Canada: Victims of Cold War CIA MK-Ultra Brainwashing Experiments Cleared to Sue

A Quebec Superior Court judge has authorized a class-action lawsuit brought forward by victims of brainwashing experiments conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal — experiments infamous for their affiliation with the CIA-funded MK-Ultra program. The lawsuit names the Royal Victoria Hospital, McGill University and the Government of Canada as defendants. It alleges that the government funded, and the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University enabled, “depatterning treatments” that violated the patients’ bodies and minds.

The patients who submitted the class-action request claimed that the Cold War-era experiments, conducted by Dr. Ewen Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute and known as the ‘Montreal Experiments,’ were carried out without their consent or even their knowledge. Judge Dominique Poulin authorized two patients, Julie Tanny and Lana Ponting, to represent all persons who underwent depatterning treatments at the Allan Memorial Institute between 1948 and 1964 and their successors, family members, and dependents

The Allan Memorial Institute (Photo: Flickr)

Dr Cameron’s notes on a patient.

Many indigenous people in Quebec, mainly Mohawks, were experimented on without their consent or knowledge and disappeared from public records. Searches of the excavated sites suggested that their bodies were summarily disposed of. Cadaver dogs have identified possible evidence of human remains on the grounds of Montreal’s old Royal Victoria Hospital, a sprawling network of now-vacant buildings, some dating back 140 years, on Mount Royal’s southern flank. No concrete evidence of this has yet been established but the ‘Mohawk Mothers’ advocacy group and other investigators are still searching. We wish them success in their hunt for the truth and justice,

During Ted Kaczynski’s sophomore year at Harvard University in 1959, he was recruited for a psychological experiment that would last three years. The experiment Ted Kaczynski participated in at Harvard involved psychological torment and humiliation. For 18 years (1978 to 1996), using homemade improvised explosive devices, Ted Kaczynski (AKA the “Unabomber” and Harvard Class of ’62) terrorized those he saw as agents of antihuman technology before his 1996 arrest at the hands of his brother who reported him to the FBI.

Linked here is the post-Richard Nixon June 1975 “Report to the President by the COMMISSION ON CIA ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE UNITED STATES”: 36326NCJRS.pdf

Sources:

Victims of CIA-linked Montreal brainwashing experiments cleared to sue in class action | CBC News

Death of Unabomber returns spotlight to Harvard mind-control study – The Washington Post

Harvard’s Experiment on the Unabomber, Class of ’62 | Psychology Today

Search dogs find signs of human remains on site of Montreal’s old Royal Victoria Hospital | CBC News

USIC Dysfunction Festers Under Trumpf Junta

The worst person to ever oversee an intelligence community, DNI Tulsi Gabbard.

CIA officials were concerned that the release of a House report on 2016 Russian election meddling could reveal top-secret spying techniques and sources, but DNI Tulsi Gabbard authorized a lightly redacted version with President Dummkopf Trumpf’s blessing. Gabbard, D/CIA John Ratcliffe, USAG Pam Bondi have released a slew of intelligence and law enforcement reports that they claim prove that USIC findings that Moscow intervened in the 2016 presidential contest to help Trumpf was a “hoax” concocted by the Obama administration.

An ex-CIA analyst publicly challenged Trumpf’s attempt to discredit the Russian election interference probe. Link: Ex-CIA analyst challenges Trump’s attempt to discredit Russian election interference probe | PBS News

FBI Under More Duress

Brian Driscoll, former acting FBI director (left); Steve Jensen, former acting director of the Washington Field Office (right). (Photos: FBI)

Two senior FBI officials, including one who initially resisted the Trumpf junta’s  effort to gather the names of agents who worked on cases related to the US Capitol attack on 6 Jan 2021, are being fired. Brian Driscoll and Steve Jensen are the latest victim’s of the junta’s Stalinist purges. Trumpf is also firing other agents in the FBI who were perceived to be opposed to him in the past. Sycophantic D/FBI Kash Patel had already atomized the presence of agents in Washington by spreading them out across the US. The Trumpf junta has also ordered 120 FBI agents to work on night shifts in Washington DC in a so-called effort to combat street crime in the capital. To distract from the Jeffrey Epstein saga, Trumpf also mobilized the DC Army National Guard to assist the Metropolitan Police Department.

The worst gaggle of incompetent political hacks to ever lead the USIC are making a dog’s breakfast of trying to distract the American public from the never-ending Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell cover-up. Junta members will mindlessly sacrifice USIC secrets just to protect their cult leader, Dummkopf Trumpf, and they are happy to dismantle the FBI which was his greatest threat to power.

More Bad News for the USIC and the Anti-Trumpf Coalition

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller has lived in a memory-care facility “for the past few years.” Unclear is whether the House Oversight Committee intends to withdraw its subpoena of Mueller. The subpoena relates to Mueller’s involvement in a decades-old FBI investigation into convicted and deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Russian collusion in the 2016 Presidential election to help President Dummkopf Trumpf win. Mueller’s 2019 report arguably damaged Trump’s first term, although it ultimately failed to depose him or his first junta, but resulted in convictions of some GOP quislings.

In 2017 when Dummkopf Trumpf heard that Robert Mueller was appointed Special Counsel, he told then-USAG Jeff Sessions: “Oh my God! This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I’m f***ed.” Trumpf knows that as a former D/FBI and AUSA, Robert Mueller learned many of Trumpf’s nefarious connections to Russian and Italian organized crime, as well as the Kremlin. Rumors also circulated that Trumpf and his colleague Felix Sater were both Confidential Informants for the FBI in the 1980s and 1990s; the two occasionally coughing up a crook or two to avoid federal prosecution. Dummkopf Trumpf will no doubt be greatly relieved the day the former US Marine who knows most of his secrets passes.

Nota Bene: D/FBI Robert Mueller expressly forbid his agents from torturing Muslim prisoners caught in Iraq or Afghanistan, unlike CIA who used the term ‘enhanced interrogation’ to get away with war crimes, such as waterboarding prisoners (shown above).

Russian Hackers Penetrate US Criminal Justice System Computers

Investigators have uncovered evidence that Russia is at least partly responsible for a recent hack of the computer system that manages federal court documents, including highly sensitive records with information that could reveal sources and people charged with national security crimes.

Unclear is what entity is responsible, whether an arm of Russian intelligence might be behind the intrusion or if other countries were also involved. Some of the searches included midlevel criminal cases in the New York City area and several other jurisdictions, with some cases involving people with Russian and Eastern European surnames.

Russian, Chinese, Israeli, Iranian, or drug cartel hackers may be responsible for this incredible breach to obtain information on witnesses, informants, or evidence in federal criminal investigations. Federal judges and administrators have taken steps to mitigate the breach, but the extent of the damage is still being assessed. Key witnesses and informants have possibly become vulnerable to extortion, intimidation, or worse.

Sources:

Russia Is Suspected to Be Behind Breach of Federal Court Filing System – The New York Times

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/robert-mueller-subpoenaed-by-house-republicans-now-said-to-be-in-memory-care-facility/ar-AA1K25Fp

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/trump-mueller-report-presidency-1281244

Gabbard overrode CIA officials’ concerns in push to release classified Russia report – The Washington Post

FBI firing senior officials at odds with Trump administration | CNN Politics

FBI dispatching agents to D.C. streets as Trump weighs calling National Guard

US Army Soldier Charged With Selling Military Secrets to Russia

Taylor Adam Lee (Photo: US Army)

Taylor Adam Lee (22) of El Paso, TX was arrested on charges of attempted transmission of national defense information (NDI) to Russia regarding the operation of the M1A2 Abrams, the main US battle tank.

In June 2025, Lee allegedly transmitted export-controlled technical information on the M1A2 Abrams Tank online and offered assistance to the Russian Federation, stating, “the USA is not happy with me for trying to expose their weaknesses,” and added, “At this point I’d even volunteer to assist the Russian federation when I’m there in any way.” In July, Lee met with an undercover Counterintelligence Agent whom he thought was a Russian officer and passed along the NDI. The defendant was subsequently arrested.

Weighing 68 tons, the M1A2 Abrams is the most advanced tank in the world.

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

This was a remarkably stupid attempt at espionage from this disgruntled 22-year-old troop who threw his life away over sensitive technical information regarding the M1A2 Abrams Tank. The amount of money exchanged has not been revealed, but whatever it was, this was not worth his career and life in any way, shape, or form.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/active-duty-soldier-arrested-and-charged-espionage-and-export-violations

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-jblm-soldier-pleads-guilty-attempting-share-military-secrets-china

Russian Intelligence Agents Arrest Fugitive Oligarch in Dubai

Superrich Vyacheslav Solovyov in an undated photo.

Russian intelligence agents arrested Vyacheslav Solovyov in a rare extradition operation in a Dubai shopping center on 5 Aug. He is the former chief executive of a state-run leasing company who fled Russia nearly a decade ago. Following his detention, Solovyov was taken to the Russian Embassy in Dubai and flown to Moscow the next day.

He now faces charges of espionage, which carry a prison term of 10 to 20 years, as well as fraud.

Russian security agencies had known Solovyov’s whereabouts for more than a year. But extradition from the UAE is unusual, as the Gulf nation typically refuses to hand over fugitives wanted in Russia. Months of negotiations took place in the lead-up to the arrest. General Filatov, who oversaw the Dubai operation, heads the SVR’s elite Zaslon unit, responsible for protecting top Russian officials during overseas visits and safeguarding key diplomatic missions.

Solovyov led VEB-Leasing, a subsidiary of state-owned development bank Vnesheconombank (now VEB.RF), from 2008 to 2016. He abruptly stopped coming to work in March 2016, later telling colleagues he had traveled to Switzerland to seek medical treatment. He never returned to Russia. An audit of his company revealed $176.4 million was missing. Investigators in 2018 accused Solovyov and several senior executives of fraud, alleging they had signed contracts with affiliated companies on non-market terms, doubling the price of transport equipment and siphoning funds to offshore accounts

Source:

Russian Intelligence Arrests Former VEB Executive in Dubai on Espionage, Fraud Charges – The Insider – The Moscow Times

Mexico Extradites 26 Cartel Members to US

The competent leader of one country and the imbecile in charge of another.

The US has taken into custody 26 fugitives from Mexico facing a range of federal and state criminal charges relating to drug-trafficking, hostage-taking, kidnapping, illegal use of firearms, human smuggling, money laundering, and murder. Among the fugitives are leaders and managers of dangerous drug cartels, designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) and Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGTs), including the Sinaloa Cartel, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), and Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas). These fugitives are collectively alleged to have imported into the US tonnage quantities of dangerous drugs, including cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin.

The cartel figures were put on planes after the Justice Department agreed not to seek the death penalty against any of the defendants or against any cartel leaders and members sent to the US in February. An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

”Icy, cool” Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum is ‘masterfully’ appeasing the Trumpf junta to prevent US military intervention in her country and avoid damaging sanctions or tariffs, all while trying to uplift her people from poverty. She is violating the Mexican constitution by extraditing her citizens to the US, as well as risking her own life. President Sheinbaum and Dummkopf Trumpf have yet to meet, but they reportedly speak to each other by phone. Her government is trying to use the US court system to sue American gun manufacturers, the leading source of firearms in Mexico. American demand for drugs is something President Sheinbaum cannot influence.  

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | 26 Fugitives Wanted for Violent and Serious Crimes Returned to the United States from Mexico Including Leaders of Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Alien Smuggling Organization | United States Department of Justice

Terrorist Designations of International Cartels – United States Department of State

Donald Trump orders Pentagon to target drug cartels: Reports

‘Icy cool’: How Claudia Sheinbaum is navigating Trump’s new world order – POLITICO

London Chess Prodigy, Ten Years Old, Becomes Master Player

Bodhana was selected for England Women’s chess team in 2024 (Photo: BBC)

From the BBC:

A ten-year-old chess prodigy from north-west London has become the youngest person to earn the woman international master title.

Bodhana Sivanandan, from Harrow, also became the youngest female player to beat a chess grandmaster at the 2025 British Chess Championship earlier this month.

In 2024 Bodhana was thought to have become the youngest person ever to represent England internationally in any sport when she was selected for England Women’s Team at the Chess Olympiad in Hungary.

Her father Siva previously told the BBC he had no idea where his daughter got her talent from as neither he or his wife, both engineering graduates, are any good at chess.

The International Chess Federation said on its social media account on X that Bodhana “pulled off the win against 60-year-old Grandmaster Peter Wells in the last round of the 2025 British Chess Championships in Liverpool”.

The federation added: “Sivanandan’s victory at 10 years, five months and three days beats the 2019 record held by American Carissa Yip (10 years, 11 months and 20 days).”

Grandmaster is the highest title a chess player can attain and the rank is held for life.

Bodhana’s new title – woman international master – is the second highest-ranking title given exclusively to women, second only to woman grandmaster.

Bodhana first took up chess during the Covid-19 pandemic. She says chess makes her feel “good” and helps her with “lots of other things like math, how to calculate.”

Source: London chess prodigy, 10, becomes Woman International Master

Trumpf Crime Family (TCF) Made $3.4 Billion From White House Connections

A lengthy investigation from The New Yorker estimates the Trumpf Crime Family (TCF) will have enriched themselves by more than $3.4 billion by the end of his second term, much of it from deals, transactions, and investments that almost certainly wouldn’t have happened if the Dotard had never been POTUS.

The pelf comes from lucrative commercial projects in the Persian Gulf overseen by the Trumpf Crime Family (TCF), such as hotels and golf courses in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE; a luxury Boeing 747-8 gifted by the Qatari royal family; and a flood of Trumpf-branded merchandise and other kitsch marketed by the junta.

Trumpf’s foray into the world of cryptocurrency and NFTs has also been extremely lucrative for the TCF. Jared Kushner’s private equity firm, who scored a two billion dollar investment from a fund led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, is also said to have contributing at least $320 million to the family’s presidential profits.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reports that the Republican Big Beautiful Bill (“BBB”) will make the poorest Americans even poorer, while enriching the highest earners the most.  The top 10% of earners in the US will see an average boost of $13,600 per year over the next decade, while the bottom 10% will see an average annual decrease of $1,200. The number of poor people becoming homeless or dying will increase thanks to Dummkopf Trumpf while his family and the oligarchs enjoy platinum health care, First Class air travel and vacations, and no school, home, or medical debts, like 99% of American families must endure.

Sources:

How Much Is Trump Profiting Off the Presidency? | The New Yorker

Distributional Effects of P.L. 119-21

Sudan: Cholera Outbreak Kills 40 People in One Week

Cholera infected patients receive treatment in the cholera isolation centre at the refugee camps of western Sudan, in Tawila city in Darfur. (Photo: 12 Aug 2025; AFP)

At least 40 people have died in Sudan’s Darfur region in the war-torn country’s worst outbreak of cholera in years, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) reported.

