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“Beware the Ides of March!” Rank Betrayal Permeates Trumpf Junta

Julius Caesar betrayed and assassinated by his closest friends and allies. He did not heed the warning: “Beware, the Ides of March.” Painting by Vincenzo Camuccini.

Today is the “Ides of March” and fitting to describe the rank betrayal perpetrated by Donald Trumpf on America’s international allies and Republican supporters. Coriolanus is doing his best to keep up with the carnage caused by America’s Godzilla.

Kursk Falls to Russian Forces After Trumpf Withdraws US Intelligence Support

The cutting of US intelligence to Ukrainian soldiers forced a partial retreat and regrouping in Kursk. This was the only Russian territory occupied by Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces during the three-year war which Moscow began. Scenes of Kiev’s troops mangled, burned, and on the run filtering back to the capital have reinforced distrust of America and Russia. As you read previously here on Coriolanus, American volunteers fighting in Ukraine feel “betrayed by their country.” This villainy was followed up with more atrocities.

Russian Forces Execute Five Ukrainian POWs

Ukrainian war crimes investigator at earlier scene of Russian butchery.

After re-taking a significant portion of Kursk thanks to Trumpf, Russian forces allegedly executed five Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs). A video circulating on social media purportedly shows unarmed Ukrainian soldiers killed after being captured by Russian troops. “We once again see a cynical disregard for international humanitarian law on the part of the Russian army,” a Ukrainian spokesman said, adding that he had sent letters to the UN and the ICRC to document the suspected war crime. The news comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first visit to Kursk Oblast on 12 Mar since Ukraine launched its cross-border incursion into the region in August 2024. Russian forces and Wagnerites have been committing war crimes against Ukrainians since Feb 2022.

Trumpf Blocks War Crimes Investigations

War crimes investigators and forensics specialists gathering the corpses of Ukrainian victims.

Trumpf’s State Department quietly terminated a contract that was in the process of transferring evidence of Russian abductions of Ukrainian children to European law enforcement agencies.

And child abduction from Ukraine is exactly what led to Vladimir Putin’s indictment by the ICC:

“Today, 17 March 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II of the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”) issued warrants of arrest for two individuals in the context of the situation in Ukraine: Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Ms Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.

Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, born on 7 October 1952, President of the Russian Federation, is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute). The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022.”

An ICC international arrest warrant remains active for Vladimir Putin. Trumpf sanctioned the ICC to remove arrest warrants from war criminals Vladimir Putin and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Canadian Afghan War Veterans: “Angry and Betrayed”

Pte. Danny Drapeau, of Alpha Company 1st Battalion Royal 22e Regiment, waits to lower the Canadian flag for the last time at FOB Zangabad on Sunday, 19 Jun 2011. (Photo: Murray Brewster / The Canadian Press)

The notion that Canadians fought and died in Afghanistan to help defend the US — because of the terrorist attacks on 11 Sep 2001 — runs deep among Canadian veterans of that war and their families. Canadian and American troops fought together and bled together in the scorched hinterlands of Afghanistan. Now many Canadians who fought in Afghanistan say Trumpf’s behavior leaves them feeling angry and betrayed, irked by his threats to annex Canada through economic force, the trade war, and a plan to make life harder for Canadians visiting the US.

The Trumpf junta plans on requiring Canadian citizens planning to stay in the country for more than 30 days to register their information with the US government and submit to fingerprinting. Effective 11 Apr, affected people would have to create an account with USCIS and schedule an appointment for fingerprinting as part of a background check. 

A meme circulating online — a photo of troops in front of the maple leaf rock monument at Ma’sum Ghar, the Canadian forward operating base in western Kandahar — was recently captioned: “We went because you were attacked. We didn’t ask for your thanks. Neither did 158 of us who died for you.”

But it was the bullying of the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office and Vice-President JD Vance’s insistence that Volodymyr Zelensky show gratitude that set off many veterans.

While real estate scion Donald Trumpf avoided military conscription during the Vietnam War with a podiatrist’s letter claiming that his “bone spurs” made him illegible for the draft, 40,000 Canadians enlisted in the US military to fight against North Vietnam and the Viet Cong. At least 134 were killed.

The Canadian Vietnam War Memorial in Ontario, Canada.

Canadians and Americans have a shared history of spilling blood for each other, something the grossly imbecilic Trumpf has ignored.

Trumpf Budget Betrays Farmers, Veterans, Poorer Republican Voters

The Republican budget was designed to give unnecessary tax breaks to obscenely wealthy oligarchs by cutting America’s social safety nets like Medicaid and Medicare, as well programs to assist under-privileged people regardless of their political affiliation. From funding cuts to tariffs, American farmers have found themselves struggling to find markets for their products and facing the risk of steep losses for the year ahead. Farmers will lose millions in local food purchases after sweeping federal cuts at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) led to the closure of two programs funding fresh food for schools and food banks.

The USDA announced nearly $1 billion in cuts last week, shuttering the Local Food for Schools program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement.

“We’re just in such a state of shock,” a farmer said. “We just don’t really even know how to respond to all this. We thought that this was sacred and really untouchable. So it’s just quite a shock and very devastating. Everyone thinks all farmers voted for this, but we did not vote for this.”

Thanks to the Trumpf junta, farm bankruptcies and farmer suicides are on the rise. “We have seen a definite increase in the suicide rate and depression in farmers in the US, especially in the Upper Midwest,” reported a soybean farmer from Minnesota.

The Trumpf budget will terminate a one billion dollar program aimed at preserving affordable housing, a decision that could disrupt efforts to maintain tens of thousands of units for low-income Americans. The Housing and Urban Development (HUD) program would have upgraded at least 25,000 housing units nationwide. 24.5 million (or 7.4%) of Americans have experienced homelessness in their lifetime, regardless of their political affiliation.

Astonishingly, sycophantic and under-qualified FBI Director Kash Patel is moving to criminalize groups like Habitat for Humanity for receiving grants from the Environmental Protection Agency under the Biden administration, as if America’s premier internal security had nothing better to do with its time and resources.

The late former President Jimmy Carter constructing a house for an under-privileged person with Habitat for Humanity.

Thanks to Trumpf and Felon Musk, the worst person in the world, the US will see a return of Hoovervilles within a few years straight out of the Great Depression:

Thousands of Veterans Protest Trumpf Nationwide

On Friday 14 March, thousands of veterans across the US protested the Trumpf cabal and his proposed cuts to Social Security, federal job losses for veterans, the pardon of 6 Jan terrorists, and reductions in veterans’ health care services. 14 March (3/14) was chosen as the protest date because of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone who engaged in insurrection is barred from holding office. Trumpf violated that oath when he incited the attack against Capitol Hill on 6 Jan 2021.

All of these draconian measures taken by the Trumpf junta are designed to inflict cruelty on the masses, regardless of their political affiliation or previous military service to the country. If Trumpf supporters feel betrayed by their avatar, so be it. On 5 Nov 2024, these Americans voted Trumpf and the oligarchs into the White House simply because they wanted a white man to be President, against their own economic interests. Simply put, the ruling Republicans are vampires, nothing more, nothing less, taking advantage of their cultist followers.

Besides Enriching the Oligarchs, What is America’s Godzilla Really Up To?

Donald Trumpf is simply following the instructions of Russian President Vladimir Putin to reap discord between the US and Canada, NATO, and the EU. And they are succeeding. But why? Will the US military really invade Greenland, Canada, or Panama? Probably not. But what would stop the Kremlin from seizing the Arctic? In 2001, Russia claimed the Arctic shelf (and therefore the vast oil and minerals deposits underneath). Global warming is making access to minerals in the Arctic and Greenland easier. Canada and the US agreed to jointly defend North America (NORAD) and expects US support if the Russian military makes incursions into the Arctic Circle (NATO). The Kremlin has 13 military bases pointed at the North Pole.

Russian submersible planting flag under the ice at the North Pole (2001 photo: BBC).

By antagonizing and alienating Canada and vice versa, Americans will be less inclined to help their northern neighbor, the way the average Republican today doesn’t care if Ukraine is under attack by Russia.

American voters and allies were warned of the “Ides of March” before the election. Now Trumpf’s ignominious betrayals rival or surpass that of Brutus and Cassius against Julius Caesar or Judas Iscariot in Golgotha.

Sources:

https://newrepublic.com/post/192660/trump-fbi-charge-climate-organizations

https://kyivindependent.com/kyiv-says-ukrainian-troops-regrouped-in-kursk-oblast-denies-encirclement/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2019/08/30/amid-trump-tariffs-farm-bankruptcies-and-suicides-rise/

https://crooksandliars.com/2025/03/trump-now-demanding-canadians-be

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/veterans-afghan-war-us-1.7481929

https://newrepublic.com/article/192790/trump-kidnapped-ukrainian-kids-nixed-contract

https://ukraine.un.org/en/264368-un-says-russia-continues-torture-execute-ukrainian-pows

https://kyivindependent.com/russian-troops-executed-five-ukrainian-pows-in-kursk-oblast-ombudsman-says/

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/kursk-russia-ukraine-war-putin-ceasefire-b2713769.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/economics/farmers-face-steep-losses-middle-trumps-trade-war-funding-cuts-rcna195967

Mark Carney: Canada’s New Prime Minister

Mark Carney won nearly 86% of the Liberal Party vote. (NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Rather than give you a biography of Mark Carney which Followers of the Watch can easily look up, here are some quick facts about the new Prime Minister. Mr. Carney (59) has not previously been elected to public office and doesn’t have a seat in Parliament. While that’s not unprecedented, this means that he can’t participate in debates or votes — and it suggests that he may call an election sooner rather than later.

Mr. Carney led the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, and then served as United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance. A father of four, the Prime Minister is a graduate of Harvard and Oxford and holds three citizenships: Canadian, British, and Irish. While some Canadian politicians hold multiple passports, Mr. Carney believes the prime minister should not, so he began the process of surrendering his European citizenships. Mr. Carney, a centrist, has been sharply critical of Donald Trumpf and will stand up to him, but he will also listen to his concerns, imagined or real.

The new Prime Minister holds a PhD degree and will surround himself with a stellar new cabinet. He will need little advice. Nevertheless, Coriolanus has 27 years experience in military intelligence and has been to war, an experience Mr. Carney has not underwent. So your author humbly offers some suggestions for Mr. Carney once “he gets his sea legs.”

First, recognize the State of Palestine. The State of Palestine is recognized by 146 countries around the world with Norway, Spain and Ireland joining the list. In 2024, the US Democratic Party did not heed the words of the tremendous antiwar movement and the voices of Arab-Americans, costing them the election which led America to Trumpf 2.0.

Second, change the laws about tax-deductible charities. Through these schemes, Canadians send millions of dollars to Israel which has been ethnically cleansing itself of Palestinians for decades. In 1991 the Ottawa Citizen estimated that Canadians sent more than $100 million a year to Israel and possibly as much as $200 million. Assuming $100 million has been sent to Israel yearly since 1967 (when the tax deduction was codified) and with approximately 30% of the $5.4 billion total subsidized by the taxpayer, that’s around $1.7 billion in Canadian public support. Israel is a wealthy country with a GDP per capita of $52,642; Canada is $53,431.

Canada is ranked 28 out of 145 countries in terms of military power by the Global Firepower Index (GFI), but mighty Israel is ranked 15. So, why are Canadians allowed to subsidize a wealthy, powerful country with universal health care and nuclear weapons, as a tax deduction?

Third, re-establish diplomatic relations with Iran. In 2012, then conservative PM Stephen Harper recklessly severed relations with Tehran, costing Canada a valuable set of eyes and ears within the country and the Middle East. Note that Ottawa never severed ties with Havana or participated in the useless embargo of Cuba, going against US policy for decades. What would be the difference here?

Fourth, consider establishing a special immigration program for talented ex-federal employees ruthlessly fired from America’s FBI, CIA, CDC, DOS, NIH, NOAA, NTSB, FAA, USDA, or NSA through the notorious DOGE. Ottawa would immediately benefit from their education, experience, and training, particularly since America is now an unreliable ally and Pariah State.

Fifth, Canada’s intelligence agencies, CSIS and RCMP, must establish point-to-point relations with different foreign organizations outside NATO (if they haven’t already). Some excellent candidates for Canada would be Finland, Jordan, Denmark, Japan, South Korea, Poland, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, and Taiwan, to name but a few. Canada could gather its own intelligence without fear of compromise by the Russophiles in the USIC. A few techniques will help Ottawa maintain secure communications with its non-US partners. One, Canada can establish separate secure computer servers to prevent US penetration. Two, Canada can employ more diplomatic couriers to move information securely, albeit more slowly, through Air Canada flights. To save money, selected Air Canada pilots may be accredited as Diplomatic Couriers under the Vienna Convention, the most secure method of transmitting intelligence. Once the pilot lands his plane at say Amman or Helsinki, he would be met by a Canadian diplomat at the airport gate to receive the diplomatic pouch. When the plane departs for Toronto or Montreal, they do the same in reverse.

Sixth, the Prime Minister must stand up to Donald Trumpf, Felon Musk, as well as war criminals Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu, two experts at ethnic cleansing in the name of “patriotism.”

These two ICC-indicted war criminals are not conversing in Yiddish. (25 Jun 2012 Jerusalem photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem / Pool / Flash90)

And good bye and good luck to the physically fit and charming Mr. Justin Trudeau, who was splendid as the Prime Minister of Canada for many years.

Sources:

https://www.pm.gc.ca/en

https://www.wfdd.org/story/5-things-know-about-mark-carney-canadas-next-prime-minister

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ottawa-shutters-embassy-in-iran-expels-all-iranian-diplomats-in-canada

The many ways Canada supports Israeli apartheid – rabble.ca

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=IL&most_recent_value_desc=true

https://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.php?country_id=canada

America Becoming “Disease Haven”

America’s anti-vaxxer Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

After finally recovering from the COVID epidemic, the US is facing other health perils and the Trumpf administration will be responsible for it.

Deadly Super Fungus Spreading in US Hospitals

A drug-resistant fungus, Candida Auris, is spreading rapidly in US hospitals, posing a severe threat to patients who need invasive medical equipment. Georgia has seen over 1,300 cases as of the end of Feb 2025. Candida Auris, or C. Auris, is particularly dangerous in health care settings, where it spreads easily through invasive medical equipment such as breathing tubes, feeding tubes, syringes, or catheters. The fungus is resistant to many household cleaners and traditional hospital disinfectants, like ammonia-based cleaning solutions. C. Auris is not a threat to the general public.

Preventable Measles Spreading

Avian Flu Spreading

Craig Spencer, an Ebola virus survivor and Emmy-award winner, is a public health professor and emergency medicine physician at Brown University. He warns that the Trumpf junta is poised to leave the US a haven for disease. Spencer argues that Trump and his ally Elon Musk have “actively dismantled the infrastructure the country relies on to detect and confront deadly pathogens,” and adds that “we are sure to regret it.”

Spencer points to several key decisions made by Trumpf that are particularly alarming: The dismantlement of the US Agency for International Development, the withdrawal of the US from the World Health Organization, and the decision to clamp down on public communications from the CDC.

Trumpf is America’s Godzilla and doesn’t care about the masses until he needs their votes.

Sources:

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-disease/

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/texas-measles-outbreak-hospital-newborn-babies-exposed-rcna196519

Tanker Collision in North Sea

The UK Coast Guard reports:

“Both vessels remain presently stable with salvors boarding both the STENA IMMACULATE and the SOLONG today to continue carrying out comprehensive damage assessments.

“The locations of the vessels are unchanged – the STENA IMMACULATE remains at anchor. The SOLONG continues to be held in a safe location connected to a tug.

“There are now only small periodic pockets of fire on the SOLONG which are not causing undue concern. Specialist tugs with firefighting capability remain at both vessels’ locations.

“Regular aerial surveillance flights continue to monitor the vessels and confirm that there continues to be no cause for concern from pollution from either the STENA IMMACULATE or from the SOLONG.

“The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is also assisting in the response, and continues to advise that any public health risk on shore is deemed to be very low. The UKHSA will keep risk assessments under continual review as further information becomes available.”

STENA IMMACULATE pictured on 12 Mar 2025 (Photo: Maritime and Coastguard Agency)

SOLONG pictured on 11 March 2025 (Photo: Maritime and Coastguard Agency)

“The collision in the North Sea “has a high risk of being an environmental disaster in really important protected areas,” Naomi Tilley, Oil and Gas Campaign Lead at Oceana UK, an environmental group focused on oceans.

The UK Coastguard said an exclusion zone of about half of a mile had been established around both vessels.

“At this stage, it’s too early to assess the extent of any environmental damage,” Greenpeace UK said. explaining that the severity of any impact would depend on a number of factors, including “the amount and type of oil carried by the tanker, the fuel carried by both ships, and how much of that, if any, has entered the water.”

Incredible that in the 21st century, with technology, radar, radios, and GPS, that such a calamity could occur. This is just what the world could use, more environmental damage.

