters carrying out mayhem and attacks targeting immigrants and asylum seekers after far-right figures in the UK spread false information about the race of a suspect in an attack in northern England.

Sources:

Russian propaganda is making inroads with right-wing Canadians (theconversation.com)

Canada’s Far-Right is Targeting South Asian and Sikh Canadians to Incite Anti-Immigrant Hate (pressprogress.ca)

‘She Can Go to Hell!’ JD Vance Lashes Out at Kamala Harris Amid Trump Arlington Cemetery Scandal

The Trump campaign continues to stumble from one pratfall to another. Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), who publicly bragged that he yelled at his seven-year-old son to “Shut the hell up about Pokemon!” has now viciously lashed out at Vice President Kamala Harris during a Wednesday rally speech in response to media scrutiny over the Trump campaign’s possibly unlawful photo event at Arlington National Cemetery. This scandal may also damage House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) who allegedly intervened to allow Trump to attend the private Gold Star family commemoration.

In particular, JD Vance sought to blame Kamala Harris for the deaths of soldiers during the 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan. This comes after Vance, himself a Marine veteran who served as a military correspondent, already tried to deflect to that topic, and accidentally mixed up “Abbey Gate”, the location where a suicide bomber killed US personnel at Kabul Airport, with “Abbey Road”, a London street popularized by the Beatles half a century ago.

“The other thing our veterans care a lot more about is that three years ago, 13 brave, innocent Americans died, and they died because Kamala Harris refused to do her job, and there hasn’t been a single investigation, or a single firing,” the junior Senator from Ohio said.

“Look, sometimes mistakes happen, that’s just the nature of government, the nature of military service. But to have those 13 Americans lose their lives, and not fire a single person is disgraceful. Kamala Harris is disgraceful. You want to tell a story about those 13 Americans who lost their lives, it’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up? She can go to hell!” Vance ranted.

Sadly for Senator JD Vance, a Yale Law School graduate, a DoD investigation into the attack was completed under the Biden Administration while Kamala Harris was Vice-President. See link below.

This crass and baseless innuendo comes after Vance had an awkward month on the campaign trail, ranging from an ill-advised bakery photo-op to the emergence of more comments he made attacking childless women.

Watch the video below or at the link here.

The Trump Campaign strategy of demonizing and smearing their opponents with slander may appeal to their hardcore base, but will not convince critical undecided voters this November. Women have already been turned off by JD Vance’s misogynist hillbilly rhetoric.

All the Republicans seem to offer the American voter is hate and vitriol. The GOP campaign seems to have no platform to help hard-working Americans improve their lives. Neither ex-President Trump nor JD Vance seem willing to discuss the Heritage Foundation brainchild, Project 2025, a plan the Washington Post described will “infuse Christian nationalism into every facet of government policy;” put another way, a Christian Talibanization of America. After the radically-right SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, why would Americans want more such extremist measures foisted upon them?

Sources:

‘She can go to hell!’ J.D. Vance lashes out at Kamala Harris amid Arlington Cemetery furor – Raw Story

Watch: J.D. Vance flubs name of location where U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan – Raw Story

Arlington tried preventing Trump from attending ceremony: Report (americanmilitarynews.com)

Project 2025 – Wikipedia

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3741245/kabul-airport-attack-review-reaffirms-initial-findings-identifies-attacker/

FAA Grounds SpaceX Falcon 9 After First-Stage Booster Incident

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket returns to Landing Zone 1 after launching the Northrop Grumman Cygnus spacecraft for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center, FL, on Sunday, August 4, 2024. The FAA grounded the Falcon 9 rockets after a stage 1 booster crashed into a barge while returning to Earth. Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo

The Federal Aviation Administration FAA grounded SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rockets as it investigates why one of its first-stage boosters crashed onto a landing barge in the Atlantic Ocean, bringing a screeching halt to the company’s robust launch schedule.

The return of the first-stage booster safely to Earth went awry Wednesday morning after separating from the second stage. A second SpaceX flight scheduled to liftoff from California was paused after the incident. So was the expected launching of the all-civilian Polaris Dawn. The delay postponed what was expected to be the first civilian spacewalk.