“On top of an all-out war, people in Sudan are now experiencing the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years,” the medical charity said in a statement. “In the Darfur region alone, MSF teams treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths in the past week.”

Nearly 30 million Sudanese —over half of the entire country— are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, with famine declared in multiple areas. Dummkopf Trumpf’s devastating and inhuman elimination of USAID this year under the under-qualified and vapid USSECSTATE Marco Rubio– an ’empty suit’– is responsible for these deaths and misery. USAID was created by JFK to help poor people worldwide and promote goodwill, for exactly this type of catastrophe. Humanitarian aid cuts are rapidly accelerating the already unconscionable death toll. Tons of food and medicine destined for Sudan and other Third World countries have either spoiled in US warehouses or were destroyed, wasting millions of dollars of American taxpayer funds and supplies that could have helped victims of famine and disease.  

Sources:

At least 40 dead in Sudan’s worst cholera outbreak in years: MSF      

Death toll rising in Sudan after USAID cuts — Operation Broken Silence

Trump Admin to Incinerate 550 Tons of Emergency Food Meant for Children

Pop Icon Madonna Implores Pope Leo to Visit Gaza Strip to Stop Genocide in Gaza

The Israeli Death Forces (IDF) are killing 28 children a day in Gaza, the size of a classroom full of pupils say in the US, Canada, UK, Turkiye, Denmark, or Chile.

Pope Leo has been outspoken critic of the IDF onslaught on the Palestinian people. During a Mass for the Jubilee of Young People in Rome last week, Pope Leo expressed solidarity for the children who are suffering as a result of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

The late Pope Francis maintained daily contact with Gaza City’s Holy Family Church before his death, the parish priest of the region’s only Catholic church.  

Madonna rarely performed this song live during her illustrious career,  only during the Virgin Tour in 1985 and The Celebration Tour in 2023. Angel (released in 1985) is considered a hidden gem by some critics. 

AIPAC and Benjamin Netanyahu will disapprove of Madonna’s plea for the first ever American Pope to help the beleaguered Palestinians. Madonna will be accused of being a “Hamas lover” (whatever that means) and pilloried as an antisemite, like poor Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic NYC mayoral candidate.

IDF Brazenly and Openly Killing Journalists

To control the narrative, the Israeli Death Forces (IDF) have been openly and brazenly murdering journalists in the Gaza Strip, a war crime.

Jodie Ginsberg from The Guardian reports:

‘If Israel can wipe out an entire news crew without the international community so much as batting an eye, what will stop further attacks on reporters.’ (Photo: Mohammed Badra / EPA)

In the two decades preceding 7 Oct 2023, Israeli forces killed 20 journalists. No one has ever been held accountable for any of those deaths, including that of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose killing in 2022 sent shock waves through the region.

The IDF recently killed an entire news crew led by Anas al-Sharif. The IDF first began making threats against al-Sharif shortly after the start of the war. The journalist reported receiving multiple phone calls from IDF officers instructing him to cease coverage and leave northern Gaza, as well as voice notes on WhatsApp disclosing his location. In December 2023, an Israeli airstrike hit his family home, killing the journalist’s 90-year-old father.

A year later, the Israeli army alleged publicly that Anas al-Sharif was a terrorist – claims it repeated last month shortly after Anas al-Sharif exposed the rampant levels of starvation throughout Gaza as a result of Israel’s refusal to allow in sufficient food aid. An Israeli spokesperson accused al-Sharif of lying about the famine – despite corroboration of widespread starvation by independent and international groups.

To date, Israel has provided no independently verifiable evidence that any of the journalists whom it has admitted deliberately targeting were terrorists

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) had seen this playbook from Israel before: a pattern in which journalists are accused by Israel of being terrorists with no credible evidence. Indeed, we were so concerned that al-Sharif was being targeted that we issued a public statement urging his protection.

Instead, al-Sharif was killed alongside his colleagues in an attack that Israel has openly admitted was aimed at killing the journalist. Al-Sharif is the 184th Palestinian journalist to have been killed by Israel since the start of the war and one of at least 26 journalists whom CPJ believes to have been deliberately targeted for their work as journalists.

More than 192 journalists and media workers have been killed since 7 Oct 2023. Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinians is the deadliest conflict for journalists that we have ever documented.

If Israel can wipe out an entire news crew without the international community so much as batting an eye, what will stop further attacks on reporters?

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/13/israel-killing-gaza-journalists-anas-al-sharif

Horrors Continue for Palestinians

According to the IPC, the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip. Murder and displacement have intensified, and access to food and other essential items and services has plummeted to unprecedented levels.

Source: IPC ALERT: Worst-case scenario of Famine unfolding in the Gaza Strip | IPC – Integrated Food Security Phase Classification

According to the New York Times, since 7 Oct 2023 the IDF has created a legion of child amputees and orphans in the Gaza Strip.  The IDF death toll of Palestinians is now 61,499, mostly women and children, and 153,575 maimed or wounded.

Resistance to Israeli Atrocities and AIPAC Complicity Growing

Israeli Samaritans outside the US Embassy in Jerusalem protesting the American taxpayer-funded Nakba against the Palestinians (Photo: Public domain, 29 July 2025).

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused AIPAC of “breaking US laws” after the lobbying group took members of Congress on a fully-paid trip to Israel. “I’m absolutely furious, and as a matter of fact, AIPAC needs to register as a foreign lobbyist because they’re breaking US laws by donating to members of Congress and by taking them on a fully-funded trip to Israel. Every single freshman member of Congress this year, they just took them over just recently and had them meet with the Prime Minister of Israel.”

The despicable US House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), takes part in a vine-planting ceremony with the revolting Yair Chetboun, the Israeli colonial ‘mayor’ of the illegal settlement of Ariel, 4 Aug 2025. (Photo via Ariel Municipality)

“But let’s frame that correctly. They take them over to meet with the secular government of nuclear-armed Israel. Israel who is less than $400 billion in debt. Israel who has taxpayer-funded healthcare and college. Israel is not hurting and they’ve already proven that they are more than capable of not only defending themselves, but annihilating their enemies to the point of genocide, and that’s what’s happening in Gaza. The reason why AIPAC is attacking me is because I dared to tell the truth.”

Link: Marjorie Taylor Greene Accuses AIPAC of ‘Breaking U.S. Laws’

Australia PM Anthony Albanese has accused Benjamin Netanyahu of being “in denial” over the consequences of the Nakba in Gaza. He announced his country would recognise a Palestinian state at the UNGA in September, following similar moves by the UK, France, and Canada.

Albanese said frustration with the Likud junta had played a role in the move, saying Australians “want to see the killing stop.”

The AIPAC analog in the land “down under,” the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, called Australian recognition of Palestine a “betrayal.”

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/12/anthony-albanese-says-benjamin-netanyahu-is-in-denial-about-crisis-in-gaza

Italian and Greek dock workers recently went on strike to prevent weapons from reaching Israel and Germany (the second largest arms provider to Israel after the US) is finally stopping lethal shipments that could be used against Palestinians in Gaza. Too bad the 2024 Democratic candidates didn’t stand up to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, an ICC-indicted war criminal, like we see from these examples today.

Link: Germany Suspends Arms Exports to Israel Over Gaza Plan – Newsweek

Democratic Party Must Rid Itself of AIPAC to Win Elections Again

After the Kamala Harris/Tim Walz ticket lost 6,265,888 voters on 5 Nov 2024 that supported Joe Biden/Kamala Harris on 3 Nov 2020, Democratic Party loyalist Dr. Robert Reich bloviated that his party lost to Republican Dummkopf Trumpf because of “poor messaging.” Dr. Reich’s entire five minute and 14 second analysis on YouTube didn’t mention once the unqualified US military and economic support for Israel whose IDF was ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip and whose zealous Settlers were land-grabbing Palestinian properties in the West Bank.

Why would such an intelligent and well-educated academic describe so many factors for the disastrous 2024 Harris/Walz loss except for that one critical piece of the puzzle? Followers of the Watch, you can hear his distracting and idiotic diatribe here (if you wish to hear AIPAC propaganda and waste your time):  

Really, Dr. Reich? How much can you possibly underestimate the intellect of American progressives, antiwar voters, and non-Islamophobes?

The Day After the Election (6 Nov 2024)

“But Joe, I followed the AIPAC script!”

“Maybe ‘Bibi’ will help us out, Kamala!”

One AI calculation:

“A YouGov poll backed by the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project and released showed that among the 19 million people who voted for President Joe Biden in 2020 but did not vote in 2024, nearly one third named Israel’s US-backed war on Gaza as a top reason for staying home.”

Sources:

‘Damning’ New Poll Shows Price Kamala Harris Paid for Backing Israeli Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

https://archive.ph/AiLJO

Between 2020 and 2024, the Democratic Party lost 6,265,888 votes.

The handsome and intelligent Zohran Mamdani is leading in the polls against a coalition of Islamophobes and oligarchs in the race for NYC Mayor. This race is the first counterattack against the Trumpf junta, AIPAC, and the status quo.

Now AIPAC Democrats are targeting fellow Democrat Zohran Mamdani in the race for NYC Mayor for no logical reason other than he is a Muslim-American. If the Democratic Party wants to oust Dummkopf Trumpf and the Republicans from power in future elections, they must rid themselves of AIPAC and Islamophobes or else antiwar Samaritans and pro-Palestinian voters will simply stay home, like what happened in 1968 to VPOTUS Hubert Humphrey.

An international arrest warrant for crimes against humanity issued by the ICC remains active for Benjamin Netanyahu. An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Shy Rescue Cat Loves Only One Person

CIA Historian: ‘Donald Trump Has Put US National Security in the Hands of Crackpots and Fools’

Underqualified sycophant D/FBI Kashyap Pramod Patel, Hare Krishna off-shoot cult member DNI Tulsi Gabbard, and lickspittle D/CIA John Ratcliffe testifying before Congress. (Photo: Getty Images)

Some quotes from eminent CIA historian Tim Weiner about the Trumpf junta:

After watching the US stand with Russia, Iran and North Korea, as it did in February 2025 when it voted against a UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine, CIA historian Tim Weiner said:  “You come to the realization, if you hadn’t already: ‘My God, the president of the United States has gone over to the other side. He has joined the authoritarian axis.’”

Following two impeachments (and two acquittals), an insurrection and another election, Trump is back in the White House and bent on revenge. “Donald Trump hates the CIA,” Weiner said, noting that Trumpf considers the agency the beating heart of a “deep state” that he believes is working to undermine him. Consequently, the president has appointed “a coterie of dangerously incompetent and servile acolytes to the highest positions of national security”. Weiner describes the new CIA director, John Ratcliffe – a former personal injury attorney, MAGA congressman and, briefly, DNI in Trump’s first term – as “a spineless person who will do whatever Trump tells him to do.”

“For decades, the CIA has tried to hire people who don’t look like they just got off the bus from Kansas on the very sound principle that if you want to spy in a nation like Somalia or Pakistan or China, it might be wise to have a workforce that is not made up exclusively of white guys, and who speak languages other than English,” Weiner said. “Diversity was one of the CIA’s few superpowers, and the mindless abolition of the effort to diversify the CIA’s officers and analysts was one of the most stupid self-inflicted wounds that D/CIA John Ratcliffe could have delivered.”

The appointment of Tulsi Gabbard as DNI, who oversees the CIA and 17 other intelligence agencies, only compounds problems, Weiner said. Gabbard has never worked in the intelligence community and has been accused of parroting Russian propaganda. “What ally would share secrets with a dangerously deluded person like that?”

The amateurish ‘Signalgate’ affair cost National Security Advisor Mike Waltz his position at the White House.  His reward is being named US Ambassador to the UN, pending US Senate confirmation.

22-year-old Thomas Fugate is the DHS official tasked with overseeing the government’s main hub for combating violent extremism. His previous experience was landscaping before graduating college.

CIA historian Tim Weiner. (Photo: Jessica D. B. Doyle)

Followers of the Watch are keenly aware of the Stalinist purges the Trumpf junta has been conducting to rid itself of undesirables. Tom Nichols at the Atlantic reinforces this point. He writes that DNI Tulsi Gabbard and D/FBI Kashyap Pramod Patel in true McCarthy-like fashion are “hunting down politically unreliable members of America’s intelligence and law-enforcement communities, rather than catching enemy spies, terrorists, or bank robbers.’

FBI employees have been polygraphed on whether they have cast aspersions on Director Kashyap Pramod Patel.

Links:

CIA historian Tim Weiner: ‘Trump has put national security in the hands of crackpots and fools’ | Politics books | The Guardian

The Federal Bureau of Paranoia – The Atlantic

USAG Pam Bondi Requests Data on Migrants Being Held in California’s County Jails

“The Department of Justice issued requests to sheriffs in multiple major California counties—including Los Angeles and San Francisco Counties—for lists of all inmates in their jails who are not citizens of the US, their crimes of arrest or conviction, and their scheduled release dates.

In recent years, the US suffered an invasion of illegal aliens at an unprecedented scale.  Far too many of those illegal aliens have gone on to commit crimes on American soil, including rapes, murders, and other violent crimes.  Today’s data requests are designed to assist federal immigration authorities in prioritizing the removal of illegal aliens who committed crimes after illegally entering the US.  Although every illegal alien by definition violates federal law, those who go on to commit crimes after doing so show that they pose a heightened risk to our Nation’s safety and security.

“Removing criminal illegal aliens is this Administration’s highest priority. I look forward to cooperating with California’s county sheriffs to accomplish our shared duty of keeping Californians and all Americans safe and secure.

The Department of Justice hopes that California sheriffs will voluntarily produce the requested information.  But if necessary, the Department will pursue all available means of obtaining the data, including through subpoenas or other compulsory process.”

Est. California population in 2023: 38,940,231 

58 California Counties and 62 Jails Incarcerate Vulnerable Migrants

The immortal Jackie Gleason.

County Sheriffs are elected in the state of California which is home to San Bernardino County, the largest county in the contiguous US, as well as Los Angeles County, the most populous county in America (population est. 9,757,179).

Detainees in California jails are either serving less than one-year terms for minor offenses or are defendants awaiting trial, unable to post bail or were not granted pre-trial release by the presiding judge. The county jail population for California was 62,581 in 2022 and 56,800 in 2024.

A 2023 report from the Prison Policy Initiative indicates that Black and Hispanic people are overrepresented in California’s incarcerated population (including both prisons and jails) compared to their share of the state’s population. For example, Black individuals, who make up about 6% of California’s adult population, accounted for 28% of the prison population in 2023, and Hispanic individuals, about 38% of the adult population, comprised 46% of prisoners.