Sources:

https://hmcoastguard.uk/news/updates-vessels-incident-coast-east-yorkshire

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/north-sea-tanker-collision-environmental-impact/?intcid=CNR-02-0623

Trumpf Pardon Doesn’t Cover 6 Jan Terrorist for FBI Murder Plot

Edward Kelley on 6 Jan 2021. (Photo: Public domain)

Donald Trumpf’s sweeping pardons of insurrectionists who attacked the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021 do not extend to the separate crime of Edward Kelley (35) of Maryville, TN, who plotted to murder FBI agents that investigated him. UDSJ Thomas Varlan ruled that the miscreant’s actions after his initial arrest were “separated from the defendant’s conduct in the DC Case by years and miles.”

A cooperating defendant, who previously pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy, testified that he and Kelley planned attacks on the Knoxville FBI Field Office using car bombs and incendiary devices appended to drones. He also testified that the conspirators strategized about assassinating FBI employees in their homes and in public places such as movie theaters.

Edward Kelley, who was convicted on 6 Jan charges after the government presented extensive evidence showing he was the fourth rioter to breach the Capitol after he assaulted law enforcement, was pardoned by Trumpf along with more than 1,500 other convicted insurrectionists. But Kelley had separately been charged with plotting to murder law enforcement officers involved in the investigation in a separate case. A federal jury in Tennessee convicted Kelley on those charges in November, and he is set to be sentenced 7 May. 

Edward Kelley mugshot.

This is at least one piece of good news out of the sordid mess that Trumpf created in the US. The FBI agents could rest a bit easier knowing that this lunatic will be imprisoned for a life, unless Trumpf decides to pardon him a second time.

Sources:

Click to access gov.uscourts.tned.107880.102.0.pdf

https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/federal-jury-convicts-man-conspiring-murder-fbi-employees

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trumps-jan-6-pardon-doesnt-cover-rioters-plot-kill-fbi-agents-judge-ru-rcna195673

Bear Feels Grass for First Time in 20 Years

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

Srebrenica massacre – Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine would likely utilize ATACMS rockets (pictured above).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

Germany to deliver additional air defence supplies to Ukraine | Euronews

US Confirms First Case of Aggressive Strain of Mpox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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

Mental health in China – statistics & facts | Statista

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source:

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

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

Former UK Labor Leader Jeremy Corbyn: Britain Complicit in Gaza Genocide

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1857043436467016092

“There is a very simple reason why the UK government refuses to acknowledge the genocide in Gaza. If they did, they would be admitting their own complicity in one of the greatest crimes of our time. End all arms sales to Israel, now.”

Truth be told, Coriolanus and media outlets are facing difficulties keeping up with the IDF and Likud atrocities in the Middle East.

The Israeli Death Forces (IDF) continue their horrific Nakba, amassing casualties in the three Arab Killing Zones (AKZ): Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon.

A wounded Palestinian boy is brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza after an IDF attack on Thursday [Photo: Ashraf Amra / Anadolu]

In AKZ-L, five Lebanese paramedics were among six people murdered in an IDF strike on a civil defence center in the country’s southern Nabatieh area, while 12 rescue workers were reported killed in a second attack on a civil defence center near Baalbek city. At least 3,386 Lebanese people have been killed and 14,417 wounded in IDF attacks since Oct 2023.

In AKL-G, at least 24 Palestinians have been murdered and 112 maimed in the latest 24-hour reporting period. The UN reported that Israel is using starvation as a weapon again Palestinians in Gaza that is “consistent with genocide.”

Palestinian-American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has called on USSECSTATE Antony Blinken to resign after the US deadline for Israeli authorities to increase humanitarian aid to Gaza passed unfulfilled and without any consequences for Israel.

Since 7 Oct 2023, the IDF has killed at least 43,736 Palestinians and wounded 103,370.

Palestinian Nafin Abu Al-Jidyan informs the UN in Gaza that her son was stricken with polio. (Photo: UN News/Ziad Taleb)

In AKZ-W, the IDF stormed a family home in the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya and assaulted one of its inhabitants. During the raid, Israeli troops smashed the family’s furniture while stealing gold jewelry. In Qalqilya’s Jaidi neighborhood, Israeli forces stormed a home and arrested a young man. The charges against him, other then being Palestinian, were not disclosed.

Allowing people to die by starvation, disease, or wounds, without proactively killing them, is called “NHI” (“No Humans Involved.”) Above, emaciated prisoners stand around in a Nazi Concentration camp at Evensee Austria in the Alps (7 May 1945, AP Photo, File)

Coriolanus estimates that by year’s end, the Likud IDF Nakba will have murdered approximately 50,000 Palestinians while maiming close to 150,000. At this rate the Israeli Death Forces would have crippled the health infrastructure of Lebanon. President-Elect Donald Trump’s pick to be ambassador to Israel, evangelical Mike Huckabee, calls the occupied West Bank territory “Judea and Samaria.” Expect more Palestinian murders and expulsions and the removal of fanatical settlers from US sanctions. Only a few were placed on the list as a token gesture by the Biden Administration.  

The Arab Holocaust will continue, regardless of which presidential administration occupies the White House. The only difference is that the Democratic Party paid lip-service to the world during the incessant IDF massacres. The earnest and hard-working SECSTATE and D/CIA failed to reach a ceasefire or release any of the hostages, thanks to Likudnik war-criminal Benjamin Netanyahu who welcomes the new Trump Administration that his Nakba helped to usher in.

Sources:

LIVE: Israel kills paramedics, rescuers in Lebanon; dozens die in Gaza | Israel attacks Lebanon News | Al Jazeera

Gaza: Israeli war tactics condemned as aid still blocked from reaching north | UN News

How Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war | TV Shows | Al Jazeera

Russia-Ukraine Update

On the offensive since at least midsummer, Russian forces have been grinding down Ukrainian troops across the 1,100-km front line: in the south near Vuhledar and Pokrovsk;  in the north near Chasiv Yar and Kupyansk; and in Kursk, the Russian region where Ukraine staged a surprise invasion in August.

The Trump presidential win has given impetus to Kiev and Moscow to discuss peace options so both militaries are trying to make as many territorial gains as possible in order to negotiate from a position of strength. The impact of the North Korean soldiers on the battlefield is not immediately clear.  A senior official at Ukraine’s national security agency reported that North Korean forces deployed to Russia’s Kursk have not yet been involved in attempts to dislodge Ukrainian troops from the region.

In Oct, Russia was reportedly losing up to an appalling 1,500 troops a day in combat, euphemistically called “meat attacks.”

Morale and desertion problems continue to plague the Kremlin

The Kremlin recently banned all potential draftees and conscripts from leaving Russia. These young conscripts pictured above can only hope that peace takes place soon because their battlefield chances of survival are nearly zero.

In southern Siberia, more than a dozen wounded Russian contract soldiers deserted a military unit when they were ordered back to the battlefield despite their wounds. The soldiers had signed contracts to fight in Ukraine in exchange for the termination of criminal prosecution for various offenses. Police managed to detain seven of those who fled, but the rest are still on the loose.

And in Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelensky replaced the commander of the armed forces in yet another shake-up.

Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy (R), the new head of Ukraine’s armed forces conferring with Pres. Zelensky

Putin Quashes Any and All Dissent Anywhere

In London, the late Chef Alexei Zimin owned the Russian restaurant Zima and published a magazine with the same name. (Undated photo).

Russian celebrity chef and London restaurateur Aleksei Zimin (53), an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, was recently found dead in Belgrade.

Aleksei Zimin had openly criticized Russia’s war in Ukraine and was in Belgrade to host an event and present his recent book, Anglomania, a personal look at the cultural history of Great Britain.


In his last Instagram post on 4 Nov, Zimin announced that he would prepare a special dinner in a club in Belgrade.

“There will be no new episodes due to the anti-war position of the host. Do I regret it? No, I regret that we ended up going to war. I don’t take part in the war, the war takes part in me,” he said on Instagram at the time.

Zimin had started several restaurants in Moscow and wrote or edited for Afisha, Komersant, and Vedomosti. He hosted a cooking show on Russian television channel NTV that was discontinued after he posted anti-war messages on social media following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022.

The cause of Alexei Zimin’s death was unknown and Belgrade authorities were conducting an autopsy and toxicology tests.

Theater director Anastasia Berezhinskaya (43) pictured above was sentenced to eight years in prison over her posts and comments on the VKontakte social network in 2022, condemning Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and making calls to “kill” and “eliminate” President Vladimir Putin.

She was found guilty of “justifying terrorism,” “distributing false information about the Russian military,” and “discrediting Russia’s armed forces.”

Berezhinskaya, who refused to testify during the trial, pleaded partially guilty.

When giving a final statement to the court, Berezhinskaya said:

“Your Honor, I do not have anything to say, anything to add. I will accept any decision of yours.”

After the judge handed down his ruling, Berezhinskaya was immediately arrested. Before and during the trial, she was under orders not to leave Moscow.

Berezhinskaya, who is the mother of children aged eight and ten years, has been diagnosed with a personality disorder, but the court ruled that she does not need hospitalization.

Alexei Zimin must have been on Putin’s “hit list” and he made it too easy for assassins to kill him in Belgrade by advertising his plans on social media. As for poor Anastasia Berezhinskaya, she stoically said little in her defense, accepting her dismal fate in a gulag.  

The war between Ukraine and Russia must inevitably end one way or another so both sides will hammer each other relentlessly until a ceasefire takes place. The future landscape may look like the DMZ between North and South Korea. Putin will continue to demand that Ukraine not join NATO or the EU, which Kiev will initially reject. But to save lives, an option for Ukraine may be to become a neutral country, like Austria (or Finland, before she recently joined NATO). Putin can not live forever and in a few years the Kremlin may be led by a less nationalistic, murderous leader.

Hardworking American taxpayers have provided Kiev with billions of dollars of military and economic aid (before and after Putin’s brutal invasion). But President-elect Donald Trump, a friend of Putin, will no doubt waste the costly resources and investment over the past several years to Ukraine’s eternal chagrin. Kiev will have to rely on other members of NATO and EU for support against Moscow in the future.  

Sources:

Wounded Russian Soldiers Flee Unit To Escape Return To Combat

Peace Talks Brewing, Russia And Ukraine Jockey For Advantage — On And Off Battlefield

News – RFE/RL

Russian Theater Director Gets 8 Years Over Anti-Putin Posts

News – RFE/RL

North Koreans in Russia in place but not in combat: Ukraine official – Radio Free Asia

French Overseas Territory Guadeloupe Declares Dengue Epidemic

The Caribbean archipelago of Guadeloupe has declared a dengue epidemic, with authorities noting the outbreak was being driven by a less common strain of the mosquito-borne disease.

Guadeloupe has been a French possession since 1635. The island of Saint Martin is shared with the Netherlands; its southern portion is named Sint Maarten. Approximately 450,000 inhabitants reside on the archipelago.

“Dengue fever has entered the epidemic phase” in Guadeloupe regional health authorities warned, just at the beginning of the tourist season and on the eve of the end-of-year festivities.

This strain of the dengue virus has not circulated much in the last 20 years leading to the possibility of “severe forms” with “a high number of cases to be expected if control and prevention actions are not implemented”.

The dengue 3 serotype (DENV-3) is one of four variants of the virus.

The health authorities said among 62 samples analysed between late September and mid-October, 97 percent were caused by DENV-3.

The average of 80 cases per week at this time of year has been far surpassed.

At the end of October, the agency estimated the weekly figure hit 540 – more than double the number seen in September.

Hospitals were reporting a similar spike, with around 40 emergency room visits per week for suspected dengue cases, compared with 25 in Sep 2024.

At least 22 human pathogens are associated with the tiger mosquito which flies by day and night. Mosquitos are the deadliest animal on earth today. Dragonflies are one of nature’s remedies for mosquitos. As larvae, dragonflies eat mosquito larvae; as adults, dragonflies eat adult mosquitos. (Photo: © Shutterstock _ InsectWorld)

Dengue, also known as “tropical flu”, can cause high fever, fatigue and body aches, although most people have no symptoms. Severe cases can trigger bleeding, internally or from the mouth and nose.

The virus is spread by the Aedes “tiger” mosquito that breeds in stagnant pools.

Guadeloupe authorities stressed the need “to combat mosquito vectors and breeding grounds for larvae that can develop in water reservoirs around or inside homes, which may have accumulated after recent rainfall”.

It also advised people to wear loose-fitting clothing to cover the skin, use insect repellent and mosquito netting over beds. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the number of reported dengue cases worldwide has approximately doubled each year since 2021, with over 12.3 million cases, including more than 7,900 deaths, reported in just the first eight months of 2024.

The WHO has linked the spike in the number of cases to global warming.

Sources:

DENGUE EPIDEMIC The mobilization of all is necessary! – Press releases and press kits – News- State services in Guadeloupe

Thailand: Ammonia Leak at Pattani Ice Plant Sickens 18

Local residents were evacuated and schools closed after an ammonia leak at an ice plant sickened 18 people in Muang district of this southern border province on Wednesday.

The leak happened at an ice-making factory in Tambon Taluboh.

Eighteen employees and rescue workers tried to contain the leak but were exposed to the gas and suffered dizziness, eye irritation, breathing difficulties, and vomiting. They were rushed to Pattani Hospital.


A firefighter sprays water near the loading dock of an ice-making factory to reduce the impact of an ammonia leak, in Muang district of Pattani on Wednesday. (Photo: Pattani Provincial PR Dept)

Local authorities then ordered more rescue workers, all fire engines and emergency vehicles in the district to the scene. Firefighters sprayed water to reduce the impact of the leak and neutralise the vapors, while others tried to reach the point where the leak originated.

Witnesses said the incident happened while employees were checking gas containers, and a metal object fell and struck and ruptured a big ammonia pipe.

Local officials asked people in the area to wear masks while they cordoned off the scene. Local schools and daycare centers were evacuated and closed as a precaution. for the safety of children.

“People within the five-km radius of the ice plant should wear layers of face masks or N95 masks,” the governor of the province advised.

There were about 20 ice plants that used ammonia in Pattani which suffered similar incidents in the past.

Also in Thailand, officials closed a school in Bangkok for 15 days after two students were diagnosed with Pertussis, also known as whooping cough.

The Ministry of Public Health is encouraging people, especially children and those in physical contact with them, to get vaccinated.

Pertussis, also known as whooping cough, is an infectious bacterial disease of the respiratory tract. It spreads easily through the air between people by coughing or sneezing.

Whooping cough mostly occurs in unvaccinated children and at places such as schools and nurseries.

The disease usually begins as a common cold and develops to a more serious stage of coughing violently, vomiting and creating a “whooping” sound when breathing. The symptoms can seriously affect high-risk groups, such as infants and pregnant women.

Sources:

Bangkok Post – Ammonia leak at Pattani ice plant sickens 18

Bangkok Post – Whooping cough vaccine urged for children

Elderly Pennsylvania Maniac Sentenced for Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan 2021 Attack on US Capitol

Terry Allen holding a metal bar that he threw at a police officer during the 6 Jan 2021 Capitol attack. Allen’s attorney claims the throwing of the pole was a reflex action after being pepper sprayed. (Photo: Government documents)

Terry L. Allen (65) of Spring Mills, PA, was sentenced by the Honorable US District Judge Amit P. Mehta to 24 months in prison, 24 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,000 in restitution for his heinous, violent, and felonious conduct on 6 Jan 2021.

On 6 Jan 2021, Terry Allen repeatedly accosted, menaced, and assaulted police officers protecting the US Capitol. Officers sounded the alarm that a rioter was “using the flag as a spear.” This geriatric jerk was not dissuaded from violence even after USCP deployed chemical irritants at him. Allen threw his flagpole at a police officer, striking him. This court document did not specify the extent of injuries to the police officers

The FBI arrested Allen on 6 July 2023 in Pennsylvania.

A photo of Terry Allen and the reinforced gloves he wore during a trip to Washington DC on 14 Nov 2020 to join the Million MAGA March. (Photo: Government documents)

In the nearly four years since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,561 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 590 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.

65 is not a good age to get jammed up by the federal government, as this miscreant will soon find out. But the FBI is futilely “hoovering up” these racist American Fedayeen Saddam (FS) as the Trump Administration will no doubt pardon him and other MAGA cretins convicted and sentenced for attempting to overturn the 2020 election results at his behest. D/FBI Christopher Wray, (a Trump nominee) will most likely be asked to tender his resignation after Inauguration Day in 2025.

Sources:

District of Columbia | Pennsylvania Man Sentenced for Assaulting Law Enforcement with Weapon and Other Charges During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un Pushes for Speeding Up Mass Production of Kamikaze Drones

Kim Jong-Un standing next to a North Korean Solid Fuel IRBM Drone (Undated photo: KCNA)

North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un has called for accelerated mass production of exploding drones designed to crash into targets.

Kim said the development of the weapons in the country was going well, and stressed the need to go into “full-scale mass production” as soon as possible, according to state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The outlet paraphrased Kim, saying that the drones were easy to make at a low cost for a range of military activities, and reported that Kim had acknowledged the importance of drones in modern warfare.