No one was hurt in the incident and the second stage of the Falcon 9 rocket delivered the satellites into orbit as expected. According to the FAA, SpaceX could be cleared to fly again with an ongoing investigation under certain conditions.

Sources:

FAA grounds SpaceX after Falcon 9 booster topples on landing : NPR

https://www.fly.faa.gov/adv/advAdvisoryForm.jsp

Orange Lobster Returned to Sea After Arrival at Long Island, NY Store

An ultra-rare orange lobster that arrived in a shipment at a store on New York’s Long Island was released back into the Long Island Sound. Photo courtesy of Humane Long Island/Facebook

FTA: An extremely rare orange lobster that arrived in a shipment at a New York store was released back into the wild by an animal advocacy group.

Humane Long Island said on social media that workers at Southampton Stop & Shop found the orange lobster among the standard brown lobsters that arrived in a recent shipment. The store offered the crustacean to the Long Island Aquarium, but the facility declined.

The Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation learned about Pinky’s situation and contacted Humane Long Island, which reached out to management at Stop & Shop. The lobster, now named Clementine, underwent rehabilitation under the supervision of a veterinarian before being released back into the Long Island Sound.

Orange coloration is believed to occur in only one out of every 30 million lobsters. Peaches, an orange lobster being studied by researchers at the University of New England, recently hatched a clutch of 100 eggs, and some of the babies share their mother’s unusual pigment.

Source:

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2024/08/29/orange-lobster-Humane-Long-Island/3841724963291/

CIA Director Makes Stop in Kosovo as Part of Unannounced Visit to Balkan Region

CIA Director William Burns enters the building of the Kosovar presidency on 22 August.

CIA Director William Burns arrived in Kosovo after stops earlier this week in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia on an unannounced trip amid concerns about US relations with Kosovo and Russian influence in the Balkans.

Burns traveled from Sarajevo to Belgrade, Bulgaria, and North Macedonia before arriving in Kosovo. According to the flight-tracking website Flightradar24, a US military plane believed to be used to fly the CIA chief made stops in those countries. On 22 August, the aircraft was seen parked at the VIP gate at Pristina’s international airport.

D/CIA Burns’ visit to Kosovo follows concerns about the partnership between the US and Kosovo, especially regarding the government’s handling of issues related to the country’s Serb minority.

Since 2001, the US has provided Kosovo with $97,830,378 in foreign assistance.

Sources:

CIA Chief Makes Stop In Kosovo As Part Of Unannounced Visit To Balkan Region (rferl.org)

U.S. Foreign Assistance by Country

Mass Bomb Threat E-Mailed to Dozens of Jewish Institutions Across Canada

Canada’s oldest synagogue Temple Emmanu-el, c1900 (Photo: Courtesy of Congregation Emanu-El, Victoria, BC)

Multiple synagogues, Jewish community centers, and hospitals in Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa were targeted with an emailed bomb threat early Wednesday morning. In response to the threat, Toronto Police evacuated buildings near an intersection in a heavily Jewish neighborhood.

A Jewish organization reported the threat was not credible, though it is still being investigated by Toronto, Montreal, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). This incident comes just a few months after shots were fired at a Chabad-Lubavitch girls’ school in Toronto. Soon afterward, a synagogue in Vancouver was attacked. In November, shots were fired at two Orthodox Jewish day schools in Montreal. No injuries were reported in any of the attacks.

A representative from the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs stated “all indications point to these threats being nuisance emails designed to disrupt lives. There is no imminent threat.”

Likud Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, a man indicted as a war criminal by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and his policies towards the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip is stoking antisemitism worldwide. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed since October 2023. The US Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reported that 190 of the 312 antisemitic incidents from 7 Oct 2023 to 23 Oct 2023 were directly linked to the war in Israel and Gaza.

Sources:

Mass bomb threat sent to dozens of Jewish institutions across Canada – Jewish Telegraphic Agency (jta.org)

How the Gaza crisis is stoking antisemitism across the U.S. (nbcnews.com)

ICC statement on arrest warrants of Israeli and Hamas leaders (bbc.com)

Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential – The Lancet

More Americans Unwilling to Die for Other Countries

“It is time to end the forever war,” President Biden said in 2021, when he ordered the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.