Oath Keeper and Riverside County Sheriff Republican Chad Bianco

Prominent amongst these sheriffs in California is Chad Bianco who was elected by the people of Riverside County. A well-known Republican, Bianco announced his 2026 candidacy for governor and openly aligns himself with Donald Trump. Bianco confirmed that while he was a lieutenant in 2014, he was a dues-paying member of the Oath Keepers, a white racist anti-government extremist group. No doubt Sheriff Bianco will immediately comply with this fascist request from USAG Pam Bondi.

Link: https://www.foxla.com/news/chad-bianco-oath-keepers-riverside-county-sheriff

ICE agents will be awaiting these jailed migrants the moment they are released from a county jail.

California: World Class Economy

California remains the 5th largest economy in the world since 2017. California is the 5th largest economy in the world for the seventh consecutive year, with a nominal GDP of nearly $3.9 trillion in 2023 and a growth rate of 6.1% since the year prior, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). On a per capita basis, California is the second largest economy in the world.

Link: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/04/16/california-remains-the-worlds-5th-largest-economy/

California is a Powerful Blue State Led By Competent Democrat

Democrat Gavin Newsom was re-elected Governor of California on 8 Nov 2022. (Photo: Getty Images)

58.47% of eligible voters chose Kamala Harris on 5 Nov 2024; 38.33% opted for Dummkopf Trumpf, giving Democrats 54 Electoral College votes.

Dummkopf Trumpf and his junta declared war against Blue State California because a telegenic and competent Democrat is a potential Presidential candidate in 2028, Governor Gavin Newsom. Trumpf releasing California’s reservoir waters earlier this year and sending in the military to intimidate Californians are all attempts at undermining Gavin Newsom, as well as rounding up migrants as part of their overall national campaign to bleach the US of non-whites.

In a show of force, soldiers and heavily-armed federal agents ride on an armored vehicle at MacArthur Park Monday, 7 July 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo / Damian Dovarganes)

Sycophant USAG Pam Bondi has already poorly mishandled the Jeffrey Epstein files disclosure, but has competently profited from Trumpf’s tariff policies via insider trading.

Link: https://lailluminator.com/2025/05/18/bondi-trump/

These two have a joint history of corruption. In 2016, journalists uncovered The Trumpf Foundation illegally donated $25,000 to a political group supporting then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Her office was deciding whether to take legal action related to the fraudulent Trumpf University. After the contribution was banked, Florida AG Pam Bondi declined to prosecute Trumpf University.

Link: The Trump Foundation-Pam Bondi scandal – CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

Justice Department Diktat:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-department-justice-requests-data-criminal-illegal-aliens-california-jails

US DOD to Deploy Counter-Drone Capabilities at US-Mexico Border After Drug Cartels Surveil US Forces

Soldier employing an anti-drone projector at McGregor Range Complex, NM, 28 June 2019. (Photo: Mylinda DuRousseau / US Army)

The Pentagon is preparing to deploy counter-drone capabilities around the US-Mexico border as part of its ongoing support of the Trumpf junta’s immigration enforcement and security mandates.

Mexican drug cartels have reportedly been using drones to conduct surveillance of US military and law-enforcement personnel at the US-Mexico border.

The rapid emergence, proliferation and application of drones are fundamentally shifting the way that militarized groups and other adversarial organizations conduct warfare.

The DOD is still trying to effectively respond to several recent high-profile drone incidents that impacted military officials and American civilians domestically and abroad, including in New Jersey and at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia.

Followers of the Watch are aware that the US has been deploying drones along the US-Mexican border, and most likely they are flying over Mexican airspace. The drug cartels also have drones and they have been utilizing armed drones against each other. USNORTHCOM has deployed thousands of US Army Soldiers to the US-Mexican border that are vulnerable to these cartel drones.

The Jalisco Drug Cartel drops hand grenades onto a rival drug cartel’s camp in the town of Tepalcatepec, Mexico. (Photo: Twitter)

Recall from a previous post on Coriolanus that the Mexico drug cartels have recently began recruiting experienced and dangerous Colombian military veterans. Moreover, the cartels have been able to either bribe US border agents or hack the phones of careless USIC personnel operating in Mexico, making targeting of their enemies easier.

No one should under-estimate the caliber of Colombian military veterans who have gained experience, tenacity, and competency after decades of fighting a counter-insurgency against the FARC and ELN.

The real solution to this problem is for Americans to quit their incessant appetite for drugs and for obscenely making money gun-running weapons to the Mexican cartels. Without the American demand for drugs, business would dry up for the cartels. Without firearms and ammunition, the cartels would be vulnerable to Mexican security forces.

Links:

DOD to deploy counter-drone capabilities at US-Mexico border as cartels surveil troops | DefenseScoop

https://www.northcom.mil/Newsroom/Press-Releases/Article/4133410/new-authorities-allow-service-members-to-patrol-along-southern-border/

https://nypost.com/2022/01/12/mexicos-deadliest-cartel-is-dropping-bombs-from-a-drone-onto-rival-camps-in-new-turf-war/

Italian Mafia Leader Caught in Colombia

Giuseppe Palermo (AKA ‘Peppe”) in Bogota, Colombia. (Photo: Colombian National Police)

Colombian authorities captured an alleged leader of the Italian ’Ndrangheta mafia in Latin America who is accused of overseeing cocaine shipments and managing illegal trafficking routes to Europe. Police identified the suspect as Giuseppe Palermo, also known as “Peppe,” an Italian who was wanted under an INTERPOL Red Notice, which called for his arrest in 196 countries.

Palermo was apprehended on the street in Colombia’s capital Bogota during a coordinated operation between Colombian, Italian, and British authorities, as well as Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency.

Palermo is believed to be part of “one of the most tightly knit cells” of the ’Ndrangheta mafia, said Carlos Fernando Triana, head of the Colombian police, in a message posted on X.

The ’Ndrangheta, one of Italy’s most powerful and secretive criminal organizations, has extended its influence abroad and is widely accused of importing cocaine into Europe. The suspect “not only led the purchase of large shipments of cocaine in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador, but also controlled the maritime and land routes used to transport the drugs to European markets,” Triana added.

The ’Ndrangheta originated in the Calabria region of Italy, and is supposedly led from Palermo, the “Toe of Italy.” Their cross strait rival to the west is the Sicilian mafia.

Illegal cocaine production reached 3,708 tons in 2023, an increase of nearly 34% from the previous year, driven mainly by the expansion of coca leaf cultivation in Colombia, according to the UN. The ’Ndrangheta is reportedly also involved in a wide array of other illegal activities, including arms trafficking, money laundering, racketeering, extortion, and loan sharking.

This is a small victory for fighting drug-trafficking, but Giuseppe Palermo will be quickly replaced within the organization. They are believed to exert influence over local and national politics in Italy and is understood to have infiltrated various sectors of the legal economy both within Italy and internationally. Estimates in 2013 suggested the organization’s revenue reached €53 billion.

There is No Escape from the ’Ndrangheta

In 2009 Lea Garofalo tried to escape the ’Ndrangheta family she was born in to but was assassinated for this infamia. (Photo: Harper Collins Canada)

Sources:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/colombian-authorities-arrest-alleged-leader-italian-mafia-latin-123692646

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/’Ndrangheta

Lea Garofalo was killed by her Mafia family. Now she’s the face of anti-mob protests | CBC Radio

Harper’s Magazine Weekly Review

Summarized succinctly for us by Clarissa Fragoso Pinheiro. Our eternal gratitude to her.

In Texas, the search for at least 166 missing people after the July 4th Guadalupe River flooding was paused as heavy rains and flash floods forced further evacuations. The US Homeland Security secretary defended the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the Texas floods, despite reports that two thirds of its disaster hotline calls went unanswered due to a staff shortage. “Our entire office is just … gone,” said a senior civil service officer after the US State Department laid off more than 1,300 employees, many of them were notified by email. A preliminary report on the Air India crash that killed 260 people last month found that the plane’s fuel switches were cut off shortly after takeoff, possibly by one of the pilots. In posts to Truth Social, the US president announced 30% tariffs on goods from Mexico and the European Union, 35% tariffs on those from Canada, and 50% tariffs on all Brazilian imports, the latter partly in retaliation for the country’s treatment of its former far-right president, who is on trial for attempting a coup d’état, a proceeding that the US president called a “Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!” The US president criticized Brazil’s recent Supreme Court rulings that would require social media companies to actively monitor and remove harmful content from their platforms; and on X, the Sesame Street character Elmo, whose account was hacked, and xAI’s chatbot Grok posted anti-Semitic messages. “Too eager to please,” said Elon Musk of the chatbot’s praise for Adolf Hitler. The US Federal Communications Commission approved two deals with T-Mobile after the communications company agreed to abandon its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; it was reported that some Harvard University graduate schools closed their diversity, equity, and inclusion offices; and in Alaska, a creek’s name was changed from Nazi Creek to Kaxchim Chi’anaa, or “gizzard creek.”

In ICE detention centers, accounts from detainees described food shortages and spoiled food; US immigration officials may soon be able to deport migrants to countries other than their countries of origin with as little as six hours’ notice; and a 57-year-old farmworker died after falling 30 feet from a greenhouse roof during an ICE raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California, where about 200 immigrants and four US citizens were arrested. The Trump Administration filed a suit against the state of California over the high price of eggs, citing animal welfare laws, and dropped charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of destroying COVID-19 vaccines, selling fake vaccination cards, and administering saline shots to children at their parents’ request. MAGA influencers criticized the Trump Administration for its handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and a former MAGA influencer and the current deputy FBI director said he is considering resigning after clashes with the US attorney general over the Epstein case. A former New York governor who resigned from his post in disgrace announced his independent candidacy for mayor of NYC, and the US president nominated a self-described “alpha male” and “manosphere” content creator to be the US ambassador to Malaysia. A team of researchers found that among primates, females are almost as likely as “alpha males” to dominate the opposite sex.

A 54-pound Martian rock will be auctioned in New York, the original Hermès Birkin bag sold for more than $10 million in Paris, and a wedge of blue cheese sold for $42,232 in Spain. Flamingos invaded Italian rice fields, threatening risotto production; and Canadian researchers found the nation’s oldest known puffin. A man was charged with smuggling 14 toucans inside his dashboard across the US–Mexico border, a mother was arrested and charged after her son died due to being left for several hours in a hot car while she was getting lip filler, and it was reported that extreme heat caused cars to catch fire in Death Valley National Park. In Queens, New York, “parking wars” erupted as a woman was slashed in the face over a parking spot outside a hookah lounge, and two women attacked one of their neighbors for attempting to park in front of their house; and in Brooklyn, a parking spot sold for nearly $250,000. “End your parking woes forever!” claimed the listing for the spot. In the Bronx, the New York Police Department requested that an illegal swimming pool be dismantled after children were seen jumping from scaffolding into its waters; and in Arizona, a man was fined for offering free cold water in his driveway. Wisconsin police found drugs in a bag labeled “Definitely Not a Bag Full of Drugs,” researchers found that magic mushrooms might slow aging, and an Australian woman was found guilty of murder by mushroom after serving a poisonous beef Wellington to her guests. “It is of course upsetting to learn that one of my recipes … is entangled in a tragic situation,” said the chef who posted the recipe to her blog. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police proposed collaborating with a local farmers market to make “Jack-Knife Jelly, Pothole Preserves, and the ever-popular … Traffic Jam!” after thousands of blueberries spilled onto a British Columbia highway. Both blueberries and mushrooms were placed under a severe recall notice by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Link: https://harpers.org/

Published in a separate magazine, this political cartoon below summed up the Texas flood disaster and the Republican mindset of cutting government programs perfectly. Texas Republicans had the opportunity to accept federal money to install an emergency siren in Kerr County, Ground Zero of this preventable loss of life. Link: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/weather/2025/07/11/kerr-county-considered-adding-warning-sirens-years-before-flood-why-didnt-it-happen/

Buffalo News editorial cartoonist Adam Zyglis defended this message.

For Followers of the Watch That Are Chess, Boxing, or Dance Aficionados

Massive Archive of Critical Chess Positions from Historic and Modern Games

Bobby Fischer vs. Boris Spassky Game VI, World Chess Championship, Reykjavík, Iceland 1972

Link: 30,000 Chess Puzzles

Two Legendary Pugilists Sparring

Pandas Just Want to Have Fun

President Trump Colossal Embarrassment at Papal Funeral

Donald Trump (AKA Dotard Trumpf) demonstrated again why he has been ranked as the worst president of all time, coinciding with his exponentially growing unpopularity at home and abroad. Trumpf has the lowest 100-day job approval rating of any president in the past 80 years. This latest episode of the Trumpf saga is further evidence of his manifest ineptitude.

Before departing for the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, the Dotard posted this message on social media:

“Melania and I will be going to the funeral of Pope Francis, in Rome. We look forward to being there!”

Who or what in the universe looks forward to attending a funeral?

Against all protocol and common sense, the President of the United States inexcusably didn’t wear black unlike every single mourner at the solemn ritual, standing out like a peacock in his bright blue suit:

Somehow egotistical Dotard Trumpf got a front row seat to the ceremonies when Vatican and monarchial protocol dictated he should have been seated in the third row. But Trumpf’s ego worked to his own humiliation as he was verbally attacked to his face during the homily for Pope Francis. The Dotard’s signature policy was rebuked in front of an audience of millions watching live around the world:

“Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice, imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions. Build bridges, not walls, was an exhortation he repeated many times,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re sermonized in his homily.

The barb was clearly aimed right between the eyes of Dotard Trumpf.

In 2017, the late Pontiff had lectured Trumpf about compassion, the environment, and humility, which all fell on deaf ears anyway. Look at the expression on the face of the first Jesuit pope standing beside the smiling oligarch:

The humiliation for the First Couple continued when Trumpf was photographed sleeping during the ceremonies. Below, note the expression on Melania Trumpf’s face (AKA Melanoma Trumpf) as she clutches her heart in disbelief and then looks away in disgust. A wider shot of this photograph shows a mourner behind them staring at the Dotard as if he may be snoring.

This was the first time Trumpf slept next to his wife in years.

In 2016, Republican supporters of Trumpf loudly applauded when he demeaned Hillary Clinton as “low energy” and in 2020 MAGAts vigorously cheered when the Dotard slandered President Biden as “Sleepy Joe.”

Inexplicably, Melanoma Trumpf did not prevent her husband from his garish faux pas of wearing blue to a funeral, nor did she make any efforts to keep the Dotard awake during these solemn rites.