The news comes as the US, South Korea and Japan recently joined together for military exercises involving advanced fighter jets and a US aircraft in nearby international waters in a show of their strength against North Korea.

Last month, North Korea accused South Korea of sending drones into its capital of Pyongyang to drop anti-Korean propaganda leaflets, threatening to respond with force if the incident happened again.

South Korea’s military has not confirmed if the allegations were true or not.

The incident is one in a series that indicates escalating tensions between the neighbours as Kim flaunts his advancing nuclear and missile program, which includes weapons able to target South Korea as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles that could potentially reach the US.

North Korea has also sent around 12,000 troops into Russia’s Kursk region, according to US, South Korean, and Ukrainian intelligence.

Their involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine, which is nearing its third year, comes North Korea ratified a landmark defense pact with Russia on Tuesday promising to provide each other with mutual military aid and assistance if attacked.

The pact has sparked fears in Seoul about what North Korea could be getting in return for its support to Russia, such as Russian technology Kim could use to further develop its nuclear arsenal.

South Korean officials have said that North Korea will be a key topic in a summit between POTUS Joe Biden and his South Korean and Japanese counterparts set to be held this week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Peru.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is nearly two years long which Kim Jong-Un observed through the media and his espionage network, where he noted the effectiveness of drones. The corpulent supreme leader, who has been building up strategic WMDs with the help of the Kremlin, also received first-hand accounts from his military contingent in Russia on drone warfare. Kim Jong-Un probably see another weapon system that he can produce and sell to Russia while adding to his already formidable arsenal. Meanwhile, the poor people of North Korea will continue to endure food insecurity under his selfish and maniacal rule.

North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un enjoying a smoke and a laugh with an unidentified sycophant while his people starve. He already pocketed the $2,200 per month salary of each NK troop sent to die against Ukraine. (Undated Copyright AP Photo).

Regarding the US, the imminent APEC and G-20 Summits in South America will be POTUS Biden’s farewell tours to world leaders and allies. This past September he performed his swan song at the UNGA in NYC with the world asunder. Heaven only knows how he will re-assure his colleagues at these conferences that America can be relied upon as a trustworthy and reliable ally with white nationalist Donald Trump (and friend of Vladimir Putin) ready to take the reins in Washington.     

Sources:

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un pushes for speeding up mass production of exploding drones | Euronews

India: Delhi Air Pollution Blankets Capital in Dense Smog, Sparking Emergency Measures

Thick smog blanketed India’s capital Thursday as the annual ritual of choking on incredibly polluted winter air took hold of New Delhi yet again. Authorities ordered many students to stay home as the smog delayed more than 300 flights and prompted health warnings and a halt to all construction activity in the city.

The air quality rating in the densely packed city of roughly 33 million people first spiked on Wednesday to the highest “severe” category, under the WHO’s Air Quality Index ratings. With an AQI reading Thursday afternoon above 450, Delhi was contending with the worst air pollution in any city in the world.

Any reading over 150 on the AQI index — which measures the levels of five key pollutants harmful to human health in the air at any given time — is considered unhealthy. When the AQI rises to 301 or above, it’s considered an emergency, and harmful to all people.

Higher AQI levels pose serious health risks, particularly for children, the elderly and those with respiratory issues, who can all be affected at even lower levels.

A man feeds seagulls on the Yamuna River, engulfed in smog amid severe air pollution in New Delhi, India, 14 Nov 2024. Photo: Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty

Indian authorities have advised Delhi residents to limit their outdoor activities and, Thursday night, the Delhi government announced enhanced anti-pollution measures, banning all non-essential construction and demolition work, restricting the entry of buses and trucks to the city, and banning the use of diesel generators. Elementary school students were told to switch to remote learning for Friday.

Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport issued an advisory to air travelers Thursday, saying “low visibility procedures” had been enacted at the busy airport. Earlier, the IndiGo airline asked passengers to keep tabs on their flight status and leave for the airport early due to the low visibility on roads around the airport.

In addition to the hundreds of flights delayed Wednesday, at least ten flights were diverted from Delhi altogether.

Delhi’s air quality started worsening at the beginning of November, when fireworks lit up the skies for the Diwali Hindu religious festival. 

Source:

Delhi air pollution blankets India’s capital in dense smog, sparking emergency measures – CBS News

Diaper-Wearing Baby Kangaroo Captured in Florida

A four-month-old kangaroo wearing a diaper was captured after a brief time on the loose in Hernando County, FL. Photo courtesy of the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office/Facebook

A diaper-wearing kangaroo escaped near a Florida elementary school, sparking a search before being apprehended by sheriff’s deputies.

The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office issued an alert on social media Wednesday telling local residents that a baby kangaroo wearing a diaper and a blue harness was on the loose near J.D. Floyd Elementary School. The joey was located and captured in Plantation Estates.

Hernando County, Florida.

World Holds Breath as America Votes

Vice-President Kamala Harris has a ONE PERCENT (1%) edge in the popular vote and a 226 to 219 electoral college vote (ECV) lead over Donald Trump entering the final weekend before the US election. 270 ECVs are needed to win. But why is this race between a successful VPOTUS, former California State Attorney-General, and US Senator against a failed business and family man even this close?

Nothing, except Donald Trump is white.

So, why is this race so close?

White supremacist racist bigots, ignorance, and religious intolerance, fueled by right-wing hate radio and Fox News, supported and funded by oligarchs such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Otherwise, a criminally-convicted wastrel who was sued for sexual assault and twice impeached as POTUS should be watching the election from home with less than 10% support of the American people. Trump has no logical economic policy for the hard-working American taxpayer other then touting the need for tariffs and being proud of avoiding paying income taxes (as well as military service), calling those Americans who do pay taxes and die for the US “suckers.”  

Donald Trump, a deeply dysfunctional man with catastrophic character flaws, is an avatar for white people who believe in the innate superiority of their race. This makes him a perfect reflection of his supporters (AKA MAGAts) who believe America is being usurped by minorities, Latinos, Chinese, Muslims, etc etc. White Americans are becoming a minority in the US and MAGA is code for Make America White Again.

Family members, like Mary Trump (L), a psychologist and niece to Donald Trump, know how nefarious he is and have been warning the American public about his deviancy, as well as his mental and cognitive decline.

MAGAts defile the US Capitol Rotunda on 6 Jan 2021 in Washington, DC. On 1 Nov, two lunatics were found guilty and one sentenced for their idiotic participation. In the nearly four years since then, more than 1,532 MAGAts have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 571 racists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing. Special Counsel Jack Smith is prosecuting this case against Donald Trump. (Photo: NBC News)

Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Republican Dan Coats suspects that Russian President Vladimir Putin is blackmailing Donald Trump.

The Kremlin is desperate for Trump to win in order to withdraw lifesaving US military and economic support for Ukraine. In the same vein, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is eager for a Trump victory which will allow the Likud Party to continue its policy of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians without interference from Washington. America’s immediate neighbors do not want to see a Trump win. Canada and Mexico have elected progressive leaders to run their countries.

House Majority Leader famously rebuked then-POTUS Trump: “With you, Mr. President, all roads lead to Putin!”

Inexplicably, Donald Trump took hundreds of thousands of classified documents from the White House and stored them at his Mar-A-Lago Florida estate. Special Counsel Jack Smith is prosecuting this case as well.

Donald Trump makes no attempt whatsoever to hide his disdain for people of color. Years ago in NYC, the Trump Organization refused to lease apartments to people of color.

Military veterans, once stalwart supporters of the GOP, have begun to turn away from the Donald Trump/JD Vance ticket, and with good reason.

But some influential Republicans continue to support Trump, as well as hillbilly JD Vance.

For example, disgraced and convicted GOP ex-Congressman George Santos (L) supports VPOTUS candidate JD Vance (R). Like Trump, JD Vance is a reflection of his supporters.

The Republican Party, the NRA, and ALEC have turned America into one vast warzone. According to the CDC, in 2022, there were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the US. These are wartime casualties without having to invade another country. By contrast, Canada (with a population of approximately 40 million people), recorded 297 victims of firearms-related homicides in 2021.

The Republican Party answer to this national crisis?

GOP VPOTUS JD Vance candidate offered his policy prescription for the plague of firearms violence victimizing innocent people by blithely dismissing school shootings in the US as “a fact of life.” Donald Trump nonchalantly said after a school shooting in Iowa: “We have to get over it.”

US Army medics treating a casualty. Democrats want universal health coverage for all Americans; Republicans want gun rights enshrined for white people. (Photo: defense.gov)

This ersatz AI-generated image above of wishful thinking circled the globe many times over. Trump wants to be POTUS again to avoid the litany of criminal and civil charges against him.

And no matter what happens on this fateful Tuesday or what chicanery Republican operatives try at the election polls and tabulating centers, Donald J. Trump has an appointment with the Honorable Judge Juan Mercan on 26 Nov to answer for his 34 NYS felony convictions for falsifying business records. Merchan is the first judge in history to preside over the criminal indictment and conviction of a US President, and the first judge to hold a President in criminal contempt of court. This is a handsome man and sharp jurist.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who successfully prosecuted war criminals at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague, is not going away any time soon. This is a capable, uncompromising professional.

Americans and the world have suffered enough Trump-fatigue this past decade. Remarkably, the world’s oldest man to seek the Presidency, suffering from steep mental and cognitive decline, as well as what appears to be morbid obesity, said he would run again in 2028. Oof!

Sources:

Trump’s Intelligence Chief Suspects Putin Blackmailing Trump | Crooks and Liars

Read the newly released evidence in the Jan. 6 case against Trump | PBS News

Judge questioned how Trump didn’t notice classified docs in bedroom (nbcnews.com)

Canada: RCMP Dismantle ‘Largest, Most Sophisticated’ Drug Mega-Lab

Aerial view of the drug “mega-lab.” (Photo: RCMP)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) seized 1,100 pounds of illegal narcotics, including the deadly opiate fentanyl, during a raid at a major drug megalab in British Columbia.

(Map: researchgate.net)

The raid took place in a rural area of southeastern British Columbia at what police referred to as “the largest and most sophisticated fentanyl and methamphetamine drug superlab in Canada.”

RCMP officers seized 119 pounds of fentanyl, 860 pounds of methamphetamine, 77 pounds of cocaine and 33 pounds of MDMA during the raid, much of it destined for international export. (Photo: RCMP)

“The combined fentanyl and precursors seized at this facility could have amounted to over 95,500,000 potentially lethal doses of fentanyl, which have been prevented from entering our communities, or exported abroad,” police said.

Authorities also recovered almost 90 firearms, “massive amounts” of drug precursor chemicals, ammunition, firearm silencers, high-capacity magazines, body armor, and $500,000 in cash during the operation, which was assisted by members of the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). (Photo: RCMP)

Prior to the late-October raid, officials also seized an additional 683 pounds of methamphetamine associated with the super lab and destined for export.

This raid denied this transnational organized crime group an estimated $485 million dollars in profits.

Police arrested Gaganpreet Randhawa who faces six charges related to firearms and possession of a controlled substance.

Sources:

BC RCMP – Federal Investigators take down the largest, most sophisticated drug superlab in Canada (rcmp-grc.gc.ca)

Police dismantle ‘largest and most sophisticated’ drug superlab in Canada – UPI.com

Israel ‘Emptying Gaza Completely’

A year of war in Gaza has undermined international law and threatens to make the strip uninhabitable, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. She is making the case at the UN that Israel’s Nakba offensive be classified a genocide.

Palestinians gather at the site of IDF strikes on houses and residential buildings in Beit Lahiya, in the northern Gaza Strip on 20 Oct 2024. (Photo: Reuters / Abdul Karim Farid)

More than 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing extremely critical levels of hunger, according to the UN. Seventy percent of crop fields and livelihoods have been destroyed during the Israeli military offensive, AKA Nakba 2024.

The war, which has claimed 42,000 lives in Gaza and left hundreds of thousands wounded, has also spread to the West Bank and Lebanon. Civilians as well as UN peacekeepers have been targeted by the IDF. At this rate of carnage, approximately 50,000 Palestinians will have been killed by year’s end.

“I used the word ‘catastrophe’ for the first time back in Oct 2023,” Francesca Albanese said, “when Israel had killed 8,000, 6,000 people in the first weeks of the conflict and destroyed entire neighborhoods, bakeries, churches, and targeted UN buildings and universities. This is not the way wars are conducted.”

Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, says a regional ceasefire is urgent. (Photo: AP / Salvatore Di Nolfi)

The Special Rapporteur argues that Israel’s military actions form part of a systematic attempt to displace Palestinians that goes back decades – and which she calls a genocide.

“Israel occupies that land, according to the International Court of Justice, unlawfully,” Albanese said. 

Click to access n2427968.pdf

“So, Israel unlawfully occupies a territory, oppressing its people, who of course retaliate. Then they wage a war against them. It doesn’t work that way.”

Ms. Albanese warns that the trauma of 7 Oct 2023 has deepened Israeli animosity towards Palestinians and spurred calls for vengeance, providing the government with an opportunity to escalate its actions in the occupied territories with the goal of making them unhospitable.

“As we speak, Israel is running extermination raids neighborhood per neighborhood in the areas that were already forcibly evacuated, ethnically cleansed of nearly one million people in northern Gaza.”

“Only 400,000 people remained, who have been starved, abused and bombed. What the people in Gaza have gone through is really unspeakable, and now it is emptying the land completely.”

UN leaders have called for a ceasefire and denounced starvation, mass displacements, atrocities, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The IDF recently demolished an UNRWA office in Gaza and the Israeli Knesset approved a controversial bill to ban them from operating on Israeli territory. Albanese called for the UN to consider suspending Israel as a member state over Nakba 2024.

Meanwhile, anti-Likud protestors demonstrated in Tel Aviv at the Israeli Defense Ministry. Many criticized PM Benjamin Netanyahu, a man indicted by the ICC for war crimes.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in front of the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv call for the release of hostages held captive since 7 Oct 2023. (Photo: 2 Nov 2024 / AFP)

Flag-waving demonstrators in the country’s commercial hub held placards with slogans including “Deal now,” “Stop the war” and “We won’t abandon them,” and beat drums and chanted “Why are they still in Gaza?”

“There have been countless opportunities to end this crisis, and each one was torpedoed by the government,” said demonstrator Zahiro Shahar Mor (52), a bank employee from Tel Aviv.

Critics have questioned why a truce has still not materialized now that Israel has achieved many of its war aims, including last month’s killing of Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar, who was supposedly an obstacle to reaching a truce. Yahya Sinwar was not afforded a day in an Israeli court to answer for his alleged crimes against the Israeli people and was killed extra-judicially (XJK) by the IDF.

Ifat Kalderon, a prominent antigovernment protester afraid for her cousin still held in Gaza, blamed Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.

“Each hostage deal they start to talk about, Netanyahu sabotages. He always blamed Sinwar, but now there is no Sinwar. But every time he finds another reason,” the 50-year-old stylist said.

“It’s a bloody war, we need to stop it. Enough. So many soldiers are dying. And ordinary citizens,” she said, referring to civilians from both sides of the conflict paying with their lives.

The IDF held thousands of Palestinian detainees in security detention without hearing or trial prior to the 7 Oct 2023 attack to seize Israeli bargaining chips. The Mossad chief immediately advised Israeli PM Netanyahu to affect an immediate prisoner swap and one trade was concluded in Nov 2023. Afterwards, the Likud regime used the 7 Oct 2023 raid as a casus belli to de-populate the Gaza Strip. The odious son-in-law of ex-president Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, already slipped that the Gaza Strip has prime beachfront property for luxury resorts (as you read previously here on Coriolanus).    

Some at the rally — organized by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum campaign group — brought up the plight of Israel’s soldiers, who are exhausted more than a year into the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Others hoped for international intervention, including from the US, which holds a presidential election Tuesday. The sane people of Israel must vote out the Likud Party. (Photo: AFP)

Sources:

UN rapporteur says Israel’s war in Gaza is ’emptying the land completely’ – International report (rfi.fr)

https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1l/k1lr8ngem8

Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territory ‘unlawful’: UN world court | UN News

Protesters demonstrate in Tel Aviv to demand end of war, return of hostages (voanews.com)

Bangladesh: Four Dengue Patients Die; 1,154 Hospitalized in Last 24 Hrs

Tiger mosquitoes spread diseases such as dengue fever, chikungunya and Zika virus which, until recently, were typically only present in parts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Four dengue patients died and 1,154 patients were admitted to different hospitals during the last 24 hours.

“During the period, 397 dengue patients were hospitalized in Dhaka city while 757 patients were admitted to different hospitals outside the capital,” reported the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).

This year, the total number of cases rose to 60,574 and 290 deaths from dengue disease.

Last year, Bangladesh suffered 1,705 dengue-related deaths and a total of 321,179 dengue cases.

Mankind’s acme predator, the mosquito, continues to spread illness and death in SW Asia. The tiger mosquito (an invasive species) has also set up home in 13 countries in the EU, including France, Spain, and Greece, with experts linking their presence to a rise in dengue fever in Europe.