A July poll shows that a majority of the American public does not support sending US soldiers to defend Taiwan or Ukraine, suggesting that Americans appear to be warming to restraint and non-interventionism in international affairs.

Another poll found that a majority of Americans (56%) do not believe that the US should pick a side in Israel’s war on Gaza. Another recent survey found that just 4 in 10 support the US sending soldiers to defend Israel if attacked by its neighbors.

Notably, the US recently deployed two aircraft carrier groups and a nuclear-powered submarine armed with 154 Tomahawk missiles to the Middle East. Israel is expecting an Iranian counterattack for its continuous airstrikes on Shia targets in Lebanon and Syria, as well as the 31 July assassination of Palestinian resistance leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

After the 11 Sep attacks against the US in 2001, the media helped to normalize the idea of deposing Saddam Hussein. By January 2002, 73% of the American public supported the use of force in Iraq, believing the Bush administration falsehoods about WMDs in Saddam’s hands. After years of hindsight, only 32% of Americans considered the Iraq War the right thing to do according to a 2024 survey.

Sources:

More Americans Unwilling to Die for Other Countries – Truthdig

https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/2-us-carrier-strike-groups-in-middle-east-send-very-powerful-deterrence-message-to-iran-pentagon-3689711

American Drug Firms Accused of Unethical Clinical Trials in Uyghur Region of China

Since 2017, the Chinese government has been operating a vast detention and “sinicization” program, focused on eliminating Uyghur life and culture.

American pharmaceutical companies are carrying out drug trials in China’s far-western Xinjiang region, where the US says a genocide of the Uyghur population is taking place. In a letter to the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), the two top lawmakers on the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party requested an explanation of the practice, which they said is recorded in “hundreds” of entries on the FDA website “clinicaltrials.gov.”

In the letter, Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) questioned “the ethics of conducting these trials in Xinjiang,” where they said Chinese officials “force ethnic minorities … to participate in gruesome medical procedures, which likely overlap with FDA-approved research.”

Given that China does not allow independent evaluators to examine facilities in Xinjiang for rights violations, there was reason to query if Uyghurs were being forced to undergo medical testing. The involvement of China’s People’s Liberation Army, they added, also raised “serious concerns” that the intellectual property of U.S.-based companies had been compromised and “co-opted” by Chinese firms.

Even precious metals have not been untouched, with a report last year accusing US brands of links to gold being mined through slavery.

In 2021, the US government declared that a genocide was taking place against the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority in China, after years of mounting evidence about mass internment camps, torture, forced labor and forced sterilization taking place in Xinjiang.

Sources:

American drug firms accused of clinical trials in Uyghur region — Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

Home | ClinicalTrials.gov

https://www.glanlaw.org/copy-of-uyghur-forced-labour

INTERVIEW: ‘There’s exposure across Wall Street’

Report: US brands linked to Uyghur-mined gold

US imported cars tied to Uyghur slave labor, Senate report says

Vladimir Putin Humiliated as Hackers Take Over Russian State TV

Getty/X

Hackers from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) broke into servers of several Russian television channels and broadcasted “objective videos about the war in Ukraine.” HUR‘s footage was displayed three times on prime-time TV channels: Pervouralsk TV, Eurasia 360, Eurasia Pervyi Kanal, and others.

The targeted channels further reportedly included Lugansk 24, Pervyi Respublikanskyi, SpB, Oplot, TV-3, and Pervyi Rosiyskyi. Some of the channels belong to Russian oligarch Andrey Komarov. The nine channels had to suspend their broadcasting as a result of the hack.

The TV company Pervouralsk issued an apology on the VKontakte social network, saying that unspecified “attackers gained access to the live broadcast and launched unauthorized video materials that contradict the TV channel’s policy.”

This comes on the heels of Ukraine’s successful offensive into Russia and the largest drone attack against Moscow to date.

Source:

Ukrainian hackers show war footage on Russian TV, source says (kyivindependent.com)

Haiti: Suspect in Killings of US Missionary Couple and Nonprofit Director Arrested

A funeral procession for mission director Judes Montis, killed by gangs alongside two of his US missionary members, makes its way to the cemetery in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 28 May 2024. (Imagery: Odelyn Joseph / AP)

Police in Haiti have arrested a suspect in the fatal shooting of a US missionary couple and a Haitian man who headed a nonprofit organization in May. The 23 May murders of missionaries Davy Lloyd and his wife, Natalie Lloyd, and Jude Montis, the country’s director for Missions in Haiti Inc., was blamed on gangs rampaging across Haiti’s capital and beyond.