“Trumpf told aides he wanted to make it back to his golf resort in New Jersey before the end of the day.”

Sources:

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-lowest-100-day-approval-rating-80-years/story?id=121165473

Canada: Lunatic Kills Eleven by Ramming SUV Into Crowd at Filipino Street Festival in Vancouver

At least nine people were killed and an unknown number were injured when a 30-year-old man drove into a crowd at a Filipino heritage festival in the Canadian city of Vancouver on Saturday. The event celebrates a Filipino martyr who stood up to Spanish colonization in the 16th century. Video shows a young man in a black hoodie with his back against a chain link fence, alongside a security guard and surrounded by bystanders screaming and swearing at him. “I’m sorry,” the suspect says, holding his hand to his head. Vancouver has 38,600 residents of Filipino heritage (5.9% of the city’s total population).

Almost exactly seven years ago on 23 April 2018, an InCel lunatic rammed his into a crowd in Toronto. 25-year-old Alek Minassian targeted pedestrians, killing 11 and injuring 15, some critically. The 2018 Toronto incident was the deadliest vehicle-ramming attack in Canadian history. This maniac in Vancouver may end up outkilling Alek Minassian if more of the injured die while in hospital.

Source:

Vancouver Police investigates mass casualty incident at neighborhood block party – Vancouver Police Department

UN: World Food Program Runs Out of Food Stocks in Gaza

A girl puts a pot to her head as Palestinians wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen, in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, earlier this month. Photo: Mahmoud Issa / Reuters

The UN World Food Program (WFP) has depleted all its food stocks in Gaza as Israel continues to block the entry of all humanitarian aid into the enclave, home to over two million people. WFP delivered its last remaining supplies to kitchens preparing hot meals. For weeks, hot meal kitchens have been the only consistent source of food assistance for people in the Warsaw Ghetto of the Middle East. Despite reaching just half the population with only 25% of daily food needs, they have provided a critical lifeline. 

When victims die of purposeful neglect, untreated wounds, starvation, or unchecked disease, this is called ‘NHI’ or ‘No Humans Involved.’ When Mother Nature kills off these sick or starving Palestinians, Israel can argue that no humans were involved in their deaths.

Murder-Death-Kill Continues in Gaza: IDF Slay 48 and Maim 152 in Past 24 Hours

Since 7 Oct 2023, the IDF has killed 51,355 Palestinians and injured or maimed 117,248. The death toll after US Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) capitulated on the heinous GOP budget on 18 March, releasing billions of dollars of free money to Israel, is 1,978 and 5,207 injured. That very weekend in March, Trumpf enjoyed watching USCENTCOM forces attack the Houthis, who he derided as “savages.” The Dotard then waddled over to his cart which drove him to his chukka of golf. An international arrest warrant issued by the ICC remains active for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) also at the Hague has charged Israel with administering brutal, racist apartheid on Palestinians.

Sources:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/04/1162611

Translatable link here: t.me

https://www.trackaipac.com/

https://www.opensecrets.org/

Iran: 800 People Injured and 65 People Killed in Powerful Explosion

The blast took place at the southern Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, Iran’s largest commercial port and was reportedly linked to a shipment of a chemical ingredient used to make missile propellant. The explosion occurred just as Iran and the US met Saturday in Oman for the third round of negotiations over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program. The Dotard Trumpf’s chief negotiator, sycophantic oligarch Steve Witkoff, a man with no diplomatic experience, is also negotiating with Vladimir Putin. No one in Iran outright suggested that the explosion came from an attack. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who led the talks, acknowledged that “our security services are on high alert given past instances of attempted sabotage and assassination operations designed to provoke a legitimate response.”

Rescuers carry an injured man after a massive explosion near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, Iran, Saturday, 26 Ap 2025. (Photo: Mohammad Rasoul Moradi /IRNA via AP)

As you read previously here on Coriolanus, an explosion destroyed a rocket manufacturing facility in Utah several weeks ago. Working with powerful, volatile fuels is dangerous and both of these incidents could have been accidents. But sabotage should not be ruled out, particularly with this curious Iranian explosion.

Links:

BBC.com

politico.com

https://apnews.com/article/iran-explosion-fire-bandar-abbas-72637c6b3e152a30045275f57ace29ed

Ukraine Update

Ukraine to Continue Fighting With or Without Trumpf

“Russia is waging small-scale assaults across the entire front, but the situation on the battlefield is nowhere near bad enough for Ukraine to be forced into an unfavorable peace deal, military analysts and soldiers told the Kyiv Independent.

Since Ukraine announced the start of the Russian spring offensive in early April, Moscow has made “incremental gains” in multiple sectors of the front at a high cost, but achieving a breakthrough seems unlikely.”

Russian losses in the meatgrinder since brutally invading Ukraine in Feb 2022: 948,720 personnel, 370 aircraft, 335 helicopters, and 10,719 tanks. Europe has committed to defending Ukraine in the absence of Kremlin-controlled Trumpf and Russian casualties will reach one million in 2026.

Below, the Russian ambassador to Germany Sergey Nechaev was booed at the WWII commemoration event in Germany after showing up uninvited:

Sergey Nechaev was unwelcome at the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the historic handshake between American and Soviet soldiers on the Elba River on 25 April 1945. (Photo: Russian Embassy in Germany)

The Russian security services tortured a Ukrainian journalist and 30 are still being held by the Kremlin. While Trumpf and President Zelensky conferred in Rome before Pope Francis’ interment; no details of the meeting are available at this time and most likely nothing was accomplished. Aeroflot remains sanctioned from flying to the US despite rigorous Russian lobbying. North Korea finally admitted to sending cannon-fodder to die in Russia. Dotard Trumpf’s favorite restaurant, McDonald’s, registers its trademark in Russia.

Russian General Neutralized with Powerful IED in Moscow

The late General Yaroslav Moskalik now sings with the choir invisible.

General Yaroslav Moskalik (59), in charge of Ukraine operations at the Russian Ministry of Defense, was rendered ineffective by a powerful IED. A vehicle parked in the courtyard of a residential building detonated as Moskalik passed by. The explosion reportedly threw the general several meters away. Two other unidentified persons may have been killed or injured.

Son of CIA Deputy Director KIA Fighting for Russia

The son of CIA Deputy Director for Digital Innovation Julianne Gallina Gloss and Iraq war veteran Larry Gloss was killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine in 2024. Michael Gloss (21) was travelling around Europe before arriving in Russia on 13 Aug 2023. On his Vkontakte page bio, Michael Gloss wrote: “I ran away from home and traveled the world. I hate fascism.”

Sources:

kyivindependent.com

https://kyivindependent.com/cia-deputy-directors-son-killed-while-fighting-for-russia-in-ukraine-investigation-claims/

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/

 nationalinterest.org

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-cia-official-pleads-guilty-acting-foreign-agent-and-mishandling-classified-materials

From left: Sean-Michael Johnson, Aidan Steigelmann and Carl Thomas Bennett. 
Al Cannon Detention Center / Philadelphia Police Department / Wake County Government / Courtesy WRAL

Any mother would be simply delighted to have her daughter come home with any of these above Prince Charmings. As if is people weren’t terrified enough of Trumpf’s police state, these lunatics came out of the woodwork. Recall the maniac who stalked the Ukrainians in the Pacific Northwest with a phony ICE vehicle a few weeks ago.

An indictment is merely an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Source:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/04/us/ice-impersonators-on-the-rise-arrests-made-as-authorities-issue-national-warning/index.html?iid=cnn_buildContentRecirc_end_recirc

Trumpf Junta Wants States to Pursue Death Penalties

After President Biden commuted federal death row sentences, several Republican district attorneys have considered charging former death row prisoners with state charges, per Trumpf’s 20 Jan 2025 executive order. The Dotard called on the USAG to determine whether former federal death row inmates “can be charged with State capital crimes.” 

Nota Bene: While President Jimmy Carter’s first executive order on 20 Jan 1977 was to mercifully pardon all Vietnam War draft evaders, one of this fascist’s first orders was for the states to find ways to unmercifully execute people.

Luigi Mangione Pleads Not Guilty to Federal Charges

Luigi Mangione pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment charging him in the murder of oligarch Brian Thompson during his arraignment in SDNY. Mangione entered the Manhattan federal courtroom shackled at the ankles as if he was a dangerous ISIS operative with a black belt in karate. Mangione allegedly murdered the greedy CEO because of the well-documented ‘profits over people’ policy at UnitedHealthCare which cost thousands of Americans not only their savings, but their lives. The late Brian Thompson’s UHC is rated one of the worst health insurance companies on the planet and should be drawn and quartered.

US Attorney-General Pam Bondi.

Bloodthirsty USAG Pam Bondi can’t wait to send Luigi Mangione to Dr Jack Kevorkian’s ‘Thanatron’ in Terre Haute, IN, if he’s found guilty. This ghoul would would like to see more executions throughout the US.

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

Sources:

www.luigimangioneinfo.com

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/biden-commuted-federal-death-row-sentences-das-are-weighing-state-char-rcna202894

whitehouse.gov 

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-pamela-bondi-directs-prosecutors-seek-death-penalty-luigi-mangione

This is One Patient Cat

Canada Votes 28 April 2025

Edward R. Murrow: 25 Apr 1908 – 27 Apr 1965

Murder-Death-Kill: IDF Warpath Continues With US Elections Days Away

The IDF and the Likud Party are doing the best they can, young lady, so please be patient. (Undated image)

Israeli strikes killed at least eight people, including six health workers in south Lebanon. The killing of the six Lebanese health workers and the wounding of four others in three separate strikes across south Lebanon brought the death toll of health workers to 178 over the last year, while 279 health workers have been injured. Beirut long accused Jerusalem of targeting its medical personnel and infrastructure, a violation of the Geneva Convention. The IDF also struck reported Hezbollah weapons depots and bases in Syria. In Gaza, at least 46 Palestinians were killed in IDF strikes across the enclave, primarily in the north, where one attack hit a hospital. The Israeli military accuses Palestinians of using the hospital for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there, which health officials denied.

An Israeli attack in the occupied West Bank killed three Palestinians. Since Oct 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 763 Palestinians in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to facilitate the seizure of lands and homes by fanatical Settlers. A few of these maniacs have been sanctioned by the Biden Administration as a token measure, as you read in previous posts.

Over the past 24 hours, Israel amassed at least 67 deaths in all three Arab Killing Zones (AKZ): AKZ-L, AKZ-G, AKZ-W. (Russian President Vladimir Putin has established a Ukrainian Killing Zone or UKZ, which is discussed later.)

Lebanese fighters counterattacked with projectiles, killing one Israeli farmer and four foreign workers. Their nationalities were not disclosed.

One of the IDF strikes in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, including a paramedic and two local journalists.

In AKZ-L, Israel issued an evacuation warning to residents of Baalbek for a second consecutive day. The IDF conducted heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in and around the city famed for its Roman temples.

Displaced children, who fled Baalbek city and the nearby towns of Douris and Ain Bourday with their families amid the Israeli onslaught, listen to a story at a school being used as a shelter in Deir Al-Ahmar, east Lebanon, 31 Oct 2024.

Dozens of cars could be seen speeding out of the area after Thursday’s warning, with wafts of black smoke still visible emanating from the town of Douris, where an Israeli strike the previous day destroyed Hezbollah fuel stocks.

Lebanese Shia fighters aim to keep Israeli forces out of Khiyam to prevent the IDF from detonating homes and buildings, as has happened on a large scale in other border towns.

Israeli bulldozers damaged the office of UN aid agency UNRWA in the West Bank’s Nur Shams camp, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s chief.

The office “can no longer be used,” Lazzarini grimly posted on social media platform X.

An IDF bulldozer operates at the parameter of the Nur Shams refugee camp during the ongoing army operation, in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 31 Oct 2024. This is what Lebanese Shias are trying to prevent the IDF from doing to their homes. An IDF bulldozer like this killed American peace activist Rachel Corrie in 2003.

The late Rachel Corrie (Undated photo: Wikipedia)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding that Lebanese Hezbollah pull back to north of the Litani River, about 30 km from the Israeli frontier. In addition, Israel wants the Lebanese army to deploy along the border, an international intervention mechanism to enforce the truce, and the IDF to remain free to respond militarily in case of threats. And after abandoning their ancestral homes, where would these Lebanese Shias live?

(Map: worldatlas.com)

Lebanese Hezbollah did not exist before 1982. They organized as a resistance to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Everyone in Lebanon, regardless of their faith, remembers the horrific 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre. The aftermath led to the resignation of Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon (but he was kept in the cabinet as a “minister without portfolio”). As people in the Middle East did not forget 1982, neither will they forget 2023-24.

Israel’s offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza has killed more than 43,100 people, with Israel claiming the death toll includes thousands of militants. Nakba 2024 has devastated much of the Gaza Strip, while the fighting and Israeli evacuation orders have displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people. At this rate of homicide, by year’s end the IDF will have killed close to 50,000 Palestinians while maiming 150,000. Coriolanus has not yet calculated the predicted death toll for of Lebanon.  

The Vietnam War destroyed the legacy of President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ). How will history judge retiring, kind-hearted President Joe Biden? (Artwork: Mr. Dave Chappatte)

Sources:

Middle East fighting rages on several fronts, killing dozens (voanews.com)

Sabra and Shatila massacre – Wikipedia

Finnish Prosecutor Charges Russian Ultranationalist Leader with War Crimes

Russian radical nationalist and accused war criminal Voislav Torden AKA Yan Petrovsky. (Photo: Antifascist-europe,org)

The Finnish Prosecutor-General’s Office has charged Voislav Torden, AKA Yan Petrovsky, a Russian ultranationalist and former commander of the Rusich sabotage group, with war crimes committed in Ukraine in 2014.

Torden faces five counts stemming from his involvement with Rusich, which fought against Ukrainian forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Torden and his group are linked to the deaths of 22 Ukrainian soldiers and the injury of four others. He is accused of war crimes and committing acts of cruelty against both injured and deceased enemy combatants.

Born Yan Petrovsky in 1987 in St. Petersburg, Torden relocated to Oslo in 2004 with his mother. He then regularly visited Russia, where he met former paratrooper and nationalist Aleksandr Milchakov. In 2014, they traveled to Ukraine’s Donbas region to support Russia-backed separatists in their fight against Ukrainian forces.

In Sep 2014, Rusich ambushed a column of the Ukrainian battalion Aidar near Shchastya, with Milchakov later boasting about photographing himself with the bodies of slain Ukrainian soldiers, while members of Rusich reportedly mutilated some of the remains.