Climate change is creating favorable conditions for the tiger mosquito to spread, said the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The recent catastrophic flooding in Spain may provide more breeding grounds for the tiger mosquito and other predators.

Sources:

Four dengue patients die, 1,154 hospitalized in last 24 hrs | News (bssnews.net)

Spread of tiger mosquito behind rise of dengue fever in Europe (bbc.com)

Ukraine Eager to Pre-Emptively Strike North Koreans in Russia; China Unhappy, but Silent

North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un keeps the $2,000 monthly salary of each soldier and receives uranium and technology for his nuclear program from Russia. President Putin gets cannon fodder for “meat attacks” against Ukrainian defenders. How easily these two maniacs throw people’s lives away like trash. (Rebel Pepper / RFA)

The recent North Korean record-long ICBM test suggests Russia is aiding Pyongyang’s missile program. (Photo: Lee Jin-man / AP)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spent months urging Western suppliers to allow Kiev to use their advanced weaponry to strike deeper inside Russia. This week he accused them of inaction in response to the 8,000 North Korean soldiers which the Kremlin “fully intends” to deploy in combat against Ukrainian troops. The Biden Administration, which announced a $425 million package of fresh security assistance to Ukraine under the presidential “drawdown authority,” its 69th tranche of defense equipment since late 2021, is concerned about escalation with Russia. The USSECDEF argued that deep strikes against Russia wouldn’t tip the balance of the war towards Kiev. So, the powerful HIMARS system can only be used defensively on Ukrainian territory.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces could benefit greatly by using Western-provided long-range mass casualty weapons to strike the North Korean troops “the firstest with the mostest.”  Such devastating attacks would both attrit and demoralize the unseasoned North Koreans before they even get a chance to see combat. The Ukrainian PSYOP program has been instructing North Korean soldiers how to safely surrender.  South Korean intelligence is reportedly assisting Kiev and Seoul may provide them mass-casualties in response.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with President Xi Jinping in Beijing, 10 Jan 2019. Neither supremo looks happy and this is before Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. (Photo: KCNA / via Reuters)

“Beijing is clearly uncomfortable with the news that North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia to assist Moscow’s war in Ukraine for a number of reasons,” said Patricia Kim, a fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington.

Beijing sees a tightening Russia-North Korea alignment as reducing its own influence with those states, and worries that any military assistance Pyongyang gets from Moscow in return for deploying troops might make it more aggressive in Northeast Asia.

“China has no interest in the rise of a militarily strengthened and emboldened North Korea that might take greater risks and bring chaos to the region.”

A bolder Pyongyang would add to the troubles stoked by North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, which has been a main source of regional tension for decades. Pyongyang recently refused Beijing’s assistance after massive floods wreaked the northern portion of the Hermit Kingdom. Kim Jong-Un is reportedly unhappy with China’s crackdown on revenue-supplying North Koreans in China. North Korean escapees have re-iterated a common refrain in North Korea: “Japan is our enemy of 100 years, China is our enemy of 1,000 years.”

Sources:

Is China peeved – or pleased – by North Korean troops in Ukraine? – Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

White House Says New Ukraine Aid On The Way, As Kyiv Braces For Fresh Attack (rferl.org)

Iceland: Preschool E. coli Outbreak Traced to Mixed Ground Beef

(Photo: Art Bicnick)

An E. coli outbreak at Mánagarður preschool in Reykjavík has been traced to mixed beef and lamb ground meat, which was insufficiently cooked. Eleven children were being monitored at Hringurinn children’s hospital.

According to a statement released on the website of the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority (MAST), the E. coli infection originated from mixed beef and lamb ground meat provided by Kjarnafæði, one of the largest food processing companies in Iceland.

The preparation of the meat during cooking was insufficient. This is the conclusion reached by an investigation conducted by Matís – a government-owned independent research company – and MAST. RÚV reported yesterday that the head cook of Mánagarður had tendered their resignation.

The MAST statement notes that the meat was not sold to the general public but was exclusively supplied to large kitchens, such as those in restaurants, cafeterias, and preschools. When suspicions regarding the meat were raised, MAST contacted Kjarnafæði, which promptly notified all clients who received meat from the same batch used at Mánagarður.

“The recall revealed that the buyers had already used it in their operations, though no reports of infection or illness have been noted among other consumers,” the statement reads.

Eleven children were being monitored at Hringurinn Children’s Hospital with four of them in serious condition in the ICU. One child recovered and was discharged.

The Reykjavík Health Inspectorate visited Mánagarður, taking numerous samples of foods used in meal preparation that day, including meat and vegetables. All food samples tested negative for E. coli, except for the ground meat.

Some children who typically do not eat meat also fell ill, though the transmission method remains unconfirmed in these cases. These children may have contracted the infection from other students who attended the preschool after becoming ill but before the facility was closed.

E. coli bacteria are part of the natural gut flora of humans and animals and can be introduced into water, meat, vegetables and other foods during their production. Different types of E. coli exist. Most types of E. coli are harmless, but Shigatoxin-producing E. coli (STEC) carry genes that register for toxins that can cause illness (virulence genes). However, their strains can be pathogenic. Hygiene and proper handling of meat and adequate cooking by users/consumers is therefore key to prevent infection with E. coli, including STEC from meat.

Sources:

Preschool E. coli Outbreak Traced to Mixed Ground Beef (icelandreview.com)

E. coli O145 confirmed in children and mixed minced meat | Food and Veterinary Authority (mast.is)

Four Raccoons Escape from Zoo in England

A zoo in England is asking members of the public to be on the lookout for four female raccoons that escaped from the facility Friday morning.

The Amazon World Zoo Park, near Sandown on the Isle of Wight, said the raccoons managed to escape their enclosure late Thursday night or Friday morning.

Referred to as the “Island” by residents, the Isle of Wight is the largest and second-most populous island in England and a designated UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. In 1970, Jimi Hendrix performed one of his last public concerts on the Isle of Wight, enjoyed by 600,000 to 700,000 spectators.

“If you have a sighting please do not approach them, they are not normally aggressive but will be scared,” the zoo advised on social media.

Officials asked nearly residents to check sheds and bonfire pits, as the animals “sleep during the day and become active at dusk.”

Rowena Welsh, a supervisor at the zoo, said a search has been launched for the masked fugitives.

“They are new here. Everyone is out searching and we have tracker dogs and drones looking for them,” she said.

Source:

Four raccoons escape from zoo in England – UPI.com

Coriolanus shall return to the stage in a few weeks after the election. In the meantime: “Good night, and good luck.”

The late, great CBS war correspondent Edward R. Murrow (25 Apr 1908 – 27 Apr 1965). Those of you unfamiliar with his life and career should read his biography or enjoy the 2005 movie “Good Night, and Good Luck.”

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

Arab Killing Zones (AKZ): IDF Strikes Kill 115 in North Gaza, 60 in Lebanon

Palestinian first responders remove a body from the rubble of a five-story residential building hit by an Israeli strike in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 29 Oct 2024. (Photo: AFP)

Palestinian health officials said an Israeli airstrike Tuesday hit a five-story residential building in northern Gaza, killing at least 115 people.

The Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and to a great extent the West Bank, is an “AKZ” or “Arab Killing Zone” for the Likud Party and the IDF. The Israeli term is “Nakba,” which is Arabic for “catastrophe.” Over the past 24 hours, the IDF liquidated 175 victims in the AKZ without trial,  judicial hearing, or concern for collateral damage and nearby innocent victims. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch use the term “XJK,” short for “Extra-Judicial Killings.” The Likud Party definition of “co-existence” with Arabs is child-like in simplicity: “We exist, you do not.”

In the northern sector of the IDF AKZ, at least 60 people were liquidated in IDF attacks on Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. Two children were among those killed in strikes which targeted 12 areas in the Baalbek region. 58 Arabs were wounded and rescue efforts were under way. Baalbek governor Bachie Khodr called the attacks the “most violent” in the area since Israel began its “special military operation” against Hezbollah last month.

Map: BBC News.

Israel has carried out thousands of air strikes across the northern AKZ (Lebanon) over the past five weeks. Unverified video posted on social media showed damage to buildings and forests ablaze, as rescuers searched for the injured.

Hezbollah fighters resisted Israeli troops near Lebanon’s southern border and fired rockets at a naval base inside Israel near Haifa.

Cross-border hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah broke out after the armed Lebanese group started firing rockets in and around northern Israel in support of Palestinians on 8 Oct 2023, the day after its ally conducted a brazen raid to seize Israeli citizens in order to conduct a future prisoner swap. Over 2,000 Palestinians (may be more by other accounts) had been held in IDF security detention without hearing or trial according to Amnesty International.

Israel invaded the northern AKZ (Lebanon) in a dramatic escalation on 30 Sep to destroy Hezbollah weapons and infrastructure in “limited, localised, targeted raids.” But Israeli Likud PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s “special military operation” has internally displaced up to 1.3 million Lebanese people, killing 2,600 of them and wounding over 12,400 in the AKZ. Lebanon’s medical infrastructure is being destroyed by the IDF in what Beirut says is deliberate and a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres criticized legislation passed by the Israeli parliament banning the main UN aid agency for the Palestinians, UNRWA. The law is set to go into effect in 90 days, which Guterres said “could have devastating consequences” for Palestinian refugees.

The Likud Party and the IDF do not want witnesses to ethnic cleansing nor do they want Palestinians to receive any humanitarian or medical assistance. We are witnessing the Gaza Strip become the most inhospitable place in the universe for human beings.  

In the north AKZ, the Lebanon-based group Hezbollah announced that Sheikh Naim Kassem is its new leader, following the killing of longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in a Sep 2024 Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

The group’s Shura Council elected Kassem, announcing that these Shia Muslims would continue Nasrallah’s policies of resistance to Israel and support for Sunni Palestinians. Kassem served as Hezbollah’s deputy leader for more than three decades.

Israel’s Nakba against Gaza, the southern and western portion of the AKZ, has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians (half of them women and children). Israel alleges the death toll includes thousands of terrorists. At this rate, by year’s end approximately 50,000 Palestinians would have been eradicated while 150,000 will have been maimed. The Israeli Nakba campaign has devastated much of the Gaza Strip, while the fighting and Israeli evacuation orders have displaced around 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million Arabs.

Rene Lichtman, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, said on 24 Jan 2024: “Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. We’ve got to fight back.”

Holocaust survivor Rene Lichtman at a protest against Israel’s Nakba against Gaza. (WSWS© Photo: New York Post)

Monsieur Lichtman, these brave young Israeli teenagers below may have heard you.  

Israeli conscientious objectors. Approximately 63 high school students signed a public letter declaring that they will refuse to be drafted into the IDF to participate in the Nakba. One brave young man has already been imprisoned for refusing induction into the IDF. (Image by AFSC.org)

Meanwhile, International Criminal Court (ICC) war crimes prosecutor Karim Khan KC is patiently awaiting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and DM Yoav Gallant at the Hague for creating the horrendous AKZ in the Middle East called the Gaza Strip. (Photo: BBC)

Sources:

Lebanon says 60 killed in Israel strikes on Bekaa Valley in east (bbc.com)

Israeli strike kills at least 60 in northern Gaza, health officials say (voanews.com)

Israeli Teens Tell Netanyahu They Won’t Serve IDF (forward.com)

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

Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 115, most in apartment building in Beit Lahia in the north – UPI.com

Israel/OPT: Horrifying cases of torture and degrading treatment of Palestinian detainees amid spike in arbitrary arrests   – Amnesty International(7) Middle East Live Updates: Israel’s Parliament Passes Bill That Threatens UNRWA’s Work – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Drones Attack ‘Spetsnaz University’ In Russia’s Chechnya

Fire atop the roof of a building on the campus of “Spetsnaz University” after drone attacks on 29 Oct. (Photo: RFE/RL)

For the first time since Moscow launched its full-scale of illegal invasion of Ukraine in Feb 2022, the territory of Russia’s North Caucasus region of Chechnya has been targeted by drone attacks. Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on Telegram on 29 Oct that drones had attacked the building of the so-called “Spetsnaz (Special Forces) University” named after President Vladimir Putin in the Chechen city of Gudermes, some 500 km from Ukraine’s borders and west of the capital, Grozhny.

(Map: worldatlas.com)

According to Kadyrov, there were no casualties and a fire atop the roof was extinguished. Kiev did not comment. The Chechen warlord had said thousands of men went through special training in the facility before joining Russian troops in Ukraine. 

Chechen personnel in Ukraine. Akhmat Special Forces have distinguishing trademark sideburns. Undated photo: east2westnews.com via www.ar15.com)

Russian air defenses were unable to neutralize this drone attack which made it completely through Chechen territory. This symbolic attack alerts the Chechens that the Ukrainians can reach out to them and that there is a price to pay for assisting Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin satrap Ramzan Kadyrov stands proudly in the center. (Undated photo: Yelena Afonina /TASS / Reuters)

Sources:

Drones Attack ‘Spetsnaz University’ In Russia’s Chechnya (rferl.org)

Ukrainian Imprisoned for Assassinating Ex-Commander of Russian Submarine

The late Stanislav Rzhitski fired drones at Ukrainian civilians. (RFE/RL file photo)

The Krasnodar regional court in Russia’s southwest has sentenced Serhiy Denysenko, a Ukrainian-Russian dual citizen, to 25 years in prison for killing the former commander of a Russian submarine implicated in the shelling of Ukrainian territories in 2022.

The court also ordered Denysenko to pay five million rubles ($51,350) to the father of Stanislav Rzhitsky as compensation in the shooting death.

The court pronounced the ruling on 29 Oct after finding Denysenko, who obtained Russian citizenship in March 2023, guilty of murder, illegal weapon possession, and high treason.

Denysenko was arrested on 11 July 2023, a day after Rzhitsky (42) was killed in the city of Krasnodar while jogging. The assailant fired several shots from a pistol with a silencer and struck Rzhitsky four times. Rzhitsky, who served at the time as a deputy head of the department for mobilization work in Krasnodar, died at the scene.

(Map: Britannica.com)

Russian prosecutors claimed that the Security Service of Ukraine was behind the attack. The chief of Ukraine’s Military Intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, rejected the claim, saying the anti-war sentiments among Russian military may have triggered the assassination.

Rzhitsky used to command the Krasnodar submarine in the Russian Navy.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Krasnodar is a diesel-electric submarine built for the Black Sea Fleet and designed “to fight surface ships and submarines, lay mines, and conduct reconnaissance.”

The Krasnodar is equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles, and Ukrainian authorities claimed that the vessel had participated in the shelling of the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsya in July 2022, firing its Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea.

(Graphics: iswnews.com)

In addition, a person with the same name as Stanislav Rzhitski is in the database of a Ukrainian website that collects information on war crimes allegedly conducted by the Russian military.

The website claims that Rzhitski was the commander of the Alrosa submarine and was directly involved in the military invasion of Ukraine. Unclear is when Rzhitsky left the submarine fleet for the post of deputy head of the department for mobilization work in Krasnodar.

Serhiy Denysenko, a karate black belt, will suffer a brutal sentence in a Russian prison or gulag. Sensei Serhiy has a slight glimmer of hope, though. Since he was not executed, he may be exchanged in a future prisoner swap between Kiev and Moscow.   

Sources:

Ukrainian Jailed For Murdering Ex-Commander Of Russian Submarine (rferl.org)

Disgraced US Navy Reserve Officer Sentenced for Bribery Scheme Involving State Dept Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) Program

Heroic-looking Cmdr. Jeromy Pittmann, seen here as a lieutenant commander in Afghanistan in 2014. (Photo: Patrick Gordon / US Navy)

Disgraced US Navy Reserve Commander Jeromy Pittmann (53) of Pensacola, FL, was sentenced today to 30 months in prison for his role in a years-long bribery scheme involving Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) for Afghan nationals.

He accepted bribe payments from Afghan nationals in exchange for drafting, submitting, and verifying fraudulent letters of recommendation for Afghan nationals who applied for SIVs with the US Department of State.

Pittmann signed over 20 letters in which he fraudulently represented that he personally knew and had supervised the Afghan national visa applicants while they worked as translators in support of the US military and NATO. Pittman testified in those letters that the applicants’ lives were in jeopardy because the Taliban considered them to be traitors. He also wrote that he believed the applicants did not pose any threat to the national security of the US. In fact, Pittmann had no knowledge of the applicants whatsoever. In exchange for the fraudulent letters, Pittmann received several thousands of dollars in bribes.

To avoid detection, Pittmann received the bribe money through an intermediary and created false invoices purporting to show that Pittmann was receiving the money for legitimate work unrelated to his military service.

The SIV system has come under scrutiny after an Afghan man living in Oklahoma was charged earlier this month with allegedly plotting a terror attack on Election Day on behalf of the Islamic State (IS) terror group.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi (27) worked for CIA as a security guard in Afghanistan before entering the US in 2021 on a SIV. Authorities assess that Tawhedi became radicalized after he arrived in the US.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi is seen making the “Tawhid” gesture in an undated photo. He is under arrest. (Photo: FBI)


This disgraced USNR field grade officer endangered US national security and threw his life and career away over sheer greed. As a US Navy Reserve Commander (O-5) on active-duty, Pittmann’s monthly base pay was between $6,725.70 to $11,426.70.