A video posted on social media late Wednesday by Haiti’s National Police shows a 52-year-old man in handcuffs, accused of being involved in the killings of the Lloyds and Montis. Police allege the suspect’s phone was used to make calls after the killings, but the man rejected that accusation.

The young couple — Davy was 23 and Natalie just 21 — were supposed to celebrate their two-year wedding anniversary in June.

From January to May, more than 3,200 killings were reported across Haiti, with gang violence leaving more than half a million people homeless. In February, gangs launched coordinated attacks on key government infrastructure, raided police stations and opened fire at the main international airport, forcing it to shut down for nearly three months. Gunmen also stormed into Haiti’s two biggest prisons, freeing thousands of inmates.

A U.N.-backed police force from Kenya arrived in June to lead a multinational mission, nearly two years after Haiti’s government requested urgent deployment of a foreign force.

Source:

Suspect in killings of U.S. missionary couple and nonprofit chief arrested in Haiti – CBS News

Deadly Floods Leave Millions Stranded in Bangladesh

The Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre (FFWC) reports with the rains continuing, water levels could rise further, raising concerns about additional flooding and displacement. [Munir Uz Zaman/AFP]

At least 13 people have been killed and 4.5 million affected by floods triggered by heavy rains in eastern Bangladesh. Water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, dysentery, fever, skin infections, and other waterborne diseases are increasing amongst the displaced. An estimated 100,000 Bangladeshis already suffer from cholera which will no doubt increase with these floods.

Floods triggered by torrential rains have swamped swaths of low-lying Bangladesh and rescuers are scrambling to evacuate flooded communities. Nearly 190,000 people were taken to emergency relief shelters and 11 of the country’s 64 districts were affected by the flooding.

The South Asian nation of 170 million people, crisscrossed by hundreds of rivers, has seen frequent floods in recent decades and is among the countries most vulnerable to disasters and climate change.

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/8/23/deadly-floods-leave-millions-stranded-in-bangladesh

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/health-concerns-emerge-bangladesh-flood-waters-recede-2022-06-23/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-33576-3

USAF Veteran Who Fled Child Pornography Charges Now Flies Drones for Russia

USAF veteran Wilmer Puello-Mota at Hanscom Air Force Base, MA, in 2018. (Photo: Todd Maki / USAF / AP file)

A former New England USAF airman who fled the US to avoid prison for child pornography charges has resurfaced in Moscow’s propaganda videos, describing his service in the Russian military as a drone operator in eastern Ukraine. He insisted he is not a traitor. Wilmer Puello-Mota (28) served in the USAF security forces and he deployed to Afghanistan in 2015 to protect pilots and aircraft.

“I’m Will. I’m from Massachusetts,” Wilmer Puello-Mota, who is also a former City Council member in Holyoke, MA, said in the five-minute video released by Russia’s Defense Ministry. “My call sign is ‘Boston.'”

Puello-Mota was supposed to appear in a Rhode Island courtroom on 9 Jan 2024 and plead guilty to possessing sexually explicit images of a child and other charges that could have sent him to prison for at least five years. He instead fled to Russia via Istanbul. Puello-Mota wanted a career in politics and thought being charged with possessing child pornography had ruined his life, his attorney stated.

Puello-Mota served on the Holyoke City Council from 2021 to 2023 and was aligned with conservative council members who supported former President Donald Trump. Halfway through his term, the city tried to kick Puello-Mota off the council after it learned that he had been arrested in May 2020 when police found nude photos and videos on his phone of a 17-year-old girl. He was also charged with obstruction of the judicial system, forgery and counterfeiting.

Sources:

U.S. veteran wanted for child porn charges serving in Russian forces – The Washington Post

CIA Chief in Bosnia to Emphasize US Support Amid Pro-Kremlin Rhetoric of Republika Srpska President

CIA Chief William Burns (second from left) in Sarajevo on 20 August.