In 2016, Torden was deported from Norway to Russia, where he changed his name from Yan Petrovsky to Voislav Torden. He entered Finland in 2023 as a family member of his wife, who received a study permit. Torden was detained on 20 Jul 2023, at Helsinki Airport while attempting to board a flight to Nice, France.

Following his arrest, Ukrainian authorities sought his extradition, but Finland’s Supreme Court denied the request, citing concerns over conditions in Ukrainian prisons and the potential for Torden to face humiliation in custody. Ukraine has charged him with war crimes from the 2014-15 conflict, and he was sanctioned by the US in 2022 for extreme cruelty during combat in the Kharkiv region.

The specifics of his activities in Ukraine during that time remain unclear.

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

Meanwhile, USSECSTATE Antony Blinken said that Russia has been suffering some 1,200 casualties a day in eastern Ukraine, more than at any other time during the war. 8,000 North Korean troops are ready for combat in what will most likely be “meat attacks” against Ukrainian defenders. Blinken stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin turning to North Korean troops “is a clear sign of weakness.”

President Volodimir Zelensky again asked NATO for permission to attack deep targets in Russia following a lethal drone attack on a residential building in Kharkiv.

Police officers stand next to the bodies of people found under the debris of an apartment building that was hit by a Russian air strike in Kharkiv on 31 Oct. Three were killed and scores wounded. Two boys, aged 11 and 15, were among the dead. Putin has turned Ukraine into a killing zone (UKZ), like Netanyahu’s AKZ in the Middle East. (Photo: Reuters)

Sources:

Finnish Prosecutor Charges Russian Ultranationalist Leader With War Crimes (rferl.org)

The Prosecutor’s Office of Finland has charged the leader of the neo-Nazi group “Rusich” Petrovsky with committing war crimes in Ukraine (currenttime.tv)

U.S. Says 8,000 North Korean Troops Ready For Combat In Kursk Region (rferl.org)

Thousands of Passenger Flight Signals Jammed Over Warzones in Ukraine, Middle East

The navigation systems of thousands of passenger aircraft are being disrupted every day as they fly close to conflict zones who warn that the blocking or spoofing technology could one day put lives at risk.

Over the past two years, electronic warfare technology has been deployed to disrupt drones or missiles that use global positioning system or other satellite navigation technology to home in on their targets.

However, the blocking or spoofing of GPS signals also affects commercial aircraft, explained Raphael Monstein, a research associate at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland.

“Spoofing is when an actor sends out malicious signals to all the receivers that are in the coverage area. And it tricks the receiver into believing that it is in a different position than it actually is. And particularly in aviation, that has quite some consequences, which can be quite negative.”

“It has a lot of side effects in the cockpit, and they can range from spurious warnings — obviously the loss of situational awareness because you’re not quite sure when your GPS indicates you’re somewhere else. You can have very different reactions of the aircraft, depending a bit on the aircraft type.”

Monstein and his team in Zurich track GPS interference of civilian aircraft in real time and publish it on an online map.

They have detected an increase in such incidents since the beginning of 2024.

“And they are mainly around conflict zones. One of them would be the Middle East. One would be the Black Sea and around Russia,” he said. “We talk about on an average day about 1,000 aircraft at least being affected by that. And that is a very big scale. That is novel. We haven’t seen that kind of [interference] anywhere in the world so far.”

The disruption isn’t only happening above war zones. In April, Finnair, Finland’s national carrier, suspended flights to Tartu in eastern Estonia near Russia after GPS disruptions prevented two aircraft from landing at the airport. Finnair resumed the flights in June after the airport installed navigation systems that do not rely on GPS. Experts say most airports have such alternative equipment already installed.

Finnair previously reported similar problems when flying close to the Finland-Russia border and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The interference began in 2022, the year Finland applied to join NATO, after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.

At the time, Estonia’s defense minister said it was a deliberate Russian tactic.

“We all understand that these hybrid attacks are still very acute. We have to be ready also for these.”

Russia denies seeking to disrupt GPS signals of commercial aircraft.

The Swiss-based researcher contends that back-up systems will help prevent catastrophes, such as the ground proximity warning system. GPS blocking and spoofing also affects navigation systems on the ground. Residents of Moscow have recently complained of malfunctioning smartphone applications, such as map, taxi-hailing or food delivery apps. Experts have linked the disruption to Russian attempts to defend against Ukrainian drone attacks.

Sources:

Thousands of passenger flight signals jammed over war zones in Ukraine, Middle East (voanews.com)

France: Former Intelligence Chief Faces Trial for Attempted Extortion

Bernard Bajolet, former head of France’s foreign intelligence service, is due to face trial for attempted extortion of a businessman who the spy agency claims owes it millions of euros linked to murky investments. © AFP / BERTRAND LANGLOIS

Bernard Bajolet allegedly instructed DGSE agents, which he led from 2013 to 2017, to pressure entrepreneur Alain Duménil, with whom the agency was engaged in a lengthy dispute.

Duménil claims he was detained at a Paris airport as he prepared to board a flight and threatened with harm to himself and his family unless he handed over 15 million euros, an account the DGSE contests.

Now a judge has ruled there is sufficient evidence to try Bajolet for complicity in attempted extortion over the 2016 incident. Bajolet has been ordered to appear in criminal court outside Paris, where he will face the charge of “arbitrary infringement of individual liberty as a holder of public authority.”

The case has provided a rare glimpse into the financial interests of the DGSE, which is entrusted with managing a war chest designed to secure the state in the event of a national emergency. 

Seeded by the reparations damages paid to France after World War I, the capital was kept separate from the agency’s operational budget and placed in investments that helped it grow substantially over the decades. But by the turn of the 21st century, with little external oversight to monitor them, the DGSE’s investments had turned risky and were losing it considerable sums, according to an investigation by Le Monde

Seeking to extricate itself from loss-making companies and recover its funds, the service entered into a deal to exchange shares with Duménil in the early 2000s. But the French-Swiss businessman – who has since been sanctioned for tax fraud and other wrongdoing – promptly transferred the remaining assets and liquidated their holding companies, leaving the DGSE with now worthless shares.

The DGSE pursued the case in the courts for over a decade, but failed to recoup a loss it estimates at some 15 million euros.

In March 2016, Duménil alleges, the DGSE resorted to shadier means.

According to statements to investigators seen by Le Monde, he claims he was stopped by border police at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and handed over to two plain-clothes DGSE agents.

“‘You robbed the government of 13 million, which today makes 15 million with interest’,” Duménil said one of the agents told him. “‘You have to give it back to us’… He was very threatening, talking about me ending up in a wheelchair or worse.” 

The businessman says the agents also showed him pictures of his family and friends: “They wanted to make me understand that they could also go after any of these people.” 

Multimillionaire Alain Duménil (undated photo)

Duménil was allowed to leave and subsequently filed a complaint, which has been dismissed several times but allowed to stand on appeal. While the identity of the DGSE agents remains classified, director Bajolet was indicted in late 2022 for allegedly ordering their actions. 

A career diplomat, he acknowledges approving the plan to intercept Duménil at the airport, but told investigators he did not give detailed instructions and hoped only to revive discussions between each side’s lawyers. The DGSE denies Duménil was ever detained or threatened. It has not commented on the latest developments in the case.

Bajolet’s trial, for which a date has not yet been set, threatens to bring the agency further scrutiny.

After the judge’s ruling on 23 Oct, Duménil’s lawyers said in a statement: “Beyond the trial of Bernard Bajolet, this will be the trial of the DGSE and the twisting of its work to private ends.”

To raise funds to fight the Vietminh insurgency, the intelligence services traded in opium during the French colonial occupation of Vietnam, as did the Viet Minh. Both sent their agents to peddle the opium in Thailand. French intelligence agencies also raised funds in Southeast Asia by manipulating the overvalued Vietnamese currency, the Piaster, on the black market. The French intelligence services have a mixed bag reputation during their history. They were accurate about an eventual Taliban victory in Afghanistan, but dead wrong about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And as this incident exposes, there is little oversight of the DGSE.  

On 10 July 1985 in Auckland, NZ, the DGSE sank the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship protesting nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean.  A Portuguese photographer was killed.  30 years later Jean-Luc Kister, the DGSE frogman responsible for the explosion, apologized on French national TV.

Sources:

France’s former intelligence chief faces trial for attempted extortion (rfi.fr)

French Indochina: Opium Espionage and “Operation X” (akha.org)

Dirty Wars: French and American Piaster Profiteering in Indochina, 1945-75 ダーティー・ウォーズ インドシナにおける仏米ピアストル暴利 1945-75年 – The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (apjjf.org)

The French secret service and its ‘war chest’ caught in the nets of the justice system (lemonde.fr)

Italy: Botulism Sickens Eight; Kills One

Bar Necci, a typical bistro in Rome’s multicultural Pigneto neighborhood with working-class Roman roots.

After six patrons at an unspecified bar in the Pigneto district of Rome recently ate sandwiches contaminated with botulism, two other cases emerged. One woman died and her daughter has been hospitalized with serious symptoms after they had eaten frozen artichoke soup, purchased in a supermarket. The two women began to feel seriously unwell shortly after eating. For the older of the two, the poisoning would have been fulminant and she died shortly after admittance to the Sant’Eugenio hospital in Rome. Her daughter spent a week in intensive care. 

The public prosecutor’s office in Rome has opened an investigation. The prosecutor, Fabio Santoni, delegated the Nas carabinieri for the investigation. When the investigators went to the commercial establishment where the product was presumed to have been purchased, they realized that the batch had already been replaced. Investigators are trying to determine how the chain of preservation of the frozen foods led to the death of one person and the serious illness of the other. There is no information suggesting the six bar patrons who dined in the Pigneto bar died from the botulism.

According to the CDC, botulism is a rare but serious illness. It is caused by a toxin that attacks the body’s nerves and causes difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis, and even death. The toxin is made by Clostridium botulinum and related bacteria. There are five main kinds of botulism and all are medical emergencies. Improperly home-canned, preserved, or fermented foods can provide the right conditions for spores to grow and make botulinum toxin.

Sources:

Rome, botulinum in artichoke soup: a woman died – LaPresse

Colorado Animal Murderer Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan Attack on US Capitol

(Photo: FBI)

Patrick Montgomery (51) of Littleton, CO was sentenced to 37 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release by the Honorable US District Judge Randolph D. Moss for assaulting law enforcement personnel on 6 Jan 2021.

On the morning of 6 Jan 2021, Montgomery and co-defendants Brady Knowlton and Gary Wilson met at the Yours Truly hotel in Washington, DC and attended the “Stop the Steal” rally. After the protest, the three defendants made their way to the West Front of the US Capitol building, crossing over inside the restricted perimeter.

When they confronted a police line, Montgomery grabbed a law enforcement officer’s baton and attempted to wrestle it away from him. The officer held onto the baton and fell to the ground with Montgomery. The two then attempted to wrestle control of the baton from each other while Knowlton and Wilson watched nearby. During the scuffle, Montgomery kicked the police officer in the chest.

The three maniacs then made their way near the Senate Floor, where they confronted a USCP officer. Knowlton yelled at the officer: “This is not about us. This is bigger than me, it’s bigger than you. It’s about this – everyone’s right to self-government . . . We’re with you guys. You think these people in this building would fight for you?” Montgomery yelled: “You gotta stop doing your job sometime and start being American. You gotta quit doing your job and be an American!” Wilson yelled: “We came all the way from our job to do your job, and the freaking Senators’ job!”

After this confrontation, the defendants exited the Capitol building. The FBI arrested Montgomery on 17 Jan 2021 in Colorado.

Here Patrick Montgomery proudly poses with two other miscreants on 6 Jan 2021, presumably Brady Knowlton and Gary Wilson. Co-defendant Brady Knowlton is awaiting sentencing. Gary Wilson was previously sentenced to 30 days incarceration followed by 12 months supervised release for his heinous conduct on 6 Jan 2021.

In the nearly four years since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,532 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 571 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

This abomination proudly murdered a defenseless mountain lion. Cretinous Patrick Montgomery told Colorado gaming officials that he had killed the animal during a March hunt, but a background check unearthed a 1996 conviction that barred the Capitol rioter from owning a firearm. (Undated photo: mediate.com; the-sun.com.)

Patrick Montgomery, Brady Knowlton, and Gary Wilson come from exactly what 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hailed as a “basket of deplorables.” These “useful idiots,” white supremacist supporters of Donald Trump, heeded his imbecilic call and then threw away the shambles of their lives with these felony convictions.

For the odious animal-killing Patrick Montgomery, the state of Colorado hosts at least three federal prisons to house him for the next three years. The BOP guards should be issued clothespins for their nostrils.  

Sources:

District of Columbia | Colorado Man Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During the Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

Capitol riot suspect, 48, under house arrest after shooting mountain lion in breach of ex-con’s gun ban | The US Sun (the-sun.com)

Unheard Frédéric Chopin Work Discovered

Frédéric Chopin (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Last month, a German library unearthed a previously unknown Mozart composition. Now, a Manhattan museum curator has found what appears to be a long-lost composition by Frédéric Chopin, the first of its kind to be discovered in over half a century.

Curator Robinson McClellan, who is also a composer, found the piece while sorting through a collection of cultural memorabilia in the vault of the Morgan Library & Museum. It’s written on a scrap about the size of an index card, with Chopin’s name written. After a lot of testing and, presumably, many experts’ corroborations, they confirmed that it’s almost certainly a genuine Chopin composition. Before the Polish composer died in 1849 at age 39, he wrote only about 250 known works — much less than his more prolific contemporaries — so there’s some extra magic in coming across a previously unheard piece by him.

Curators are confident that the work is authentic. There are doodles on the page and an oddly-drawn bass clef, which correlate to other original Chopin findings, despite the music itself sounding a bit different than other works. Lang Lang recently recorded the waltz for the New York Times; he told the publication that while it’s “not the most complicated music by Chopin, it is one of the most authentic Chopin styles that you can imagine.”

You may listen to it here.

Sources:

A Previously Unheard Chopin Work Has Been Found (stereogum.co

A Post-Halloween Emeth

After Killing Palestinian Resistance Leader, IDF Continues Special Military Operation in Gaza

Palestinian children line up for food in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, 17 Oct 2024. A UN-backed assessment has found some 345,000 Gazans face “catastrophic” levels of hunger this winter.

Israel conducted raids on Gaza on Friday, pressing its yearlong war to crush the Palestinians after killing resistance leader Yahya Sinwar. Like Osama bin-Laden who should have faced justice in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) for the 9/11 attacks on the US, Sinwar too was killed without judicial process.  

According to Gaza’s civil defense agency, rescuers recovered the bodies of three Palestinian children from the rubble of their home in the north of the territory after it was hit at dawn. The IDF is pressing its operation in Jabalia, where air and drone strikes killed at least 14 people on Thursday.