If any of Pittmann’s Afghan SIV applicants conduct an attack in the US, his sentence has the potential to be reviewed and increased. There is no public information available whether the US Navy is recalling him to active-duty for court-martial, reduction in grade and pay, or dishonorable discharge under the UCMJ.


Source:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-navy-reserve-officer-sentenced-bribery-scheme-involving-department-states-approval

US: Iowa Resident Dies of Rare Lassa Fever

The current risk of Lassa virus transmission in the US is “incredibly low,” Iowa’s medical director says. (Image: CS Goldsmith, P. Rollin, M. Bowen/CDC)

A resident of eastern Iowa who had recently traveled to West Africa died after catching Lassa fever. The virus, which is in the same viral hemorrhagic fever category as Ebola, is rarely seen in the US.

The Iowa Department of Health and Human Services announced the death Monday but did not release the person’s name and disclosed few details about them. Preliminary tests were presumptively positive for the virus and the CDC is working to confirm the diagnosis.

The department said the person was middle-aged and had traveled to West Africa, where it is believed they contracted the virus. The current risk of transmission in the US is “incredibly low,” according to Iowa State Medical Director Dr. Robert Kruse.

Each year, about 100,000 to 300,000 people become infected with Lassa fever in West Africa, where the disease is endemic, according to the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota. Since 1969, there have been only eight known cases in the US, all of them travel-related.

It’s even rarer for someone to die from Lassa fever. The disease has an overall fatality rate of just 1%, according to the World Health Organization. In severe cases, the patient may have bleeding; difficulty breathing; pain in the chest, back and abdomen; and vomiting. Someone with milder symptoms may develop a slight fever, feel tired or have a headache. Most people who are infected with Lassa virus have no symptoms at all.

Lassa fever can spread between humans but not through casual contact. Typically, the virus spreads only when someone comes into contact with an infected person’s bodily fluids.

Lassa fever most commonly spreads through the multimammate rat in West Africa. People can get sick after touching objects contaminated with rat feces or urine, or after eating food that’s been contaminated. Some people also get sick after eating the rats themselves, according to the CDC.

Natal multimammate rat. (Photo: http://www.iNaturalist.org)

Prompt treatment is considered key for Lassa fever. Ribavirin, a broad-spectrum antiviral that works well against RNA viruses and is also used to treat hepatitis C, is the primary treatment.

The Iowa Department of Health is investigating and monitoring the situation in conjunction with the CDC and local public health partners. The agencies are trying to determine who may have had close contact with the patient, who had been treated in isolation at the University of Iowa Health Care Medical Center.

The CDC says the patient was not sick while traveling, so the risk to other airline passengers is extremely low.

Sources:

State and Hospital Officials Follow Federal Guidance After Lassa Fever Death | Health & Human Services (iowa.gov)

About Lassa Fever | Lassa Fever | CDC

Iowa resident dies of rare Lassa fever, officials say | CNN

Vladimir Putin Oversees Large-Scale Nuclear Response Drills as Tensions with NATO Run High

RS-24 Yars (MIRV-equipped, thermonuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missiles AKA SS-29s),  Each missile is thought to be able to carry up to four warheads.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has overseen an extensive nuclear exercise simulating a retaliatory strike involving missile launches, putting Russia’s nuclear capabilities front and centre as tensions with the West over Ukraine continue to escalate. 

Speaking via video with military leaders on Tuesday, Putin confirmed the drills are designed to simulate the actions of top officials in a nuclear response, involving launches of both ballistic and cruise missiles.

Defence Minister Andrei Belousov stated that the exercise aims to practice “strategic offensive forces launching a massive nuclear strike in response to a nuclear strike by the enemy”. 

The drills included the test-firing of a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk launch site, intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from submarines in the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, and long-range cruise missiles deployed by Tu-95 strategic bombers. 

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that all missiles successfully hit their targets.  

Putin, who has frequently highlighted Russia’s nuclear capabilities to discourage Western support for Ukraine, described Russia’s nuclear arsenal as a “reliable guarantor” of sovereignty and security. 

He reiterated Russia’s stance that nuclear weapons are a last resort, and announced ongoing modernization efforts for Russia’s nuclear forces to improve their precision, speed, and resistance to missile defenses. 

In recent months, Putin has also issued a stern warning that if Western arms donors permit Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with weapons they have supplied, they would be risking a direct war between his country and the NATO alliance.

He has also revised Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which now considers a conventional attack by a non-nuclear country allied with a nuclear power as grounds for a joint response, potentially including nuclear weapons. 

These exercises follow other recent drills with Belarus, a Russian ally hosting some of Moscow’s tactical nuclear arms.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is saber-rattling ahead of the US presidential election. These drills are a message that the Kremlin is serious about Western assistance to Ukraine. Nuclear delivery systems do undergo routine readiness drills, but the timing of this is political. After many years, the US relocated nuclear delivery systems closer to Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Source:

Vladimir Putin oversees large-scale nuclear response drills as tensions with NATO run high | Euronews

Illinois Militant Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan Attack on US Capitol

Joseph Bierbrodt

Joseph Bierbrodt (55) of Sheridan, IL pleaded guilty to obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder and assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, both felony offenses, for his atrocious conduct on 6 Jan 2021. The Honorable US District Judge Christopher R. Cooper will sentence Joseph Bierbrodt on 3 Feb 2025.

Bierbrodt and his brother, William Bierbrodt, attended the “Stop the Steal” rally on 6 Jan 2021, in Washington, DC and then made their way toward the US Capitol building. The two eventually arrived at the Northwest Terrace and approached the Parliamentarian Door, which was locked to prevent rioters from further accessing the building. William Bierbrodt then used his cane to smash the door window and reach his hand inside, unlocking the door.

William Bierbrodt used his cane to break into the Capitol. (Photo: Roberto Schmidt / AFP via Getty Images)

With the door now open, Joseph Bierbrodt and other rioters entered the Capitol. Immediately upon entering the Capitol, Joseph Bierbrodt grabbed a USCP officer by the upper torso and pushed him into a wall.  He then spun the officer around and shoved the officer into the arms of another rioter. After the assault, Joseph Bierbrodt moved to a location in the Senate Wing, where he met a line of police officers restricting his access further into the building. Both brothers finally departed the US Capitol hours later.

Joseph Bierbrodt (L) and William Bierbrodt (R) at the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. Both brothers are military veterans. (Photo: FBI)

The FBI arrested both Joseph Bierbrodt and William Bierbrodt on 26 July 2023, in Sheridan, IL. William Bierbrodt is still on trial.

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.

These two whiteist neanderthals, US military veterans, heeded the idiotic call of Donald Trump that the US is being undermined by liberals and the minorities stole the 2020 election. After the cane-swinging imbecile is found guilty in court, both siblings would have thrown their lives away with these federal felony convictions over ignorance and hatred.

Source:

District of Columbia | Illinois Man Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Law Enforcement During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

Joseph Bierbrodt Statement of Facts.pdf (justice.gov)

French Brand Tops Mercury Contamination in Europe’s Tuna

Mercury contamination has been found in cans of tuna tested across Europe, with some samples containing four times the permitted level, two NGOs warned. The highest level was found in cans sold by French brand Petit Navire.

Bluefin tuna fished off Calabria, Italy. (According to the NGOs, tuna remains the most consumed fish in Europe. Photo: Reuters / Tony Gentile)

Tests carried out by NGOs Bloom and Foodwatch showed all 148 cans tested positive for mercury contamination. The samples were bought in France, Germany, England, Spain and Italy.

Mercury is “one of the ten substances of greatest concern in the world, like asbestos or arsenic,” said the organisations. Its derivative, methylmercury, is classified as a “possible carcinogen” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

More than half the tested cans contained mercury levels higher than those permitted for other fish species.

While mercury content in fish like pollack or cod must not exceed 0.3 mg/kg, the limit for tuna is set at 1 mg/kg.

The NGOs criticized this discrepancy and called for authorities to impose the lower 0.3 mg/kg limit on tuna – Europe’s most consumed fish.

“This metal is a powerful neurotoxicant and low doses consumed regularly are enough to cause serious disorders of the nervous system in children and attack the brain functioning of adults,” said the NGOs.

The highest concentration was found in French brand Petit Navire at 3.9 mg/kg. Spain’s Carrefour products followed with 2.5 mg/kg, while Italian brand As do Mar showed levels up to 1.5 mg/kg.

Bloom and Foodwatch demanded authorities stop the sale of tuna products exceeding 0.3 mg/kg of mercury. They also called for bans in nurseries, hospitals, maternity wards, retirement homes, and school canteens.

Source:

French brand tops mercury contamination in Europe’s tuna (rfi.fr)

https://www.iarc.who.int/

A Mutt Known as ‘Houdini’ for Ability to Elude Capture Finally Nabbed in New Orleans

(Photo: Brett Duke / The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Dubbed on social media as the “Houdini” of New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood, Scrim — a scruffy, mixed-breed dog that was on the lam for more than six months after escaping his yard — has finally been caught.

The 13-pound runaway was captured with the use of a tranquilizer dart. New Orleans news outlets report that he is missing a chunk out of his ear and has various abrasions. Also, X-rays revealed two projectiles — possibly small bullets or air rifle pellets — were lodged inside his little body.

Veterinarian Dr. Mary Miller told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate she couldn’t be positive what type of weapon had been used, since she decided to leave the projectiles embedded in the dog’s flesh. “We’re probably not going to remove them,” Miller said, “because they’re not going to cause an issue.”

Despite his injuries, Miller said, Scrim’s condition “wasn’t awful.”

Michelle Cheramie, owner of the nonprofit Zeus Rescues in New Orleans, said she had rescued Scrim from a south Louisiana dog pound where he was in jeopardy of euthanasia. Scrim was eventually adopted by a family in Mid-City, but soon escaped.

He soon became the talk of the neighborhood, and a bit of a star on social media where people posted videos from cellphones and security cameras whenever he was spotted. He managed to elude traps and would-be captors with nets and tranquilizer guns.

Finally, Cheramie got a call that Scrim had been sighted. She grabbed her tranquilizer gun and a group of volunteers showed up at the scene.

“WE GOT HIM!!!!” Cheramie posted on social media.

Once he’s fully healthy, he will be adopted again. Tammy Murray, co-founder of the nonprofit New Orleans Animal Welfare Society, told the newspaper she plans to take him in.

Scrim being taken for walk at animal hospital in New Orleans, LA. (Photo: Brett Duke / The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Source:

Dog dubbed ‘Houdini’ finally captured in New Orleans | AP News

Gaza De-Population Campaign Continues

Palestinians waiting for bread 28 Oct 2024. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said the Gaza Strip is on the brink of a famine. (Photo: Mohammed Salem / Reuters)

96 Palestinians were killed and 277 wounded in the Gaza Strip over the last 48 hours. At least 43,020 people have been killed and 101,110 wounded in Israeli military attacks on Gaza since 7 Oct 2023. At this rate of homicide, by year’s end the Likud Party and the IDF will have killed close to 50,000 Palestinians while maiming 150,000 in the Gaza Strip. The IDF detained approximately 100 Palestinians at Kamal Adwan Hospital. The people apprehended included fighters who attempted to escape during the evacuation of civilians, an army statement claimed. The IDF reported that weapons, funds and intelligence documents were found in the hospital and surrounding area. Israel’s forces “arrested and deported all the medical staff” at Kamal Adwan Hospital, except one unidentified individual.

IDF jets attacked the city of Tyre, Lebanon, killing at least seven people and wounding 17 others. Beirut accuses Jerusalem of intentionally trying to destroy its medical infrastructure. (Photo: Ahmad Kaddoura / Anadolu)

Hard working CIA Director William J. Burns was meeting in Qatar with his Israeli counterpart, David Barnea of the Mossad, to re-start negotiations for a cease-fire and a release of the hostages.  Mr. Barnea, who studied in the US years ago, had urged Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate with Palestinian resistance leaders immediately in order to release the Israeli captives. At the time of the surprise attack on Israel (7 Oct 2023), at least 2,000 Palestinians were being held in security detention without hearing or trial. Other reports cited larger numbers of detentions and torture. In Nov 2023 the first prisoner swap between the Palestinian captors and the IDF concluded. Afterwards, Netanyahu opted for a permanent solution to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. USSECSTATE Antony Blinken met with Israeli leaders at least 11 times for cease-fire negotiations, but this was all kabuki theater. According to some people close to Joe Biden, he felt betrayed by being pushed out in favor of VPOTUS Kamala Harris to take on GOP candidate Donald Trump. Then, Biden felt “humiliated” by Netanyahu who only played lip-service to him about a cease-fire before the all-important US presidential elections. Netanyahu, indicted as a war criminal by the Hague like his fellow war-monger Russian President Vladimir Putin, effectively tarnished Joe Biden’s legacy as he winds down his multi-decade career of American public service.  

Sources:

(4) Updates LIVE: Israel’s three-week siege of northern Gaza kills at least 1,000 (aljazeera.com)

U.S. and Israeli Spy Chiefs Meet for Gaza Cease-Fire Talks: Live Updates – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Barnea takes over Mossad; Cohen: Mossad struck deep into Iran’s heart – Israel News – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

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

Kim Jong-Un’s Close Aide in Russia Overseeing North Korean Troops

Kim Jong Un (C) inspecting a special operations training base of the Korean People’s Army while enjoying a smoke. General Kim Young Bok, Vice Chief of the Korean People’s Army General Staff, is second from right. (Undated photo: Rodong Sinmun·News1)

General Kim Young Bok, a close aide to leader Kim Jong Un, has arrived in Russia to oversee North Korean troops there helping Russia in its war against Ukraine.

The North Korean troops are mobilizing near the front lines in Ukraine. An estimated 12,000 North Korean troops, including 500 officers and three generals, were in Russia undergoing training.

Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to deny or confirm that North Korea had sent troops to help his army. The arrival of the North Koreans has raised fears in Ukraine, its Western allies and South Korea about what they see as a dangerous escalation of the Ukrainian war.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency that Russia was transporting North Korean soldiers to the front lines in trucks with civilian license plates. Russian police stopped a Kamaz truck with civilian license plates on the Kursk-Voronezh highway which was reportedly loaded with North Korean military personnel, but the driver did not have documented combat orders.

South Korean NIS (FKA KCIA) reported that North Korean soldiers will receive $2,000 per month in pay, but the Ukrainian government-run news platform United24 said that that most likely this money would “remain with the state.”

Separately, The New York Times reported that the first North Korean troops had made the nearly 6,500 km (4,038 mile) journey to the Kursk region, with thousands more arriving daily.

Citing troop movement data from a senior Ukrainian military officer, the newspaper said that as many as 5,000 North Korean soldiers were expected to have arrived this week.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) released a satellite image by Airbus Defense and Space showing Russia’s Khabarovsk military facility, where the NIS said North Korean personnel are gatherung. (Photo: AFP)

As expected, (and posted here on Coriolanus) Ukraine initiated a PSYOP program to induce these North Korean soldiers to surrender.

“We appeal to the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army who were sent to support the Putin regime. Don’t die senselessly on foreign soil. Do not repeat the fate of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers who will never return home.”

(Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate, or GUR, prepared this Korean-language message on its Telegram messaging channel).

“Surrender! Ukraine will provide you with shelter, food, and warmth,” it added, introducing its surrender hotline “I Want to Live.”

Ukraine promises food and shelter to North Korean soldiers if they surrender. The “I Want to Live” project released a video offering food and shelter to North Korean soldiers who surrender during the war in Ukraine. (RFA English)

There should be no surprises in this reporting that North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un would send a trusted aide to overwatch the deployment of his cannon fodder and that Pyongyang would keep the soldier’s renumeration for fighting and dying against Ukraine. Kiev’s PSYOP program was to be expected as they have been inducing Russian soldiers to surrender since Putin’s brutal invasion began in Feb 2022. The next development to monitor is whether South Korea begins transferring potent mass casualty weapons and trainers to Ukraine in response.

Sources:

Kim Jong Un’s close aide in Russia overseeing North Korean troops: report – Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

Ukraine urges North Korean soldiers to surrender, offering food, shelter – Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

Russia pays North Korean soldiers about $2,000 a month: South’s spy agency – Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

France: Why Are They Suddenly Deporting Kurdish Activists?

Demonstrators hold the Kurdistan flag during a rally in Paris in 2016 to protest against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after 11 HDP lawmakers were detained as part of a terror-related investigation. (Photo: Francois Mori / AP)

In March and April, France deported three Kurdish activists to Turkiye: Firaz Korkmaz (24), Mehmet Kopal (37), and Serhat Gultekin (28). All were suspected of having close ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been in conflict with the Turkish state for 40 years. France, along with its Western allies, considers the PKK a terrorist organisation. Approximately 150,000 Kurds reside in France.

The Kurdish Democratic Council of France (CDKF), an umbrella group of 27 Kurdish associations, has condemned the deportations and warned that more cases are under investigation.