CIA Director William Burns was in Sarajevo on 20 August to discuss the “worrying secessionist rhetoric and actions” of the pro-Russian president and government of Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Serb entity, Milorad Dodik.

Burns, who arrived from Israel, held meetings at the Bosnian presidency with senior intelligence and government leaders. Dodik has raised concerns among Bosnia’s Western allies because of his ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Dodik reaffirmed in February after personally meeting with Putin that the Republika Srpska would not join Western sanctions against Moscow over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Turmoil in the Balkans would play into the Kremlin’s hands as it could distract the US and Europe from Russia’s war in Ukraine. A visit from D/CIA shows the commitment of the US that Bosnia is a priority of its US foreign policy. The last D/CIA to visit Bosnia-Herzegovina was John Brennan in 2016.

Sources:

CIA Chief In Bosnia To Emphasize U.S. Support And ‘Worrying’ Rhetoric Of Republika Srpska President (rferl.org)

Uyghurs Sentenced to Cumulative 4.4 million Years in Prison

Police guard detainees as they appear to recite words or sing at the Tekes County Detention Center in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region in this image released on 24 May 2022.

All told, Uyghurs imprisoned by China in the far-western region of Xinjiang have been sentenced to a cumulative 4.4 million years, a Yale University’s Genocide Studies Program reports. China’s repression could lead to a ‘total ethnic incapacitation for the Uyghur people’ and the true tally of incarcerations are probably far higher.

In 2017, the Chinese government cracked down on thousands of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities and herded them into re-education camps and prisons.

The 25-page report, “Uyghur Race as the Enemy: China’s Legalized Authoritarian Oppression & Mass Imprisonment,” frames the massive incarceration not only as a crime against humanity and genocide, but also as a form of “dangerous lawfare” designed to erode the Uyghurs’ future prospects for dignity, prosperity and freedom. The study drew on information from the Xinjiang Victims Database, which has data on nearly 62,700 Uyghurs detained in Xinjiang, based on leaked Chinese police documents and other records.

Researchers found 13,114 cases that included a prison sentence, with an average term of 8.8 years, and multiplied the figure by 500,000, which they called a “conservative” figure based on the 540,000 individuals prosecuted by court from 2017 to 2021, to get 4.4 million years.

This massive sinicization program is meant to homogenize the non-Chinese ethnic population. Beijing has also forced cultural assimilation in Tibetan areas of China. Compare the staggering incarceration rates of Uyghurs below.

Sources:

uyghur_report_final_copy.pdf (yale.edu)

Uyghurs sentenced to cumulative 4.4 million years in prison: study — Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

UN human rights chief issues damning report on Chinese abuses in Xinjiang

American Gun Carnage: Virginia Man in Critical Condition After Being Shot by Two-Year-Old

According to the Chesterfield County Police Department, the unidentified man was about to leave the house and had “placed his handgun on a nearby chair.”

The toddler retrieved it and “accidentally discharged the firearm, shooting the victim,” police said.

The victim was airlifted to the hospital in critical condition and no one else in the house was wounded. Reportedly, the victim is the boyfriend of the child’s mother and police are investigating the incident. The cost of an air ambulance flight within the US can range from $12,000 to $55,000.

In an average year in Virginia, 1,160 people die and 1,624 are wounded by guns. Virginia has the 33rd-highest rate of gun violence in the US.

Virginia Federal firearms licenses in 2021: 423,707

Approximately 44.6% of adults in Virginia have guns at home.

Averaging almost 50,000 deaths from firearms annually, the US the only high-income country to report such a high death toll from gun violence. Until America can shed its dangerous love of firearms, this type of carnage will continue.

Sources:

Man in critical condition after being shot by 2-year-old – ABC News (go.com)

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

3. Virginia – Gun map: Ownership by state – statistics and rates (cbsnews.com)

https://airambulance.com/blogs/post/how-much-does-air-ambulance-cost/

https://www.statista.com/topics/10904/gun-violence-in-the-united-states/#topicOverview

https://www.thetrace.org/2023/12/data-gun-violence-deaths-america/

‘Islamic State Supporter’ in Las Vegas Indicted on Terrorism Charges

A Las Vegas resident who wrote in chatroom that he would be “starting lone wolf operations in Las Vegas against enemies of Allah” was indicted by a Clark County grand jury on eight counts of four different terrorism- and explosives-related charges.