With the civilian toll in Gaza mounting, Israel has faced criticism over its conduct of the war, including from the US. Israel’s Nakba campaign and free the hostages seized by Palestinian fighters has killed 42,438 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, women, and children. Several more nations have cut diplomatic ties with Jerusalem and an American journalist suggested Israel be expelled from the UN because of its brutal pogrom against the Palestinians and for declaring UNGA Secretary-General António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres persona non grata.

These Israelis joyously celebrate the news of the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar at a southern kibbutz, 17 Oct 2024. Note the elation on the faces of the celebrants, unaware of twice-GOP Presidential candidate Thomas E. Dewey’s famous words, “You can’t shoot an idea with a gun,” as if the IDF killing of one man erases Palestinian nationalism. Urbane Israelis in Ramat Aviv or Haifa wonder how much taxes these kibbutzers pay or whether they ever served in the IDF like them (Photo: AP)

Sources:

Israel conducts raids on Gaza after killing Hamas chief Sinwar (voanews.com)

Moldovan Police Arrest ‘Provocateurs’ Trained in Russia, Balkans

Moldova has a population of 3,599,528 people comprised of these ethnic groups: Moldovan 75.1%, Romanian 7%, Ukrainian 6.6%, Gagauz 4.6%, Russian 4.1%, Bulgarian 1.9%, other 0.8% (2014 est.), GDP per capita: $15,700 (2023 est.) Map and information: CIA.

Moldovan authorities exposed a network of more than 100 people trained in Russia and the Balkans to provoke post-election unrest. Four suspects were arrested and placed in pretrial custody for 30 days following extensive searches by police and Moldova’s Intelligence and Security Service (SIS).

Pro-Western President Maia Sandu is running for a second term on 20 Oct in an election that takes place simultaneously with a referendum to decide whether Moldovans want their impoverished country of 2.5 million people to pursue integration into the EU.

The pro-Kremlin network was financed by Russia-friendly fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, who is wanted in Moldova for his involvement in the theft of some $1 billion from the impoverished ex-Soviet republic’s banking system about a decade ago.

Authorities released hidden-camera videos purporting to depict training sessions in Russia, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. In one video, young people standing on a stage in what appears to be a training hall mock a protest and chant slogans such as “Our language is Russian,” “No dual citizenship,” and “We don’t want to be in Europe.” Another video purportedly shows a training camp said to be in the Balkans where young men are appear to be learning how to make explosives and pilot drones.

The investigators said the approximately 100 young people who took part in the alleged training were around 20 years old. They started traveling to Russia in June and some of them underwent additional training at camps in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina belonging to Russian mercenary groups Ferma and Wagner. Among the coordinators of the action is Konstantin Potyomkin, who has ties with the notorious Wagner group. SIS chief Alexandru Musteata said Moldovan authorities “have the situation under control,” and the degree of risk regarding possible destabilization is now “low.”

Under Sandu’s government, Moldova secured EU candidate status in 2022 and opened accession talks with the bloc earlier this year after siding with Ukraine following Russia’s unprovoked invasion, in a radical U-turn toward the West and away from Moscow’s decades-long influence.

The two polls are seen as crucial for the future of the former Soviet republic and come amid a hybrid campaign of disinformation employed by Russia to scare Moldovans away from the EU and keep them in Moscow’s orbit.

Moldovan and several Western governments have warned that Russia and Shor plan to organize mass unrest if the elections and the referendum will have results contrary to the Kremlin’s liking. Russia’s eventual goal is to bring in a pro-Moscow government in Chisinau, which seems to be thwarted for now.

Sources:

Moldovan Police Arrest ‘Provocateurs’ Trained In Russia, Balkans (rferl.org)

Russia Pressures Central Asian Prisoners to Fight in Ukraine as ‘Expendable Force’

The Sakharovo migration center in Moscow (Photo: AP)

A 24-year-old migrant worker from Kyrgyzstan, Eleman enlisted in the military at a Russian prison in 2023 with the promise of parole, big money, and Russian citizenship in return for six months of combat in Ukraine. In jail for drug trafficking, he was sent to the front line after just a few days of training.

Eleman was forced to remain on the battlefield even after his contract had ended despite being wounded. His father said:


“If you’re alive and can shoot, it’s enough for them to send you to the combat zone.”


Eleman was finally discharged from the military earlier this year after he sustained even more severe injuries that left him disabled.  Eleman is one of thousands of inmates in Russia who were recruited to fight in Ukraine as Moscow struggles to replenish its depleting forces while trying to avoid another unpopular mobilization.

Russia’s Defense Ministry began enlisting inmates in early 2023, taking over from the notorious Wagner mercenary group that started the prisoner-recruitment scheme in July 2022 — five months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Wagner had enlisted nearly 50,000 prisoners — 20 percent of whom were killed in Ukraine — as of May 2023, according to the group’s founder, Evgeniy Prigozhin. Prigozhin fell out of favor with the Kremlin before dying in a suspicious plane crash in Aug 2023.

The Defense Ministry has expanded the practice of recruiting inmates to the extent that dozens of penal colonies in Russia were emptied and closed. Pretrial-detention facilities and immigration-detention centers — which hold hundreds of migrant workers mainly from Central Asian countries have become recruitment hubs. Russian officials have made prison conditions unbearably harsh and inhumane in an effort to pressure inmates into joining the military.

“They keep you in a cold cell, you sleep on the floor with just a pillow underneath you holding plastic bottles filled with hot water to keep warm,” is how one Kyrgyz inmate described his bleak life in a prison in central Russia.

The father of another Kyrgyz inmate incarcerated in the Sverdlovsk region said his son told him that prisoners “had to drink their own urine after being kept in isolation for days without food or water.”

Once recruited into the military, the convicts are treated as an expendable force, with little consideration for their lives and are often thrown onto the front line with just a few days of military training.

Kyrgyzstan says some 1,500 Kyrgyz nationals are serving time in Russian prisons, most of them accused of drug trafficking. The number of Tajik inmates and detainees in Russia was estimated at about 10,000 before the Ukraine invasion. The exact number of Central Asian prisoners in Russia is unknown. Nor is it clear how many Central Asian inmates were recruited to war from Russian prisons.


Kyrgyzstan has repatriated about 100 of its nationals from Russian prisons to serve the remainder of their sentences in Kyrgyzstan. About 500 other such requests by Bishkek have been rejected by Russian authorities.

This cynical Kremlin strategy provides the Russian military with cannon-fodder for the front line against Ukraine while simultaneously depopulating itself of minorities (non-Slavic Muslims). Over a century ago, rumors spread that an abnormally high amount of the Czar’s casualties in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) also came from minority groups, particularly at Port Arthur. But this is strictly anecdotal. And note North Korea sent troops to fight against Russia. ROK CIA (NIS) reported that 1,500 SOF personnel are being readied for combat in an unspecified location in Russia.     

Source:

Russia Pressures Central Asian Prisoners To Fight In Ukraine As ‘Expendable Force’ (rferl.org)

US Treasury Sanctions Chinese Drone Makers

The Garpiya has been deployed by Russia in its brutal war against Ukraine, destroying critical infrastructure and causing mass casualties.

The US imposed sanctions on two Chinese companies and an affiliated Russian company involved in making and shipping drones that Russia has used in its full-scale war in Ukraine.

The two Chinese companies designated by the US Treasury Department are Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine Company, and the Redlepus Vector Industry Shenzhen.

Xiamen Limbach Aircraft Engine Company makes an engine that powers Russia’s Garpiya series long-range unmanned aerial vehicles. Redlepus Vector Industry Shenzhen is involved in shipping the attack drones.

A Russian national and company affiliated with the two Chinese companies were also designated in the sanctions: Artem Yamshchikov and TSK Vektor.

These are the first US sanctions imposed on Chinese entities that produce complete weapons systems in partnership with Russian firms. Previously imposed sanctions on Chinese entities have targeted those that provided components critical to Russia’s military-industrial base.

The drone was designed and developed by China-based experts and is produced at factories within China in collaboration with Russian defense firms before they are transferred to Russia for use against Ukraine, according to the department.

The sanctions freeze any assets held by the individuals and companies in US jurisdiction and bar US persons from conducting business with them.

Sources:

Treasury Targets Actors Involved in Drone Production for Russia’s War Against Ukraine | U.S. Department of the Treasury

Chinese Drone Companies Targeted By Latest U.S. Sanctions (rferl.org)

Justice Department Announces Charges Against Indian Government Employee in Connection with Foiled Plot to Assassinate US Citizen in NYC

Vikash Yadav from the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) allegedly orchestrated a failed bid to kill him. RAW is the Indian government’s equivalent of CIA. Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

The Justice Department filed charges against Vikash Yadav (39) in connection to a foiled assassination plot of a US citizen in NYC. Yadav’s alleged co-conspirator, Nikhil Gupta (53) was previously charged and extradited to the US; Yadav remains at large.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun (above) is a Sikh dissident in NYC. He is reportedly a citizen of Canada as well.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun is a vocal critic of the Indian government and leads a US-based organization that advocates for the secession of Punjab, a state in northern India that is home to a large population of Sikhs, an ethnoreligious minority group in India. The victim has publicly called for some or all of Punjab to secede from India and establish a Sikh sovereign state called Khalistan, and the Indian government has banned the victim and his separatist organization from India.

Vikash Yadav is a citizen and resident of India, and he directed the plot to assassinate the victim from India. His accomplice Gupta recruited a hit-man, who was in reality a confidential source (CS) of the DEA. Gupta specifically instructed his assassin not to commit the murder around the time of the Indian Prime Minister’s official state visit to the US on or about 20 Jun 2023. On or about 18 June 2023, approximately two days before the Indian PM Narendra Modi’s state visit to the US, masked gunmen murdered Hardeep Singh Nijjar outside a Sikh temple in British Columbia, Canada. Nijjar was an associate of the victim, and, like the victim, was a leader of the Sikh separatist movement and an outspoken critic of the Indian government.

Yadav and Gupta of India have been charged with several felonies and face possibly up to 40 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

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

The Canadian government recently expelled several Indian diplomats in connection with the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar. The Sikhs are an integral part of Canadian society and they were outraged by this brazen assassination. For several years, the right-wing government of Narendra Modi has been making life difficult for non-Hindus in India, as well as abroad. The US must tread carefully as India is seen as an ally against a growing Chinese military. Washington also doesn’t want Delhi to increase its support or trade with Russia.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Justice Department Announces Charges Against Indian Government Employee in Connection with Foiled Plot to Assassinate U.S. Citizen in New York City | United States Department of Justice

dl (justice.gov)

RAW officer Vikram Yadav ‘hired hit team’ to kill Pannun: Washington Post – Hindustan Times

Statement by the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs on the RCMP’s findings regarding criminal activity in Canada with connections to agents of the Government of India – Canada.ca

Texas Fanatic Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan Attack on US Capitol

This lunatic shouted “Fuck you” at police officers all day and impeded the progress of a medical team that was trying to aid a rioter that was shot. (Photo: FBI)

Dana Jean Bell (66) of Princeton, TX was sentenced to 17 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution by US District Judge Timothy J. Kelly for her atrocious and felonious conduct on 6 Jan 2021. Her actions led to the eventual suicide of a police officer.

When the Trump-supporting mob began assaulting officers with pepper spray and ripping at least one police riot shield out of an officer’s hands, Bell made her way to the front of the rabble.  As the rioters inside the building forced the East Rotunda doors open, Bell reached out and grabbed the doors from the outside, disregarding that a USCP officer was pinned behind the doors.

After a rioter was shot in the Capitol, Bell refused orders to clear the way for a medical team, shouting “Don’t fuckin’ touch me!”  She told multiple officers to “get a real job” and that “no one support y’all, nobody!” This included Officer Jeffrey Smith, who tragically took his own life following severe personal injuries sustained in the line of duty on 6 Jan. As she was forced down the hallway, Bell also shoved her elbow multiple times into one officer’s chest.

When Bell finally exited the Capitol, she also assaulted two journalists. The FBI arrested the maniac on 7 Dec 2023 in Texas.

(Photos: FBI)

Erin Smith, whose husband Jeff Smith suffered a traumatic brain injury and a fracture while repelling the rioters, spoke at the sentencing hearing.

“Because of Dana Bell, (my husband) didn’t get the chance to keep serving as a police officer,” Smith said. “At 35, instead of becoming a mother, I became a widow.”

The presiding judge, a Republican and Donald Trump appointee, sentenced this maniac too lightly despite all the evidence he was presented. Although this was Dana Bell’s first offense, the US Sentencing Guidelines probably allows for upward departure in cases like this where significant harm arose subsequent to the instant offense. Here, a man received TBI and then committed suicide.

In the 45 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,532 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 571 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

Sources:

District of Columbia | Texas Woman Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/erin-smith-january-6-widow-jeff-smith-testifies-sentencing-dana-bell/

Flesh-Eating Bacteria Infections Increase in Florida After Hurricanes Helene, Milton

Flesh-eating bacteria cases (necrotizing fasciitis) have surged in the last few weeks since Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton swept through, according to data from the Florida Department of Health (FDOH). Vibrio vulnificus, a naturally occurring but potentially fatal bacterial infection, thrives in warm floodwaters when hurricanes and tropical storms push brackish water along the coast and into rivers and canals, filling them and low-lying areas with rainwater, pollutants, sewage, and debris.

In southwest Florida, four new cases in Lee County and one in Collier County have been reported — an “unusual increase” due to the recent hurricanes. In 2022, Lee and Collier counties also experienced a spike in cases due to the impacts of Hurricane Ian. There have been 37 cases and four deaths reported statewide since mid-Sep 2024, with 13 cases and one death in Pinellas County. The 2024 total of Vibrio vulnificus in Florida is 70 confirmed cases and 11 deaths. In 2023, there were 46 cases all year, and 11 deaths.

If Vibrio vulnificus bacteria infects a person, such as by floodwaters coming in contact with a cut or other open wound, it can cause the skin and soft tissue around the wound to quickly break down. Treatment may require limb amputation to stop the rapid flesh deterioration, and the infection can be fatal.

Nationwide, vibriosis from Vibrio vulnificus and other Vibrio bacteria causes an estimated 80,000 illnesses and 100 deaths every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). About 52,000 of these illnesses are believed to come from eating contaminated food, but the bacteria are also often found in flood waters, something Florida has seen a lot of lately.

Sources:

Vibrio vulnificus | Florida Department of Health (floridahealth.gov)

About Necrotizing Fasciitis | Group A Strep | CDC

Christopher Columbus Wasn’t a Christian from Italy, But Instead A Sephardic Jew From Spain, New Study Alleges

Posthumous painting completed circa 1519

In 1492, Christopher Columbus embarked on a voyage that would change the course of history. While his disputed discovery of the New World is well-known, the mysteries surrounding both his final resting place and his origins have puzzled historians for centuries.