In late April, eight Kurdish men were arrested, accused of extorting funds from the Kurdish community to support PKK activities, which is seen as financing terrorism.

French authorities also raided exiled Kurdish broadcasters Sterk TV and Medya Haber TV in Belgium at the request of the French judiciary. The CDKF says this level of action is unprecedented. Prior to April, no Kurdish activists had been handed over to Turkiye since 2019, when diplomatic relations between Paris and Ankara hit a low point.

The friction was partly due to France’s support for the Kurdish YPG, which was fighting the Islamic State in Syria, but is viewed by Turkiye as an extension of the PKK.

Since April, French authorities have revoked refugee status from 50 Kurdish militants and deported the three activists. The case of Serhat Gultekin has drawn particular concern.

A member of Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish HDP party, Gultekin had been reportedly tortured and persecuted in Turkiye before fleeing to France in 2017. He applied for political asylum and continued his activism in exile. In April 2023, Gultekin and ten others were found guilty of extortion and financing terrorism.

He was sentenced, but in a highly unusual move the anti-terrorist state prosecutor specifically warned of the dangers of sending him and the others back to Turkiye “in view of the danger they had faced” and “the risks that an expulsion would expose them to”.

The court agreed, but French authorities took a different view. On 12 April, the day before the judge was set to rule on Gultekin’s asylum claim, the Interior Ministry issued a deportation order.

“Plainclothes police officers put him in a truck, handcuffed him, tied him up and took him to the airport,” said Gultekin’s lawyer.

“In the truck, they told him: ‘Serhat, we’re going to send you to Turkiye. Whether you like it or not’.”

When Gultekin landed, members of Turkey’s MIT secret services were waiting. He is now serving a six year and three-month sentence in an Istanbul prison.

On 26 Sep, the Paris Administrative Court of Appeal declared Gultekin’s deportation “illegal”, stating it violated Article III of the European Charter of Human Rights, which prohibits torture.

The CDKF is also fighting to prevent the deportation of Idris Kaplan, another activist sentenced in absentia to life in Turkiye as an alleged PKK leader.

“You can’t hand your allies over to their enemies in the name of security or diplomatic agreements. That’s a basic moral principle,” argued CDKF spokesperson Agit Polat in Le Monde, pointing to Kaplan’s role in fighting the Islamic State armed group alongside French special forces in Iraq.

On 8 Oct a court suspended Kaplan’s expulsion order.

So why have French authorities taken a tougher stance on Kurdish activists? One theory is that economic interests are now outweighing human rights concerns. Ratings agency Moody’s recently downgraded France’s outlook from “stable” to “negative,” opening the door to a potential credit rating cut citing concerns over the country’s finances. The downgrade reflects “increasing risk that France’s government will be unlikely to implement measures that would prevent sustained wider-than-expected budget deficits and a deterioration in debt affordability,” said Moody’s Ratings. Moody’s affirmed France’s credit rating at Aa2, saying this was supported by its “large, wealthy, and diversified economy.”

Kostas Pikramenos, co-author of a book on Turkey’s MIT intelligence service, says Kurdish activists may be used as bargaining chips in intelligence negotiations. The expulsion of the three Kurds is most likely part of a “seduction operation by France to sign commercial contracts” with Turkiye, Pikramenos told Marianne news magazine, pointing to a $40bn order of 200 Airbus aircraft by Turkish Airlines (THY) in late 2023.

(Image: Airbus.com)

The CDKF believes France may be paying Turkiye for its intelligence cooperation. Ankara reportedly shared information on planned ISIS-K attacks during the 2024 Olympics, according to an anonymous French intelligence source. French President Emmanuel Macron publicly warned that ISIS-K had attempted several attacks on French soil in recent months.

Meanwhile, the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (Ofpra) emphasised that it “independently assesses” Interior Ministry requests to revoke refugee status. These decisions can be appealed in the National Asylum Court.

The CDKF has warned that five more Kurdish activists could face deportation in the coming months.

Sources:

What’s driving France’s sudden deportation of Kurdish activists? (rfi.fr)

Prosecutor seeks prison terms for alleged PKK members on trial in Paris

Turkey opens another ‘Kafkaesque’ trial against scholar exiled to France

Moody’s downgrades France to ‘negative’ credit outlook (rfi.fr)

Alaska and US Military History: The “Eskimo Scouts”

The USS Concord is a typical late 19th-century US gunboat (Photo: Edward Hart circa 1890).

The US Navy recently apologized for the 1882 shelling and burning down of Angoon, a Tlingit village of 420 people in Alaska (highlighted in red).

Years after this atrocity at Angoon by the USN, Uncle Sam would ask the Eskimo population to help defend Alaska from Imperial Japan. The indigenous men proudly formed and served in the “Alaska Territorial Guard” AKA the “Eskimo Scouts.” Note the age range of those who served: 12-80.


Note the resemblance between the Inuits of North America (above) and the Buryats of Siberia (below) from across the Bering Strait.

The Free Buryatia organization announced that around 150 Buryat soldiers who were serving in the Russian Army in occupied territories of Ukraine have resigned their positions and asked to be returned home. (Source and Photo: 150 Buryat Soldiers in Russian Army Resign kyivpost.com)

Canada’s military similarly employs indigenous tribes in their northern provinces called “the Canadian Rangers.” Above former Tory Canadian PM Stephen Harper is on the rifle range for a photo-op with these tundra experts.



Sources:



https://apnews.com/article/navy-1882-tlingit-village-alaska-bombing-apology-b7da179eb05bd30afa373f9fc093305e

US Army

Taiwan: 60 People Sickened from Suspected Food Poisoning

Taiwan has a population of 23,595,274 and GDP per capita is $47,800 (2019 est.) (Map and Data: CIA)

60 people have reported symptoms of food poisoning after buying boxed meals from an eatery in Kaohsiung. The health department said patients fell ill with symptoms of vomiting, diarrhea and fever after eating boxed meals purchased from a small storefront restaurant in the city’s Sanmin District the previous day.

46 patients sought medical attention, while 14 others were found via contact tracing. Seven of the 46 patients have been hospitalized, and one was treated in the emergency room.

29 students from Kaohsiung Medical University were among the customers who had bought lunch from the eatery and 20 of them had to seek medical attention.

Personnel from the Kaohsiung Department of Health collect food samples from a storefront restaurant in the city’s Sanmin District for testing in this undated photo. Photo courtesy of the Kaohsiung Department of Health.

City officials inspected the eatery and ordered its closure for seven days, citing several violations of food safety regulations. The violations included open trash bins, no records of fridge temperatures, and no records of employee health checks.

While no leftovers from the 410 boxed lunches sold were available for testing, health officials took samples of the food items in the eatery. Samples were also taken from the sick customers and the kitchen workers at the eatery and will be tested for pathogens.

The eatery will have to pass another inspection before it could be allowed to reopen. The source pathogen of the food poisoning is still being investigated.

Sources:

60 people fall ill from suspected food poisoning in Kaohsiung – Focus Taiwan

Florida Militant Arrested for Assaulting Law Enforcement and Other Charges During 6 Jan 2021 Attack Against US Capitol

Jeremy Michael Miller (Photo: FBI)

Jeremy Michael Miller (45) of Florida was arrested and charged by the FBI for felony and misdemeanor offenses of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers and obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder.

Miller was identified in video footage on 6 Jan 2021 on the Lower West Plaza of the US Capitol grounds fighting with police along a line of metal bike rack barricades. Miller allegedly grabbed a bike rack and tried to pull it away from police. Police quickly reestablished their line and video footage show Miller allegedly linking arms with other rioters and using their backs to push into the barricades; however, the group was unable to break through the police line.

(Photo: FBI)

Rioters, including Miller, violently resisted police on the Upper West Terrace. The defendant allegedly pushed his body against a police riot shield, attempting to stop or push through a line of officers.

(Photo: Getty Images)


Video footage shows that this maniac then tried to pull a riot shield away from another police officer, grabbing with both hands in an attempt to wrest the shield away. After several failed attempts, Miller retreated back into the mob.

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.

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

Jeremy Michael Miller represents one of America’s Fedayeen Saddam (FS), a white supremacist holding on to the last vestiges of white supremacy in the US. He heeded the idiotic call of Donald J. Trump that minorities stole the 2020 election and now will either plead guilty to a lesser count or be found guilty in a trial. Either way, this 45-year-old lunatic threw his life away over racism and ignorance.

Source:


https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/florida-man-arrested-assaulting-law-enforcement-and-other-charges-during-jan-6-capitol-4

Sneaky Alabama Bear Steals Trash Can from Garage

World Condemns Israel’s Attack on Iran; Gaza Nakba Continues with 22 Palestinian Deaths; IDF Destroying Lebanese Healthcare System

The world condemned Israeli military strikes on twenty targets hitting Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran, Iran, which killed at least soldiers. The Iranian army said the attacks resulted in “limited damage.”

Amongst the countries rebuking the pariah state: Qatar, Turkiye, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Pakistan, UAE, Oman, Tunisia, and Malaysia. This international roll call of repudiation is incomplete. The US, Germany, France, Egypt, Russia, and UK generically condemned all violence in the Middle East without specifically criticizing the Likud Regime in Jerusalem.

A cloud of smoke erupts following an Israeli airstrike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on 19 Oct 2024. (Photo: AFP)

Meanwhile, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s rampage closer to home continued. In Lebanon, 41 people were killed and 133 wounded in Israeli attacks across the country and another medical center near Tyre was struck. A paramedic was killed and 12 wounded. Beirut says the IDF intentionally targets healthcare facilities and personnel. Since mid-Sep 2024, 164 paramedics have been killed and 275 injured. At least 55 hospitals have been attacked and approximately 58 healthcare facilities have been shuttered. Under the Geneva Convention, attacking medical personnel or hospitals is a war crime.

Gaza medical personnel report that at least 22 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks, 18 of them in northern Gaza. The UN fears “atrocity crimes” are being carried out in northern Gaza as Israel’s siege and “non-stop” bombing of the territory enters a fourth week.

In support of their Shia allies in Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah fired rocket salvoes on five residential areas in northern Israel, including the outskirts of Krayot near Haifa. There were no reports of Israeli casualties or damage.

The Presidential elections are days away and many Americans are unhappy with US support for the Pariah State. American taxpayers, who don’t have universal health coverage like Israelis, have sent Jerusalem $317.9 billion dollars in military and economic aid since 1951. They now watch the Likud Party and the IDF de-populate the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in what US Senator Bernie Sanders describes as “ethnic cleansing.”

(Undated image courtesy of Forward Magazine).

The Persians, which gave the world chess according to many historians, as well as the word “zigzag,” have been clever to avoid falling into Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s trap of causing American casualties in the Middle East. In mafia terms, Netanyahu has made it “personal” with Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah (LH), and Palestinians. Similarly, when then-President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of revered Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, the Republican commander-in-chief crossed a line and made it “personal” with Iran.  Coriolanus would find it hard to believe if Iran or LH targeted a US Democratic leader with kinetic action. Iran worked with Senator John Kerry on the JCPOA nuclear agreement, which Trump recklessly withdrew the US from. Cyber-penetrations or hacking against any US candidate is to be expected. But right-wing fanatics like Donald Trump, imbecilic John Bolton, and the odious Benjamin Netanyahu probably have lifetime lethal fatwas issued against them, much like traitors and defectors from Russia. President Vladimir Putin and his network of active and retired KGB agents assassinate these traitors years after their defection.  The allegations of Russian bounties on US personnel in Afghanistan and the health attacks on CIA, DIA, and State Dept officers via the “Havana syndrome” were taken personally by the USIC as these nefarious actions also “crossed a line.”     

Sources:

(3) Updates Live: Israel attacks Iran, two killed; Hezbollah targets Israeli bases (aljazeera.com)

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

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at a Glance | Arms Control Association

The FBI Needs Our Help

With the US Presidential election less than two weeks away, the FBI is requesting the help of the American public in identifying fugitive militants who attacked the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. Specifically, Coriolanus has learned the suspects pictured here may be of particular interest to the FBI. If you recognize any of these miscreants, whether from seeing them at a restaurant or bar, on an airline flight, on vacation somewhere, in an office building, elevator, a shooting range, in the supermarket, school campus, PTA meeting, in a shopping center, at a gas station, in a public park, in a subway car, anywhere, please contact the FBI at http://tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-225-5324. Even providing the FBI a state or general location would be a tremendous lead for them.

The FBI is seeking to identify this person below involved at the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. If this person looks familiar contact FBI at http://tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-225-5324.
(Reference # 70 AFO)

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 is also providing a reward for anyone with information regarding this suspect who placed a pipe bomb near the US Capitol on 5 Jan 2021.

Sources:

Capitol Violence Images — FBI

Elon Musk, US Defense Contractor, in Secret Communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a linchpin of US space efforts, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022. The discussions, confirmed by several current and former US, European, and Russian officials, touch on personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions.

At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Musk initially supported Ukraine’s military with Starlink but later restricted its use, aligning with Russia’s interests. Russian officials have pressured Musk on several fronts, including potential threats to his businesses, while Kremlin disinformation campaigns use Musk’s social platform X to influence US politics. Musk’s deep connections to US military projects, including SpaceX’s $1.8 billion classified contracts, raise national security alarms over his close ties to Putin. Elon Musk is now a key backer of Trump’s 2024 campaign and could hold a major role in a future Trump administration. His social platform ‘X’ is a virulent transmitter of neo-Nazi hate messages, fake news, and white supremacist ideologies, as this author wrote several months ago (please see link below).

Elon Musk has donated millions to GOP Political Action Committees (PACs).

One person aware of the conversations said the US government faces a dilemma because it is so dependent on the billionaire’s technologies. SpaceX launches vital national security satellites into orbit and is the company NASA relies on to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

Like fellow white supremacist oligarch Donald Trump who is in secret communication with the Kremlin, we learn so is megalomaniac Elon Musk. Musk was also a guest of Israeli PM Benajamin Netanyahu during his address to the US Congress earlier this year. Any US defense contractor in secret communication with a foreign power would be investigated by our hard-working colleagues at the FBI. Yet somehow Elon Musk, gets a free pass.

Elon Musk, a South African, can potentially be denaturalized of his US citizenship under Chapter Two of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) for fraud and misrepresentation. When applying for his American citizenship, Elon Musk misrepresented himself to immigration authorities, not disclosing his right-wing affiliations. Musk, who saw the narrow economic benefits for white people in apartheid-era South Africa, has a similar vision for the US.

US counterintelligence agents are busy enough with Russia, China, and Israel (whom CIA considers the top CI threat to them in the Middle East). Now US CI agents must monitor Elon Musk and his enormous technological empire within the US.

Sources:

Exclusive | Elon Musk’s Secret Conversations With Vladimir Putin, a WSJ Investigation – WSJ

Nazism, Bigotry, Disinformation Thriving Under Elon Musk’s X Platform (dailykos.com)

Chapter 2 – Overview of Fraud and Willful Misrepresentation | USCIS

Elon Musk spoke with Vladimir Putin directly, Pentagon official says | The Independent

Is Israel the CIA’s top counterintelligence threat in the Near East? | The Times of Israel

Vietnam: Food-borne Illnesses Sicken Scores Again

Vietnam has a population of 105,758,975 people; GDP per capita $13,700 (2023 est.) (Map and data: CIA)

46 workers at Shinsung Vina Company suffered from abdominal pain, vomiting, and fever. Suspecting food poisoning, authorities took samples from the patients. 25/25 samples (100%) were positive for Escherichia coli (E.coli); 1/25 samples were positive for Staphylococcus aureus (Staphylococcus aureus). The authorities could not identify what caused the food poisoning because the menu had many dishes. Most of the patients have since been discharged from the hospital.

On 20 Oct, the company held a party for more than 1,100 workers, the menu included steamed black tiger shrimp with coconut water, lemon calves, fried squid with butter, grilled chicken with honey, grilled lentils with vegetables. A few hours later, people began getting sick; a total of 91 people were hospitalized.

E.coli bacteria often appears in fresh produce, beef, fresh milk, juices, cheeses, raw fruits and vegetables… Symptoms of E. coli are usually nausea and vomiting, diarrhea with water or blood depending on the type of E. coli. Patients can start presenting symptoms three to four days after ingesting foods containing bacteria.

E. coli bacteria infect people of all ages, but young children and the elderly are prone to severe complications such as urea hemolysis syndrome. This damages red blood cells and can lead to kidney failure.

Image simulating E.coli bacterial cells. Photo: Napolilaw

On 24 Oct, 15 students of in Nguyen Ngoc Binh, Dai Loc district, suffered from abdominal pain, vomiting, and fatigue after eating yogurt.

The children were taken to the Northern Mountainous General Hospital of Quang Nam for emergency treatment. (Photo: Son Thuy)

Some of the patients have been discharged from the hospital. Two students remain hospitalized with intestinal inflammation. The exact cause of the illness has not been determined, but yogurt and other food samples were ordered collected for testing.

On 11 Oct, five students in Ho Chi Minh City suffered from acute gastroenteritis with abdominal pain after eating lunch at school.