Joshua Robles, a juvenile at the time of his November 2023 arrest, had in-depth knowledge of the Islamic State (IS) group, sought to communicate with members of the group, and had components of explosives in his bedroom.

The Metropolitan Police Department arrest report read that Robles “intended to carry out acts of violence against the perceived enemies of ISIS and their religious doctrine, and the violent acts would take place in the Las Vegas area.” A search of his home uncovered components to construct an explosive device.

This young man doesn’t have to join IS to cause casualties; as noted above, Americans suffer from appalling firearms violence daily.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source:

‘Islamic State supporter’ in Las Vegas indicted on terrorism charges | Stars and Stripes

Historic Milestone for Polish Space Science with Launch of Eagle Eye Satellite

Polish space science and technology reached a historical moment with the successful launch of the EagleEye satellite into Earth’s orbit. Facilitated by SpaceX, the mission took place from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The satellite will deliver high-resolution images of the Earth, providing data for research and monitoring purposes. The mission is expected to last at least one year and will orbit the Earth at a low altitude, gradually descending from an initial height of approximately 500 km to around 350 km. EagleEye was designed entirely in Poland from the ground up and manufactured locally except for microprocessors.

Sources:

Polish EagleEye Satellite: A Landmark Project for the Space Sector – Creotech

Historic milestone for Polish space science as they successfully launch Eagleeye satellite | Euronews

‘Behind Closed Doors’: Ex-Trump Aide Spills Secrets to DNC

Former Trump White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham speaks on stage in front of an apparent text message with Republican presidential candidate, former US President Donald Trump during the second day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on 20 August 2024 in Chicago. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

A former White House press secretary for Donald Trump delivered a stinging rebuke of her former boss at the Democratic National Convention. Stephanie Grisham told Democrats she wasn’t just a Trump supporter, she was a “true believer” and one of his closest advisers, spending Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving with the Trump family at Mar-a-Lago.

“Behind closed doors, Trump mocks his supporters,” she said. “He calls them basement-dwellers.”

During a pandemic-era hospital visit, as people died in the intensive care unit, Grisham said Trump was “mad that the cameras weren’t watching him.”

“He has no empathy,” said Grisham. “No morals. And no fidelity to the truth. He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie. Say it enough, and people will believe you.'”

Grisham said she resigned the same day she asked former first lady Melania Trump whether it was OK to tweet that “peaceful protest are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness & violence.”

Mrs. Trump replied: “No,” according to a screenshot of the conversation displayed at the convention.

“I couldn’t be part of the insanity any longer,” she said, noting she was “skewered” for not holding White House briefings. “Unlike my boss, I never wanted to stand at that podium and lie.” She earned applause as she noted she’s once again behind a podium — “advocating for a Democrat.”

You can only imagine how former President Trump must have reacted to this.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

Source:

‘Behind closed doors’: Ex-Trump aide spills former boss’ secrets to packed DNC – Raw Story

Kenya ‘Psychopath’ Serial Killer Suspect Escapes from Custody

Kenyan police launched a major manhunt for a serial killer who escaped from a Nairobi police cell, along with a dozen other detainees. He had confessed to murdering and dismembering 42 women. Collins Jumaisi (33) was described by police as a “vampire, a psychopath.” He was arrested last month after the horrific discovery of mutilated bodies in a slum garbage dump in Nairobi.

The dumped bodies threw a fresh spotlight on Kenya’s police force as they were found just 100 yards from a police station. And this is the second time in barely six months that a suspect in a high-profile case has escaped from custody.

Kenya’s police watchdog, the Independent Police Oversight Authority, was looking into whether there was any police involvement or a “failure to act to prevent” the killings. Kenyan police are often accused by rights groups of carrying out unlawful killings or running hit squads, but few have faced justice.

There are approximately 101,000 personnel in the Kenyan Police Service. This summer Kenya deployed 600 experienced police officers to restore law and order amid worsening civil strife and gang violence in Haiti under a UNSC-approved mission.

Source:

Kenya ‘Psychopath’ Serial Killer Suspect Escapes From Custody | IBTimes

https://www.kenyapolice.go.ke/