After his death in 1506, Columbus’ remains were reburied several times across different countries over the course of hundreds of years, sparking debates over whether his declared final resting place at Seville Cathedral in Spain was actually legitimate.

Now, thanks to groundbreaking DNA research, the question of his burial site has reportedly been solved. Furthermore, surprising details about his origins have come to light, with scientists claiming that he was born in Spain, not Italy, and that he was of Sephardic Jewish descent.

An illustration of Christopher Columbus’ death on 20 May 1506.

At 54 years old, famous explorer Christopher Columbus passed away in Valladolid, Spain in 1506. In the 14 years leading up to his death, Columbus had suffered from bouts of gout and arthritis. His health continued to deteriorate, and he was often bedridden for months at a time.

Upon his death, Columbus was buried at the Chapel of Wonders at the Convent of St. Francis in Valladolid. Then, he was moved at the request of his son to the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville. Then, in 1536, both Columbus’ remains and those of his son were moved to a church in Colonial Santo Domingo, now the Dominican Republic. In his will, Columbus requested to be buried there.

However, when France took control of the island in 1793, Columbus’ remains were interred in Havana, Cuba. They remained there until Spain’s defeat in the Spanish-American War and the relinquishing of Cuba in 1898. From there, Columbus’ remains were moved to the Seville Cathedral.

Christopher Columbus’ tomb at the Seville Cathedral. (Image: Wikimedia Commons)

Evidently, the frequent shuffling of Christopher Columbus’ remains raised concerns among historians. An initial observation of the remains at Seville Cathedral revealed discrepancies with known information about Columbus’ age at death and general stature. Additionally, Dominican Republic authorities claimed that Columbus’ remains never left the island.

For years, people questioned whether Seville Cathedral really held the remains of Christopher Columbus, prompting Spanish scientists to tackle the mystery for themselves.

Beginning with the collection of DNA from the remains in the Seville Cathedral in 2003, scientists have just now received the answers they were looking for.

RTVE: Samples of Christopher Columbus’ bones that were tested by scientists.

In 2003, historians Marcial Castro and José Antonio Lorente opened the tomb of Columbus at Seville Cathedral and collected DNA evidence from bone fragments.

The DNA sample was then compared to the DNA of Columbus’ son Hernando, who is also buried at the cathedral. At the time, the results came back as a match, but there was still a large margin of error. Technology at the time simply could not confirm conclusively that the remains belonged to Christopher Columbus.

Then, in 2020, Spanish broadcaster RTVE began production of a documentary to not only discover the true location of Columbus’ burial site but also shed light on his mysterious origins. Led by Lorente, an expert forensic scientist, the documentary crew explored these historical mysteries.

The investigation involved comparing the 2003 DNA sample to remains from many of Columbus’ reported relatives. To increase the validity of the DNA testing, the research team had separate laboratories from Spain, the US, Mexico, and Italy test the items and come to their own conclusions.

“The process was carried out independently, with no communication between the clinics, ensuring the objectivity of the data,” Lorente told El País.

Ultimately, the labs confirmed that the remains at Seville Cathedral were indeed those of Christopher Columbus.

“Today it has been possible to verify it with new technologies, so that the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville belong to Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” Lorente told Reuters.

“The process was carried out independently, with no communication between the clinics, ensuring the objectivity of the data,” Lorente told El País.

Ultimately, the labs confirmed that the remains at Seville Cathedral were indeed those of Christopher Columbus.

“Today it has been possible to verify it with new technologies, so that the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville belong to Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed,” Lorente told Reuters.

Christopher Columbus Painting

The 1856 painting Inspiration of Christopher Columbus. (Wikimedia Commons)

As for Christopher Columbus’ true origins, the investigation revealed that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Western Europe, likely Spain.

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient. We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son,” Lorente said in the documentary. “And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”

However, some scientists have begun to cast doubt on these claims, with further debate likely to come when the new results are soon published in a peer-reviewed journal.

If the DNA testing confirms that Christopher Columbus was indeed a Sephardic Jew and not an Italian Catholic, what new name will the US-based Catholic Knights of Columbus choose?

Source:

Where Was Christopher Columbus Born? New Study Says Spain (allthatsinteresting.com)

Unending Nakba: 61 Palestinians in Gaza Killed, Ten from Same Family; Ten Lebanese Killed; IDF Attacks UNIFIL Peacekeepers

Hunting for Hamas, no matter the collateral damage (Tjeerd Royaards, 9 Nov 2023)

Israeli attacks killed at least 61 people across Gaza on Tuesday, including 10 members of the Abu Taamiya family in the south of the territory. At least ten people have been killed in Israeli bombings of homes and a healthcare center in Qana, a Lebanese village that suffered Israeli massacres in 1996 and 2006.

Residents trapped in the Jabalia refugee camp face continued “carnage” with Israeli forces carrying out “systematic destruction” as the siege of northern Gaza enters a twelfth day.

The IDF attacked the al-Aqsa Hospital compound in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in the early hours of Monday, igniting a fire that burned makeshift shelters for displaced people. At least four people were killed and dozens injured, mostly women and children.

One mother called it “one of the worst scenes we’ve witnessed”, while an injured girl said she heard screaming as people tore down their tent to get them out. A man said he had “broken down” as he was “unable to do anything” to help those who burned to death.

Warning: People may find this video, corroborated by the BBC, disturbing:

In Lebanon, at least ten people have been killed in Israeli bombings of homes and a healthcare center in Qana, a village that suffered Israeli massacres in 1996 and 2006. Multiple Israeli strikes targeted Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, taking a hospital in the city of Baalbek out of service. The strikes came as Netanyahu vowed ruthless reprisals after Hezbollah counter-attacked with a drone that killed four IDF troops on 13 Oct. Israel’s sophisticated air defenses have usually shot down Hezbollah’s rockets without problems.

Netanyahu said that Israel would continue to strike the group “without mercy, everywhere in Lebanon — including Beirut.”

Following the Hezbollah counterattack, IDF reprisals killed 41 people and injured 124 in Lebanon on 14 Oct. More than half of the victims were killed in the northern village of Aito, which lies outside Hezbollah’s traditional strongholds. The UN’s human rights office in Geneva called for an independent investigation after receiving credible reports that a dozen women and children were among the dead.

The Israeli war machine also attacked UNIFIL when two Merkava tanks destroyed the main gate and forced entry into a UN peacekeeping position.

“The IDF requested multiple times that the base turn out its lights,” UNIFIL said in a statement.

The tanks left about 45 minutes later after the Mission protested through its liaison mechanism, saying that IDF presence was putting peacekeepers in danger.

UN personnel suffered effects from smoke after several rounds were fired in its vicinity.

“Despite putting on protective masks, fifteen peacekeepers suffered effects, including skin irritation and gastrointestinal reactions, after the smoke entered the camp,” UNIFIL reported. 50 nations contribute Soldiers to UNIFIL, including Ireland, France, Turkiye, China, Italy, Armenia, and Finland.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on 15 Oct that he will take into account the position of the US — Israel’s main ally — but will have his country’s own “national interests” as a top priority as it ponders a response to a massive Iranian counterattack earlier this month.

“We listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest,” his office said in a statement.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Israel that it must increase the amount of humanitarian aid it is allowing into Gaza within the next 30 days or it could risk losing access to US weapons funding. The warning came in a letter to their Israeli counterparts dated 13 Oct that restates US policy toward humanitarian aid and arms transfers. The US election takes place in less than 30 days.

Adam Zyglis / Cagle Cartoons

Fears of an all-out regional war grew as signs indicated Israel could be preparing to launch a direct strike on Iran in retaliation for Tehran’s counterattack on 1 Oct. POTUS Joe Biden has warned Netanyahu against striking Iran’s nuclear or oil facilities to avoid a further escalation of the conflict.

On 13 Oct, Biden announced that he had ordered the Pentagon to send a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery and troops to Israel as part of US efforts to defend its ally, putting American service-members into harm’s way on behalf of Israel.

Just as the 9/11 attacks on the US gave Republicans a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the 7 Oct 2023 attacks gave Israeli “Crime Minister” Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likudniks a casus belli to depopulate the Gaza Strip, appropriate Palestinian homes in the West Bank, attack Lebanese Hezbollah (an organization which first formed as resistance to the 1982 Israeli invasion), attack Iran, Yemen, and Syria, regardless of collateral damage to Arab civilians. The American taxpayer has made Israel a rich, militarily powerful country, having provided them $317.9 billion since 1951, making it the largest recipient of US foreign aid since World War II.

The American taxpayer is watching the “Beast of Bethlehem,” rabid and unleashed, wreak havoc in the Middle East with the US election weeks away and the Biden Administration appearing enfeebled. Worse, Netanyahu’s special military operation is tarnishing forever Pres. Biden’s legacy before his very eyes, (Illustration: Osama Hajjaj, 2 Nov 2022)

Sources:

Israel Launches Fresh Strikes On Lebanon After Netanyahu Warning (rferl.org)

(4) Updates Live: Israel kills 10 in Lebanon’s Qana; endless ‘carnage’ in northern Gaza (aljazeera.com)

Lebanon: IDF tanks force entry into UN peacekeeping position, UNIFIL reports | UN News

How much aid does the US give to Israel? (usafacts.org)

UNIFIL Troop-Contributing Countries | UNIFIL (unmissions.org)

To Boost Ukraine’s Army, Feared Patrols Hunt for Potential Conscripts

Officials looking for men stalk nightclubs, concerts, and subway stations but some accuse the patrols of dubious measures.

A patrol inside a subway station in Kiev checks the conscription status of men of fighting age [Image: Al Jazeera]

A stone’s throw from advancing Russian troops, Volodymyr refuses to leave his eastern Ukrainian town.

The daily Russian pummelling has killed some of his neighbors and destroyed buildings around his house, but the 34-year-old does not want to move to a safer area because he would be forcibly conscripted.

“I’ll be herded back home but with a gun in my hands,” he told Al Jazeera as fighting raged just six miles away.

He has no qualms about what Ukrainian generals might call unpatriotic behaviour. “Way too many guys” he knows have been killed, wounded, or incapacitated since 2014 when Russia-backed separatists sparked a conflict in eastern Ukraine that killed more than 13,000 people, about a quarter of them civilians, and displaced millions.

A local resident rides a bike near a recruitment advert for the Ukrainian army, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the village of Hrushivka, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region [File: Alina Smutko/Reuters]

Casualties soared after Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Russian army chiefs have no misgivings about the loss of tens of thousands of their servicemen for each Ukrainian town they take, mostly in the Donetsk region, where Volodymyr lives.

But he accused Ukraine’s top brass and front-line officers of adopting a somewhat similar approach.

“The commanders care about their bosses’ opinion, not about the men serving under them,” he said, citing conversations with his enlisted friends.

He and other men interviewed for this story asked for their last names and personal details to be withheld because they fear reprisals.

About 1.3 million Ukrainians serve in the military and at least 80,000 soldiers of eligible age (25 to 60) have died since 2022, according to Western estimates.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government does not divulge the official death toll. He has said the army needs to enlist 500,000 out of about 3.7 million men of fighting age who are eligible for service.

These days, many potential recruits all over Ukraine think twice before leaving their homes. If they do, they look over their shoulder for “man-hunting” patrols.

Each patrol consists of police and conscription officers, groups of four to six officials that comb public areas such as subway stations, bus stops, shopping malls, city and town centers. They have also operated at rock concerts, nightclubs, and pricey restaurants.

Al Jazeera has witnessed the work of several such patrols. Each time, the officers refused to comment and be photographed. They approach any man in sight to check his ID and conscription document, a printout or a scan in a mobile phone that has a QR code.

The code gives access to the man’s “conscription status” in a central database.

That status had to be updated by mid-July when a conscription law took effect after months of deliberations and thousands of amendments. Every potential conscript had to provide details on his address, contacts, health, prior military service, and ability to handle weaponry, military equipment, and vehicles.

At the time, hours-long lines formed in front of conscription offices where staff were often interrupted by air raid sirens and blackouts caused by Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.

In May, the government launched Reserv+, an app allowing Ukrainians to update their conscription status from their mobile phones. Those who did not now face punishment – their driving licences could be revoked or bank accounts frozen. If potential conscripts live abroad, consular services could be denied.

Vitaly (23) studies engineering at a German university and was denied services at a Ukrainian consulate. He was told to ignore the app and return to Kiev to “personally” update his status.

“Of course, he didn’t because they wouldn’t let him go back” to Germany, his mother said.

“That’s how Ukraine lost one more national” because her son now plans to apply for German citizenship after graduation, she said.

Back in Ukraine, the patrols are feared by some.

“They round people up randomly, pack them into minibuses,” Boris (31) from the northeastern city of Kharkiv said. He said the patrols are able to detain men without checking their papers.

“Five or six [officers] twist one’s arms and, oops, tomorrow you’re at the Desna boot [camp]” in the northern region of Chernihiv.

Boris could be immune to conscription if he becomes a legal caregiver for his disabled father, who had a heart attack this year. But he is afraid to even set foot in a conscription office with the paperwork.

“People walk in there and end up in Desna a day later,” he said, referring to the camp Russian forces struck in May 2022 with two missiles, killing at least 87 conscripts.

In late August, an official on patrol detained Andriy (27) as he was entering a subway station in Kiev.

A doctoral student who cannot be drafted, Andriy showed his QR-coded card. But he was forcibly taken to the nearest conscription office, where officers told him he would be on his way to a boot camp “within an hour.”

“They pressured me skillfully,” he said. “It’s an assembly line of coercion.”

But then a medical doctor refused to sign Andriy off because of myopia and astigmatism, and he was let go to get “additional paperwork. It was a miracle,” he said.

There have also been multiple reports of violence towards potential conscripts.

In late May, Serhiy Kovalchuk (32) was beaten in a conscription office in the central city of Zhitomir and died in hospital six days later. Officials said Kovalchuk suffered a head trauma during an epileptic fit after several days of heavy drinking.

Frequent violent detentions and the denial of access to the lawyers of potential conscripts constitute human rights abuses, according to Roman Likhachyov, a lawyer and member of the Center for Support for Veterans and Their Families, a group in Kyiv.

However, the use of violence is two-pronged as both conscription officers and potential conscripts resort to it, he said.

“Each case has to be considered differently,” he told Al Jazeera.

Meanwhile, the conscription crisis is mirrored by the skyrocketing number of desertions. More than 100,000 servicemen deserted since 2022, Likhachyov said, often in groups of 20 to 30 people.