Previously, 40 students Lao Cai College had digestive disorders, vomiting, headache, and was admitted to the emergency hospital after dinner at the school canteen. Their dinner menu is not clear. Test results later showed that the patients were infected with Salmonella bacteria in salted cucumbers, leaf rolls, fried chicken, and water spinach soup.

As previously posted here on Coriolanus, Vietnam has a problem with food safety which the World Health Organization (WHO) attempted to address years ago, apparently not successfully.  

Sources:

Bac Giang workers hospitalized due to E.coli bacteria and Staphylococcus aureus – VnExpress Health Newspaper

15 students suspected of poisoning after eating yogurt – VnExpress Health Newspaper

Food Safety in Viet Nam (who.int)

Gunmen Kill Ten Police in Attack in Southern Iran

(Undated photo of Iranian policemen courtesy of Meghdad Madadi / Tansim News Agency)

An attack on a police patrol in southeastern Iran has left ten officers dead, the Interior Ministry reported. The attack occurred in Gohar Kuh, in Sistan-Baluchistan Province, some 1,200 kms southeast of the capital, Tehran. No group has claimed responsibility so far. The Tasnim news agency, which is linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), reported an attack on “two police patrols returning to their police station.” Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni has ordered an investigation into the incident, the state-run IRNA news agency reported. Sistan-Baluchistan has been rocked by a spate of deadly attacks targeting security forces in recent months. Those previous attacks have been claimed by Jaish al-Adl, a Baluch separatist militant group that is believed to be operating out of neighboring Pakistan. 

Iran has a population of  88,386,937 people made up of Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Lurs, Balochs, Arabs, Turkmen, and Turkic tribes. GDP per capita: est. $16,200. (Map: researchgate.net; Data: CIA)

As posted here on Coriolanus, this area of Iran is a hotspot of ethnic animosity. This murderous ambush coincides with Israel’s arrack on Iran. This is most likely unrelated and there is no open-source reporting linking Israel with anti-Iranian Balochs. Notable, Israel does support a different anti-Iranian terrorist proxy called the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) which Jerusalem has employed to assassinate Iranian scientists.

Sources:

Gunmen Kill 10 Police In Attack In Southern Iran (rferl.org)

Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News

People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran – Wikipedia

Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists – Wikipedia

Trifecta of Pre-US Election Lunacy

This is raw naked mental illness. (Photo of Rain Monroe from social media).

Now Rain Monroe is crowd-sourcing to raise $5,000 to remove this tattooed blight from her forehead.

The 21-year-old “content creator” from London says the “hate” is getting to her – and she needs thousands of dollars to remove it.

Rain Monroe with her sign raising money for the tattoo removal. (Picture: Jam Press)

In another sign of the apocalypse, 20 million viewers watched Joe Rogan interview Donald Trump on youtube.com. Trump and Rogan received more attention than the historically well-watched World Series Game One between the Yankees and the Dodgers, which brought in 15.2 million viewers. Game One was the most-watched World Series opener since 2017.

(Montage courtesy of heavy.com)

Blatherskite Donald Trump, whose mental and cognitive faculties have been observed to be in steep decline, discussed assassinations, UFOs, and conspiracy theories with this multi-million dollar paid podcaster who denies being racist. For those who may not know, Joe Rogan is the man who horrifically said on his national podcast that “walking into a movie theater in a predominantly Black neighborhood was like entering the Planet of the Apes.” Viral clips of Rogan historically using the “N” word also pollute the internet.

Years ago, Joe Rogan was the host of a TV show called Fear Factor where contestants had to pass three trials of fire to win a cash prize. Joe Rogan sadistically enjoyed watching contestants being forced to do disgusting things like putting insects in their mouths or lying in a bathtub full of snakes. (File photo)

The last incredible third of pre-election lunacy involves the pre-eminent Washington Post newspaper. Their editorial page has decided not to make a presidential endorsement for the first time in 36 years. The reason cited was to create “independent space” where the newspaper does not tell people for whom to vote. This is quite a breath-taking decision. By not endorsing VPOTUS Kamala Harris, they are giving twice-impeached Donald Trump, convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in NYS, civilly liable for sexually abusing and libeling E. Jean Carroll, a man in secret communication with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a free pass and thereby endorsing Project 2025.

Hollywood film director Rob Reiner posted:

“The Washington Post editorial board is a disgrace. For the newspaper that exposed the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal to not take a position and endorse a candidate in the most consequential Presidential election in 165 years is reprehensible.”

More than 700 current and former national security officials support VPOTUS Kamala Harris, but not the editorial staff of the Washington Post.

Whose side is the Washington Post on?

Former Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein said the decision to not endorse Kamala Harris Is “disappointing.” Here they are circa 1973 investigating the Watergate Hotel break-in that would topple the presidency of Republican Richard M. Nixon.  

Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman portray Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in All the President’s Men (1976) made famous for the line “follow the money.” The film was based on their 1974 book and selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Sources:

https://whatsthejam.com/influencers-and-models/woman-with-trump-tattoo-on-forehead-now-fundraising-5000-for-removal/

Trevor Noah Slams Joe Rogan’s ‘Planet of the Apes’ Non-Apology – PRIMETIMER

Trump’s Rogan episode hits 20M views in 20 hours on YouTube (nypost.com)

Bring on the bugs, because ‘Fear Factor’ is back – Daily News

Jury finds Donald Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in civil case | CNN Politics

More Than 700 Current and Former National Security Officials Back Harris – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein on Post Decision to Not Endorse President (hollywoodreporter.com)

Two US Truckers Adopt Cat (or Cat Adopts Two Truckers)

Terrorists Kill Five, Wound 22 at Turkish Aerospace Company Near Ankara

At least five people have been killed and 22 others wounded in an attack on the headquarters of Turkiye’s aerospace and defence company, Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS), near the capital Ankara.

“Two terrorists were neutralised” in the incident at the headquarters of the state-run firm, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya posted on X.

“Sadly, we have 5 martyrs and 22 wounded in the attack. Three of the injured were already discharged from hospital, 19 of them under treatment,” he said.

In orderly fashion, ambulances line up at the entrance of the headquarters of Turkey’s aviation company, TUSAS [Photo: Reuters]

Footage from the scene broadcast by local media just after the attack, which took place at 3:30PM local time (12:30 GMT), showed huge clouds of smoke and a large fire raging at the site in Kahramankazan, a small town some 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of Ankara.

Security camera images from the attacks showed a man in plainclothes carrying a backpack and holding an assault rifle. The images also appeared to show a woman carrying a weapon.

15,000 people work at the TUSAS campus in Kahramankazan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but the justice minister said an investigation had been opened and said it was “probably linked” to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long rebellion against the government.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was holding talks in Russia with Vladimir Putin at the time of the attack, condemned what he said was a “heinous terrorist attack”. Putin offered Erdogan his “condolences in connection with the terror attack” at the start of their meeting in the Russian city of Kazan on the sidelines of the BRICS summit of major emerging market nations that groups Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Earlier this week, the leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which belongs to Erdogan’s ruling coalition, invited jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to address parliament to announce his movement’s dissolution.

Turkish opposition leader Ozgur Ozel of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) released a statement condemning the attack and saying he “condemns terrorism, no matter who or where it comes from”.

The main pro-Kurdish DEM party also condemned the attack, saying it was “noteworthy that the attack took place just as Turkish society was talking about a solution and the possibility of dialogue” with the PKK.

The attack occurred as a major trade fair for the defence and aerospace industries was taking place in Istanbul, which was visited this week by Ukraine’s top diplomat.

Turkey’s defense sector, which is widely known for its Bayraktar drones, accounts for nearly 80 percent of the nation’s export revenues with revenues expected to top $10.2bn in 2023. Ukraine is a main recipient of these drones. TUSAS is one of those important defense and aviation companies, producing KAAN, the country’s first national combat aircraft, among other projects.

The TAI Kaan is a stealth, twin-engine, all-weather air superiority fighter, pictured here on its inaugural flight on 21 Feb 2014 (Photo: AA)

In response to this attack, Turkey’s Air Force struck Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria in apparent retaliation. The Ministry of National Defence reported 47 targets were “destroyed” in the aerial offensive without providing details on the locations that were hit, adding that “all kinds of precautions” were taken to prevent civilian harm.

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said that Turkish air attacks in northern and eastern Syria killed 12 civilians, including two children, and wounded 25 people.

There was no immediate statement from the PKK and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack on TUSAS.

Unclear is whether this was a suicide attack on TUSAS or if the terrorists had an escape plan. This murderous attack was well-prepared and timed to both embarrass Turkish President Erdogan while he is visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin and as PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was invited to address the Turkish Parliament to establish a dialogue between Ankara and the Kurdish minority. These homicidal maniacs accomplished little other than killing unarmed civilians and causing irreparable emotional harm to the families of the victims. But the attack may help maintain a wedge between Ankara and its Kurdish minority if these perpetrators were indeed linked with the PKK.

Sources:

At least five killed in attack on aerospace firm near Turkey’s Ankara | News | Al Jazeera

Turkey strikes Iraq, Syria after attack on defence company near Ankara | Military News | Al Jazeera

Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General Resigns Amid Draft-Dodging Scandal

Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin (Undated image: RadioSvoboda.org / RFE/RL).

Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin has resigned amid investigations that found dozens of government officials had dodged military service by claiming disability benefits.

Kostin announced his resignation on 22 Oct on Telegram after a meeting of Ukraine’s National Security Council attended by President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said Kostin “should take political responsibility” for corruption and loopholes being used to get draft deferrals.

“The problem is not just that officials use their connections to get disabled status. It is also the fact that people who are really disabled, especially in combat, often do not get the appropriate status and fair payment,” Zelensky said.

Earlier this month, investigators found that a number of public prosecutors in the western Khmelnytskiy region had falsely obtained disability permits and were receiving special benefits. Investigations into the issue are ongoing in other parts of Ukraine.

Kostin’s resignation still needs parliamentary approval, but that is expected to move through the legislature with little resistance, as Zelensky’s party holds a majority of the seats.

“I consider the position of President Zelensky to be absolutely correct…. I [also] think it is correct to announce my resignation as prosecutor-general,” Kostin said.

Soon after Kostin’s resignation, Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal announced the dismissal of several other senior officials, the management of the central commission overseeing fitness for service, and officials in the Health Ministry who coordinate the activities of local commissions.

In a sign of the precarious situation Ukraine faces as it tries to hold off Russia’s massive troop advantage, military recruiters in recent weeks have shown up at conspicuous events like concerts and weddings looking for men who had not registered for service under a long-debated and highly controversial military mobilization law that was adopted last spring.

Mobilization is a sensitive issue in Ukraine, whose troop numbers have been depleted after more than 2 1/2 years of fighting Russia’s invasion. In this video, a military-age male in Ukraine is dragged off the street.

Zelensky has acknowledged several times the “very, very difficult” situation the military is facing, while he also tries to keep the country unified during the war, which has had drastically differing impacts on various population groups, with its burden falling most heavily on Ukrainians from the south and east of the country.

Highlighting the growing unrest over the issue of mobilization, protesters in August tried to force their way into a military recruitment center in Ukraine to demand the release of four young men who they claimed were illegally detained amid the country’s increased mobilization efforts. Days earlier, Zelensky endorsed bills extending martial law and a general military mobilization for 90 days, the 11th time he had done so since Russia invaded.

Press ganging is not a new phenomenon. 1780 caricature of a press gang by an unknown artist courtesy of Wikimedia.org.

President Zelensky is doing the best he can leading Ukraine in its defense against Russia, but he cannot magically increase his population pool to match Russia’s, which is also facing manpower shortages. Zelensky and Putin are not alone when it comes to conscription problems. 50,000 to 125,000 young Americans fled to Canada to avoid being drafted for Vietnam. During the First World War, while 24 million American men registered for the draft, as many as 3.5 million failed to do so, thereby successfully evading induction.

Notably, two American icons avoided getting killed in war. Heavyweight boxing contender Jack Dempsey was somehow exempt from fighting the Kaiser in the First World War. He would become heavyweight champion after the war ended. Physically fit 1-A John Wayne was somehow not mustered into service during the Second World War, although he reportedly tried to enlist at age 34. The “Duke” would win an Oscar in 1969 for his portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit.

Heavyweight champion Jess Willard (L) suspected that draft-dodging Jack Dempsey (R) wore “loaded gloves” when he lost the title to him on 4 July 1919. Dempsey floored Willard seven times in the first round. Dempsey would go on win the bout to became heavyweight champion. Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth became popular athletic celebrities in the “Roaring 20s.” (Image: boxrec.com)

Like a sky-pilot who never goes into battle himself, handsome rigged John Wayne inspired and motivated thousands of patriotic Americans to fight and die in WWII, Korea, and Vietnam. John Wayne toured US military bases with the USO in the Pacific Theater of Operations, but he completely evaded military service. Above is a four-for-one sale of those inspirational movies.

Sources:

Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General Resigns Amid Draft-Dodging Scandal (rferl.org)

Amid Corruption Scandals And Mounting Problems, Ukraine Vows To Shake Up The Military Enlistment System. It’s A Tough Task. (rferl.org)

Men Dragged Off The Street As Ukraine Tries To Tackle Manpower Crisis At The Front (rferl.org)

Draft Resistance and Evasion | Encyclopedia.com

Why John Wayne Was Labeled a ‘Draft Dodger’ During World War II | Military.com

GLOVES LOADED? DEMPSEY SAYS NO; Willard Supports Charges Made by Kearns – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

America’s First Line of Defense, the FBI, has been busy with Donald Trump’s “useful idiots,” white supremacist nitwits. Two cases follow.

NY Proud Boy Found Guilty of Felony and Misdemeanor Charges for Actions During 6 Jan 2021 Attack on US Capitol

William Joseph Pepe is on the right. Note this maniac was carrying a walkie-talkie on 6 Jan. (Photo: FBI)

William Joseph Pepe (35), of White Plains, NY was found guilty of felony and misdemeanor charges related to his egregious conduct during the 6 Jan 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Aware that USDJ Timothy J. Kelly is a Republican and Donald Trump appointee, Pepe (probably upon advice of defense counsel) opted for a bench trial. He was convicted nevertheless and will be sentenced on 11 Mar 2025.

On 6 Jan 2021, Pepe met an army of approximately one hundred Proud Boys members in Washington, DC near the Washington Monument at approximately 10:00 AM. Shortly after, the rabble marched toward the US Capitol building with Pepe as vanguard against police lines. At the Peace Circle, the mob violently disassembled and trampled the metal bike rack barriers blocking entry into Capitol grounds.

After the police retreated and reformed, Pepe encouraged the rioters, yelling into a camera “Let’s go! This is what we came for, yeah!”

Officers deployed pepper spray and other crowd control measures. Pepe posted a selfie-style video in which he declared:

“Yo, the cops pepper sprayed me and Hooks. Me and Hooks got f—ing maced. Storming that Capitol, baby!”

Pepe made his way into the Capitol through the Senate Wing Door where he recorded and sent a video to fellow Proud Boys, stating “We did it.” (Photo: FBI)

The FBI arrested Pepe on 22 Jan 2021, in White Plains, NY.

With this felony conviction, this 35-year-old Proud Boy threw his life and career away with the MTA in NY.


Former NJ Governor Chris Christie doppleganger Republican USDJ Timothy J. Kelly will sentence his fellow Republican on 11 Mar 2025. (Public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia.org)

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/new-york-proud-boy-found-guilty-felony-and-misdemeanor-charges-actions-during-jan-6

https://www.yahoo.com/news/did-ex-mta-worker-convicted-203836477.html

Texas Couple Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement and Other Charges During 6 Jan 2021 Attack on US Capitol

Mark Middleton (55) and Jalise Middleton (54). Note how joyful they look on 6 Jan 2021. (Photo: FBI)

Mark Middleton (55) and Jalise Middleton (54) both of Forestburg, TX were sentenced to 30 and 20 months in prison, respectively, by the Honorable USDJ Randolph D. Moss for their heinous and violent conduct on 6 Jan 2021.

Mark Middleton was additionally sentenced to 36 months’ supervised release, and a $2,000 fine. Jalise Middleton was additionally sentenced to 30 months’ supervised release, and a $2,000 fine.

After the “Stop the Steal” rally, Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers responded to the West Front of the US Capitol building to assist USCP officers against an army of amassed rioters.

Mark Middleton called the officers “traitors” and then pushed against the barricades and the police line. Officers are heard on body-worn camera footage repeatedly ordering Mark Middleton and others to “Get back!” In response, Mark Middleton is heard yelling “f— you!” as he continued to push against the police barricades. Mark Middleton resisted MPD officers, grabbed onto an MPD officer’s left arm, and pulled the officer forward over the barricades and towards the mob.

Jalise Middleton repeatedly grabbed and struck the same officer over the barricade with her hand, striking him in the face, chest, and arms. Another officer stepped in to assist, and Jalise Middleton struck that officer as well. Mark Middleton then used his flagpole to strike the second officer in the head. This lunatic couple continued to grapple with and strike at the officers. The Middletons attempted to pull the first officer into the mob, as rioters jabbed, slashed, and swung flag poles at officers. The injuries sustained by those police officers were not revealed in this press release.

