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:
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:
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’
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)
What Are the Penalties for Lying to Congress? – FindLaw
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)
Coriolanus 