Draft dodging breeds graft in Ukraine, a country that has been notorious for corruption.

Bribes vary, several men told Al Jazeera. In some cases, $400 can be paid to a patrol team on the spot to let a man go. In others, thousands of dollars can buy permission to flee the country or purchase a “white ticket,” a document that makes one immune to the draft.

In Aug 2023, Zelensky fired every regional head of conscription offices throughout Ukraine. Dozens of lower-ranking officers were sacked and arrested for bribery.

Zelensky’s government has also tried to persuade Western nations that accepted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees to deport each man of fighting age, but their governments refused.

Efforts to attract ethnic Ukrainians from the multimillion members of the diaspora scattered from Poland to Canada also failed.

The government’s enlistment campaign was “wrongly” outsourced to the army, according to Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, a former deputy head of the General Staff of the armed forces.

He believes the government should have started an awareness campaign to “explain, convince, engage the recruits”, but said that ultimately, “there are big problems to be solved”.

Potential conscripts should “realize that if there’s no one to defend [Ukraine], it will end badly for us all”, he told Al Jazeera.

Draft evasion and avoidance are not a new phenomenon. Long wars of attrition require manpower. Thousands of Americans fled to Mexico to avoid conscription during the First World War. Boxing champion Jack Dempsey fenagled his way out of the draft during the First World War and bank robber-to-be John Dillinger reportedly hacked off his own toe, making him 4-F and ineligible to fight the Kaiser. During the Vietnam War, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), the son of Gov. George Romney (R-MI), used a religious angle to avoid being drafted, and former President and avid golfer Donald Trump was able to secure a medical waiver from a local physician claiming he had “bone spurs.” Thousands of other young educated Americans fled to Canada, increasing the populations of Ontario and other provinces, probably for the better.

On 28 Apr 1967, the greatest boxer of all time refused induction into the US Army on principle and was stripped of his heavyweight championship title. The Immortal Muhammad Ali quipped: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.”

During the First World War, Australian mothers and wives didn’t want to see their sons and husbands fighting and dying in a faraway European war.

Sources:

To boost Ukraine’s army, feared patrols hunt for potential conscripts | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera

Muhammad Ali refuses Army induction | April 28, 1967 | HISTORY

Powerful Indian Gang Reportedly Involved in Killing Canadian Sikh Dissident

Lawrence Bishnoi has been in prison since 2015, now held far from his native Punjab state in Gujarat. (Photo: Getty Images)

The Canadian RCMP recently alleged at a press conference that agents of the Indian government were using “organised crime groups like the Bishnoi group” to target leaders of the pro-Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate Sikh homeland in India.

This was hours after both countries expelled top diplomats as tensions escalated over last year’s assassination of a Sikh separatist on Canadian soil. Delhi dismissed the allegations as “preposterous”, accusing PM Justin Trudeau of catering to Canada’s sizeable Sikh community for political gain.

The Canadian police were referring to Lawrence Bishnoi (31), an infamous gangster from India.

Indian police say his gang is allegedly linked to the killing of a prominent politician in Mumbai. Three suspects are in custody. An alleged aide of Bishnoi has posted on social media that the gang is behind the murder. Once among India’s most wanted, Bishnoi has been in prison since 2015, held far from his native Punjab state in Gujarat.

Bishnoi is the prime suspect in the sensational murder of Sidhu Moose Wala, the popular Punjabi singer gunned down near his village in Oct 2022.

In 2018, Bishnoi gained notoriety for threatening Bollywood star Salman Khan, accusing him of allegedly poaching two blackbuck antelopes – a revered species for Rajasthan’s Bishnoi community to which Lawrence belongs.

When Bishnoi appeared in court, he openly told the waiting media: “Salman Khan will be killed here, in Jodhpur… Then he will come to know about our real identity.” Incidentally, the murdered politician was a close friend of the Bollywood star.

Federal investigators estimate Bishnoi continues to control a gang with 700 members across Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Delhi, involved in extorting celebrities, smuggling drugs and weapons and carrying out targeted assassinations. His partner Goldy Brar leads the gang remotely from Canada. Bishnoi faces a medley of charges in more than 30 cases, with 19 currently being tried in court.

“He runs his gang seamlessly from prison without needing to co-ordinate everything,” says a senior officer in Punjab’s anti-gangster task force. “Unlike other gangsters confined to a region, he thinks big.”

Punjab, Bishnoi’s home state, is overrun with gangs that fuel drugs and weapon smuggling, extortion and the local film and music industry. A cash-driven economy, bolstered by drugs, real estate, and illegal liquor sales, has fueled this rise, creating an ecosystem that blends crime with Punjabi pop culture, many say.

Punjab’s gangsters don’t enter the underworld for wealth alone – they crave notoriety, a deep-seated desire to “be somebody,” according to a senior police officer.

This twisted pursuit of fame finds roots in feudal, patriarchal culture. Social media amplifies it, with many gangsters showcasing their lives online. They flaunt their lifestyles on social media, where crime is often seen as a path to quick money and glamour. This has lured retired sportsmen and young recruits across Punjab to the dark side.

Police reported dismantling more than 500 gangs and arresting more than 1,400 gangsters since mid-2021. In clashes with the police, 16 gangsters had been killed and over 80 wounded, while three officers lost their lives and 26 more were injured. According to police, Bishnoi has been convicted in four cases, though none yet for serious crimes like murder.

With his neatly trimmed beard, the hoodie pulled over watchful eyes, Bishnoi often wears the casual look of a young man. When the stakes are high, he demonstrates a shrewdness in managing his image. During one court appearance, he wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the image of Bhagat Singh, the revered Indian revolutionary.

In a widely circulated video, reportedly recorded in prison, the bearded gangster declares, “There is a desire for revolution in our hearts. Let’s see how much strength the enemy has.” The exact meaning of his words remains ambiguous.

Bishnoi’s rise is unlike any other. “Despite being in prison, he appears to be running his gang. Who provides him logistics or media access? Such control would be impossible without powerful allies,” says a senior police official.

In two cases no doubt connected to this diplomatic feud, an Air India flight bound for Chicago made an emergency landing in Canada after a bomb threat. This abrupt landing comes a day after flight from Mumbai to New York was diverted to Delhi after a false bomb threat. Threats to Air India flights from Canada are likely to revive memories of the 1985 Air India bombing, which was orchestrated by Sikh extremists. Three hundred and twenty-nine people died when Air India flight 182 from Montreal exploded off the coast of Ireland. 

Bishnoi is the prime suspect in the Oct 2022 murder of Sidhu Moose Wala, a popular Punjabi singer. (Photo: Getty Images)

As previously written here on Coriolanus, the nexus between organized crime and espionage is not new. In the 1960s, rumors flew that CIA attempted to use American mobsters to overthrow the Fidel Castro regime in Cuba. The scourge of the Viet Cong was Saigon’s criminal underworld. Iran has been hiring contract killers from the Hell’s Angels to liquidate dissidents. Dawood Ibrahim and his notorious D-Company crime syndicate have been linked to the Pakistani ISI. Russia itself is considered a modern crime syndicate rather than a nation. The Canadian government should expect other reprisals, such as cyber-attacks from nefarious actors emanating from India or the Indian diaspora.

Sources:

Air India plane makes emergency landing in Canada after bomb threat | Canada | The Guardian

Lawrence Bishnoi: The Indian gangster pulling strings from jail (bbc.com)

Russia Releases Man Jailed After His Daughter Drew Anti-War Picture

Aleksei Moskalyov described his punitive cell as a “torture chamber” and said the 2-meter by 1-meter cell was rat-infested and so cold “it was impossible to sit on a metal bench inside.” (AP file photo)

A Russian man sentenced to prison on a charge of discrediting Russia’s armed forces after an anti-war drawing by his teenage daughter drew attention to him was released on 15 Oct, saying conditions inside the institution were horrible and that he fears he may not be free for long.

Aleksei Moskalyov was embraced by his daughter, Masha, as he left the IK-6 prison in the Tula region after serving 19 months in detention in a case that attracted global attention. Masha was placed in the custody of her estranged mother during her father’s imprisonment.

Moskalyov told reporters upon his release that security officers questioned people from his unit in the penal colony, raising fears the authorities were preparing new charges against him.

Moskalyov was sentenced to two years in prison, following his outspoken online posts against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which came to light after his daughter’s drawing was reported to authorities.

Her drawing, made in April 2022, depicted a Ukrainian woman shielding a child from Russian missiles, with inscriptions such as “Glory to Ukraine!” and “No to war!”

The artwork prompted school authorities to file a police report, leading to the investigation of Moskalyov’s social media activity.

Initially fined 32,000 rubles ($335) under an administrative charge of “discrediting” the Russian Army, Moskalyov later faced criminal charges for additional posts on social media.

He was convicted in Mar 2023 and sentenced to two years in prison, though his term was eventually reduced to one year and ten months. During his trial, Moskalyov fled house arrest but was later apprehended in Belarus and returned to Russia.

Moskalyov said he had been placed in punitive solitary confinement several times for what his lawyers described as minor “violations” such as “failure to get up quickly” or “not having his hands behind his back.”

He described the punitive cell as a “torture chamber” and said the 2-meter by 1-meter cell was rat-infested and so cold “it was impossible to sit on a metal bench inside.”

Sources:

Russia Releases Man Jailed After His Daughter Drew Anti-War Picture (rferl.org)

Mysterious Gooey Blobs Washed Up on Canada Beaches Baffle Experts

Hundreds of mysterious white blobs have been washing up on beaches across Newfoundland for over a month, sparking an investigation by Canadian authorities. (Photograph: Facebook/Philip Grace)

They are slimy on the outside, firm and spongy on the inside and surprisingly combustible. And in recent months, they have been washing up on the shores of Newfoundland.

A man named Philip Grace uploaded an image of a pale, gooey mass, which he compared to the dough used to make toutons, a Newfoundland fried delicacy.

Grace’s post about the blobs, which he said ranged in size from “dinner plate right down to a toonie [the Canadian two-dollar coin]”, prompted a frenzy of possible explanations – paraffin wax, sea sponges, mold, and ambergris – none of which withstood closer scrutiny.

Map: Brittanica.com

“They looked just like a pancake before you flip it over, when it has those dimpled little bubbles. I poked a couple with a stick and they were spongy and firm inside,” a beachcomber said. “I’ve lived here for 67 years and I’ve never seen anything like this, never.”

“They sent the Coast Guard over and I asked them how bad it was. They told me they had 46km [28 miles] of coastline littered with this stuff and had no idea what it was. Is it toxic? It is safe for people to touch?” asked the beachcomber. The gooey shapes aren’t the first blobs to excite locals.

In 2001, residents discovered the Fortune Bay “Blobster” sea monster that had washed ashore – a ragged and oozing white mass. Months later, however, researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland concluded it was part of a decomposing sperm whale corpse (see below).

Source: Fortune Bay Sea Monster (mun.ca)

These new blobs don’t appear to be linked to whales, despite commenters in the Beachcombers group suggesting they could be “whale boogers”, “whale sperm” or “whale vomit” – all of which have been ruled out.

Someone speculated that the substance could be discharge from ships travelling to and from the Come By Chance refinery, 80km north of Patrick’s Cove.

Federal scientists have also been on the case but have produced few leads. They ruled out a petroleum hydrocarbon, a petroleum lubricant, or a biofuel, and a full battery of tests could take months.

Source:

Mysterious gooey blobs washed up on Canada beaches baffle experts | Environment | The Guardian

Evanston Chicago YWCA Closes After Legionnaires’ Disease Detected in Water System

(Map: federalcos.com)

Doors to the YWCA, 1215 Church Ave., were locked Friday afternoon and a sign informed people that all aquatics programming was canceled. An employee confirmed the building was closed to the public but didn’t give more details.

“HHS has been working with the Illinois Department of Public Health and the YWCA administrators regarding this matter by providing education, protocols, and measures to rectify this situation,” the Evanston Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.

Legionnaire’s disease isn’t contagious from person to person and can be treated with antibiotics.

Legionnaire’s disease is a serious type of pneumonia. Laboratory tests confirmed the presence of Legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaire’s disease, in some of the YWCA’s water systems.

Symptoms of Legionnaire’s disease include headaches, cough, fever, muscle aches, and shortness of breath, according to the CDC. The disease spreads through water systems like shower heads, sink faucets, and hot tubs.

Anyone who has been to the Evanston YWCA and suspects they were exposed should consult a physician.

The first reported case of Legionnaire’s Disease was in 1976, when 49 American Legion members at a convention became sick and 33 other persons associated with the hotel also became sick. Of these 182 cases, 29 persons died.

Sources:

Evanston YWCA closes after Legionnaires’ disease cases connected to water system – NBC Chicago

https://dph.illinois.gov/recent-news.html

THE PHILADELPHIA KILLER | TIME

Police Break Up French-Italian Wine Fraud Ring

(Getty Images – Hongjie Han)

Buyers of the ersatz wines thought they were purchasing rare bottles valued at up to 15,000 Euros each. 

The labels, which the criminals had especially printed, falsely claimed that the bottles contained fine wines from France. A French national has been charged with organized fraud and money laundering.

The suspected head of the gang, a Russian, was to be brought before a judge with a view to charging him as well.

The Russian (40) had previously been convicted on similar charges but under a different name.

He was apprehended at Milan’s Malpensa airport during a transaction involving a printer who was in charge of producing fake labels.

French prosecutors said the arrests were the result of close cooperation with Italian authorities, notably the Turin and Milan anti-counterfeit police units.

Several police raids were carried out in the regions of Turin, Milan, and Paris, and six European arrest warrants were issued. Fake merchandise with a sale value of two million euros were seized, as well as computers, bottle components, and telephones.

Source:

Police break up French-Italian wine fraud ring (rfi.fr)

Bear Visits University of Montana Campus, Follows Student

A bear wandered onto the University of Montana campus and followed a student for a short time Tuesday morning. Missoula is west of the state capital, Helena. (Photo by Pixabay.com)

Police at the University of Montana in Missoula issued an alert Tuesday morning to warn students and faculty of a bear wandering the campus.

The University of Montana Police Department’s alert, sent at 5:09 AM, revealed the bear was first spotted near a bike rack outside Craig Hall.

Police said the bear had followed a student for a short time, but did not act aggressively during the encounter.

Officers located the bear near the Elrod, Craig, Duniway Courtyard and asked all students, faculty and members of the public to steer clear of the area until the bear can be removed from campus.

Anyone who sees a bear on campus is asked to contact UMPD at (406)243-4000 or call 9-1-1.

Source:

Bear visits University of Montana campus, follows student – UPI.com