(Photo: FBI)

The Middletons only broke off their vicious assault after they were sprayed in the face with chemical irritants, forcing them to retreat. Both miscreants later posted social media messages touting their key role in helping to breach the barricades by fighting officers and that they had only stopped because they were pepper sprayed.

Mark and Jalise Middleton were arrested on 21 Apr 2021 in Forestburg, TX.

Mark and Jalise Middleton. This middle-aged couple do not appear as happy in these mugshots from Collin County Texas Jail as they do in the photo of them on 6 Jan at the top.

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.

Middle age is not a good time to get jammed up by the federal system. These two white supremacist imbeciles threw their lives away with these felony convictions and incarcerations, heeding the idiotic call of Donald Trump. The Lone Star State hosts 17 federal correctional facilities (FCIs) of varying security levels. Two of these prisons will be the Middleton home for the next few years.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/texas-couple-sentenced-prison-assaulting-law-enforcement-and-other-charges-during-jan-6

First Presumed Human Infections of Avian Flu Under Investigation in Washington State

(Map: beautifulwashington.com)

Four agricultural workers tested presumptively positive for avian influenza after working with infected poultry at a commercial egg farm in Franklin County. The individuals experienced mild symptoms and have been provided with antiviral medication. Testing of additional individuals on the farm is currently pending and the number of cases under investigation may change.

(Image courtesy: hightoppoultry.com)

These are the first presumed human cases of H5 virus under investigation in Washington state. The cases took place at a farm that was the site of an avian influenza outbreak in chickens. About 800,000 birds were euthanized after test results by the Washington State Department of Agriculture on 15 Oct showed that they were infected with avian influenza.

Any employees or contractors who may have worked on a poultry farm in Benton or Franklin counties since 7 Oct should contact BFHD at 509-460-4550 if they have symptoms such as red eyes or respiratory infections.

Washington is the sixth state to identify a human infection of H5N1. H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has caused ongoing multistate outbreaks in poultry, dairy cattle, and wildlife.

Avian influenza is a disease caused by avian influenza Type A viruses that naturally occur in wild aquatic birds throughout the world. H5N1 viruses can also infect other species of birds, and occasionally mammals, and can cause significant mortality in poultry species, such as chickens, turkeys, pheasants, quail, ducks, geese, or guinea fowl.

On rare occasions, avian influenza viruses infect people and make them sick. Most instances of people becoming infected with avian influenza have happened after prolonged, close contact with animals infected with avian influenza or environments contaminated with avian influenza.

The CDC currently considers the risk to the general public from this H5N1 avian influenza to be low; however, people with job-related or recreational exposures to infected birds, cattle, or other potentially impacted domestic or wild animals are at higher risk and should take precautions, including wearing personal protective equipment.

DOH reminds the community to never handle or allow pets near dead birds. For more information on safety precautions, visit https://doh.wa.gov/avian-influenza.

Sources:

First presumed human infections of avian influenza under investigation in Washington state | Washington State Department of Health

Bird Flu | Bird Flu | CDC

Gang Members Drown Off Haitian Coast While Re-Supplying Ammunition for Attack

(Map courtesy of https://www.viamichelin.fr)

Approximately 50 suspected gang members have died this week after attacking a coastal town in Haiti, including at least a dozen who drowned after their boat capsized.

While the majority were killed by police, a group of gunmen drowned after their boat hit the reef as they ferried ammunition to gangs attacking the town of Arcahaie, reported Haiti’s Civil Protection Agency.

The attack began on Monday with gunmen burning homes and cars in the town located just northwest of the capital of Port-au-Prince. When the gangs ran out of ammunition, they hid in nearby areas and were ferreted out by residents and police.

The attack is still ongoing and the Civil Protection Agency warned that officers on the scene urgently need reinforcements from soldiers and special police units.

The attack is blamed on a gang coalition called Viv Ansanm, which also has targeted communities in Port-au-Prince recently.

Undated photo of Viv Ansanm gang members. Note the “leader” in the center is unmasked.

The spike in gang violence comes just months after a UN-backed mission led by Kenyan police began with the aim of quelling a surge in violence from gangs, who control more than 80% of Port-au-Prince. More than 700,000 people have been left homeless, thousands have been killed, and the country’s main airport was forced to close for nearly three months earlier this year because of the violence.

The US government and top Haitian officials have warned that the Kenyan-led mission lacks personnel and funding and have asked that it be replaced with a UN-peacekeeping mission.

Haiti, a failed state, is the Somalia of the Caribbean. Violence, rape, murder, and chaos have been plaguing the Haitian people for years now. Malnutrition and cholera are also spreading amongst the population. If Haitians aren’t being murdered by gang members, they are drowning in boats trying to escape. Haiti’s neighbor, the Dominican Republic, has been cracking down on Haitian refugees who made it to safety across the border. This failed state needs a massive military intervention and financial assistance beyond a small but robust police contingency. But with US attention and resources focused on helping Ukraine and Israel, other nations must fill the void.

Haitians wait to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in Dajabon, Dominican Republic, Friday, 19 Nov 2021. Santo Domingo “profusely rejected” the denunciation of its migratory crackdowns on Haitian migrants by a growing number of countries and human rights agencies. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix, File)

Sources:

At least a dozen gang members drown near Haiti while ferrying ammunition: Official – ABC News (go.com)

“VIV ANSANM” amplifies the misery of the poorest in Haiti (vantbefinfo.com)

Deadly Violence in Haiti at Record High, Some Worst Scenarios Now Realities, Special Representative Tells Security Council, Urging Deployment of Support Mission | Meetings Coverage and Press Releases

Haiti’s health system pushed to breaking point: UNICEF | UN News

Dominican Republic rejects criticism of Haitian deportations | AP News

Five countries pledge personnel for Haiti security mission, UN says | Reuters

Australia: Pet Owners Warned About Tick Boom on East Coast After Last Year’s Hot, Wet Summer

Note the red area on the east coast is where lies the threat of the paralysis tick. (Illustration courtesy of the Karl McManus Foundation.)

Global warming has not only been a boon to mosquitos, but also to disease vector ticks. Pet owners in Australia have been warned about a tick boom unfolding along their east coast, with some experts predicting an unusually bad season for our furry friends.

Veterinary scientist and parasitologist Peter Irwin, an emeritus professor at Murdoch University, said the severity of a tick season was largely determined by the preceding weather, and last summer had been very hot and wet along the east coast”.

“That implies the tick season this year will be bad, and indeed it seems to be panning out that way,” he said.

Paralysis ticks – found along a narrow strip of coastline stretching from north Queensland to Lakes Entrance in Victoria – were responsible for 95% of tick bites in humans, and were potentially lethal to cats, dogs, and other animals.

Factors influencing tick seasons were complex. Temperature and humidity played a key role, as well as the abundance of host animals like kangaroos and bandicoots. “You also have human factors as well – how often are people moving in and out of tick habitat?” he said.

If people or their pets were bitten, it was important to remain calm and not to try to pull the tick off. “You should always freeze it, not squeeze it” using tick-freezing spray from a pharmacist.

On a recent trip to Culburra Beach on the south coast of NSW, Eleanor removed 39 live ticks from her four-year-old Finnish lapphund, Beans.

Beans, a Finnish lapphund, had no fewer than 39 ticks removed while on a holiday at Culburra Beach on the New South Wales coast, her owner said. (Photo: The Guardian)

She was aware it was tick season but “had no idea it would be like this”, she said. Beans was “crawling with parasites”.

“The number of ticks we found on her was nightmarish,” she said. “We spent every evening when the kids went to bed pulling ticks out of her fur.”

Irwin said adult paralysis ticks, mainly active between August and December, were a serious concern for pet owners and veterinarians.

Australian paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus). Photo: Peter Rowland

“Cats and dogs, untreated, will die of tick paralysis. Even treating them is not always successful,” he said. Luckily the disease was largely preventable, with effective collars, tablets, and treatments.

Prof Ala Tabor, an animal health specialist with the Queensland alliance for agriculture and food innovation at the University of Queensland, said the larger an animal was the more likely it would be able to survive paralysis tick toxins.

This season the university lost a cow to paralysis ticks, Tabor said.

Tabor was developing a paralysis tick vaccine for cats and dogs that was being licensed to an Australian company.

Once a vaccine was available, an annual dose would probably be cheaper and easier for pet owners and could provide a solution for animals that had adverse reactions to chemicals in common treatments.

Sources:

Dog owners warned about boom in ticks on Australia’s east coast after last year’s hot, wet summer | Environment | The Guardian

Fact File: Australian paralysis tick (Ixodes holocyclus) – Australian Geographic

Who We Are – Karl McManus Foundation

Tick Check | NexGard® Range

Japan Scrambles Jets to Intercept Chinese Bomber and Spy Plane

ADIZ over Japan (blue), South Korea (green), China (pink), and Taiwan/ROC (Orange). (Map: Wikimedia)

Japan recently scrambled fighter jets as China sent a bomber and a spy plane over waters near the Japanese southwestern islands for a long-distance mission from the Chinese mainland.

The Joint Staff Office (JSO) under the Defense Ministry of Japan reported the Chinese military aircraft’s movement within its air defense identification zone. The H-6 bomber and the Y-9 spy plane were spotted flying from mainland China and heading into the Miyako Strait. 

Japan, the US, Taiwan, and South Korea have set up air defense identification zones (ADIZ) around the countries in the interest of national security. The zone begins where sovereign airspace ends and is within the international airspace.

The Miyako Strait lies between the Japanese islands of Miyako and Okinawa, part of the so-called first island chain. This US defense concept extends from Japan to Taiwan and the Philippines to the south, attempting to contain China in the Western Pacific Ocean.

According to a Chinese military observer, the bomber was a H-6J, which the Pentagon described as a maritime strike bomber and a naval variant of the H-6K operated by the Chinese air force.

In this photo provided by the Defense Ministry of Japan, a Chinese H-6 bomber transits the Miyako Strait on 20 Oct inside the Japanese ADIZ.

The new and larger advanced H-6J has six pylons for carrying weapons instead of four, capable of firing supersonic antiship cruise missiles. The bomber is equipped with advanced avionics and upgraded engines, the Pentagon said in a report released in October last year.

Long-range bombers are part of the Chinese military’s anti-access/area denial capabilities. These aim to prevent the American military forces—especially the navy and its aircraft carriers—from approaching the first island chain during a potential conflict with Taiwan.

China held a large-scale military exercise around Taiwan last week, a self-ruled island that has been viewed by Beijing as part of its territory. During the exercise, Chinese warships and combat aircraft have engaged in drills focusing on blockades on key ports and areas.

This was not the first time the Chinese sent the same types of bombers and spy planes over waters near the southwestern islands of Japan, where they had conducted a similar mission on 12 Mar.

Chinese Y-9 spy plane transits the Miyako Strait on 20 Oct. (Photo: JSO)

Japan’s Joint Staff Office on Thursday reported that from 1 Apr to 30 Sep, its air force scrambled fighter jets 358 times in response to foreign military aircraft approaching the country, showing a decrease from the same period last year, which occurred 424 times.

Among the Japanese scrambles, 241 of them were against the Chinese military aircraft, which is fewer than last year’s 304 times. However, the number of scrambles against the Russian military aircraft was 115 times, which is an increase from last year’s 110 times.

On 12 Sep, a pair of Russian Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance and antisubmarine warfare aircraft flew on an anticlockwise flight around Japan.

This week the World Uyghur Congress is taking place in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and the BRICS summit convened in Kazan, Russia. China is flexing its growing muscles while probing and testing the new Japanese Prime Minister. Japan should expect more of these near-intrusions from China as Beijing has eyes on maritime waters, economic fisheries, that they claim is theirs.  Last year, Chinese and Russian aircraft violated the South Korean ADIZ, forcing the ROK AF to scramble. Seoul could expect more near-intrusions now that they have warned Moscow that using North Korean troops might lead to massive weapons transfers to Ukraine.

Source:

US Ally Scrambles Jets To Intercept Chinese Bomber and Spy Plane – Newsweek

Chinese, Russian military aircraft enter KADIZ, South Korea scrambles fighter jets (joins.com)

Family on Road Trip Hear Cry for Help — Then Realize it’s Coming from Engine

The “cat distribution system” works in mysterious ways. On a road trip, the Wolford family reached its destination and heard a strange cry coming from within the car. They quickly exited the vehicle and popped the hood. To their sheer astonishment, a pair of wide, innocent eyes and a tiny, fluffy face met their gaze from underneath the engine.

Wedged snugly in the engine of their car was a tiny kitten. It appeared as though this little feline friend had been their silent passenger for the entire duration of their journey. The Wolford family couldn’t believe their eyes.

Mary Wolford recounted the moment, saying, “Everyone was shocked that he was alive. He rode probably 20 or 30 miles in there.”

With great care and gentleness, they managed to free the kitten from their car, yet their relief was short-lived. As soon as he was in their arms, he executed a daring escape, leaping out and darting away.

The kitten, who they named Racoon, hid another car, but was safely extracted and cleaned up.

Eventually, the family dogs, including a large Great Dane, welcomed Racoon into their midst.

Raccoon’s journey had taken a remarkable turn. When he had initially climbed into this caring family’s car engine, he was in search of a temporary refuge. Little did he know that he was about to find a loving forever home.

Source:

Family on a Road Trip Hear Cry For Help — Then Realize it’s Coming From the Engine – We Love Cats and Kittens

Lebanon: Free-Fire Zone for Right-Wing Likud Party and IDF; 13 Killed, 57 Wounded in Latest Attack

At least 13 people were killed and 57 wounded in an IDF strike near Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, just as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrives in Tel Aviv for the 11th time to uselessly meet with indicted war criminal Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The death toll could be higher.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling Likud party have turned Lebanon into a free-fire zone in their attempts at liquidating members of Lebanese Hezbollah. This blood-thirsty cabal has no regard for collateral damage whatsoever. The latest strike hit the Al Janah district of the capital where the main government-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital is located, Lebanon‘s Ministry of Public Health said in an update on X citing its Public Health Emergency Operations Center.

At least 13 people were killed and 57 wounded in this IDF strike near Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut. (Photo: Wael Hamzeh EPA/EFE)

Rescue teams were continuing to comb through the rubble Tuesday morning in the hope of finding survivors from at least three destroyed medium-rise buildings as well as other buildings badly damaged in the strike in the neighborhood, one of Bierut’s poorest.

However, a second hospital was evacuated after the IDF alleged it housed a secret underground bunker used by Hezbollah to store cash, sparking panic that an airstrike could be imminent.

The Israeli army also hit the coastal city of Tyre with ten rounds of strikes after calling on residents of the al-Hawsh neighborhood to evacuate.

Hezbollah counter-attacked against Israeli territory firing around 80 “projectiles” across the border, causing no injuries or damage, only tripping loud air-raid sirens.

Lebanese Hezbollah confirmed that it was responsible for a failed attempt over the weekend to attack Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu‘s private residence in Caesarea with three explosive drones.

The announcement at a press briefing in Beirut came as Netanyahu sat down for talks with Blinken with Netanyahu’s office posting a photo on social media of the pair in the Israeli leader’s office in Jerusalem.

Blinken will earnestly try to kickstart negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza to release the remaining hostages and pressure Israel to improve humanitarian aid access in Gaza after threatening to halt weapons shipments over the issue.

The State Department said in a statement that during his four-day trip, which will also take in other capitals in the region, Blinken would also be discussing the need to “reach a diplomatic resolution to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that fully implements UN Security Council Resolution 1701” and allowed civilians on both sides of the Blue Line to return to their homes.

“The Secretary will reaffirm the US commitment to work with partners across the region to de-escalate tensions and provide lasting stability,” the department said.

Since Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, 1.2 million people have been displaced, 2,412 people killed (including 127 children), and 11,267 people wounded. The next generation of anti-Israelis and antisemites have been well-incubated by the Likudniks.

Remarkably, Israel apologized for killing three Lebanese Army soldiers last weekend. The Lebanese Army is not a party to the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The multi-faith manned Lebanese Army does not support Israel’s invasion of its country and refers to them as the “enemy.” Lebanon’s army receives US military and financial assistance (for example, in 2021 the US provided $236 million. This is a mere drop in the bucket relative to what Israel has received since 1950. See State Dept info on US aid to Lebanon below).

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, one of the most competent members of the Biden Administration and a man with a reputation for intellect and decency, must be holding his nose every time he meets with the odious Prime Minister of Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the State of Israel has been cited for war crimes at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), both august bodies located near each other at the Hague.

This man is patiently waiting for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. He is Karim Khan KC, the Chief Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague. Americans should be familiar with the ICC. Special Counsel Jack Smith completed his assignment at the ICC prosecuting war criminals before returning to the US to prosecute Donald Trump for his alleged crimes against the American people. (Photo: Office of the Prosecutor via BBC).

Sources:

At least 13 killed, 57 injured in Israeli airstrike near Beirut hospital as Blinken arrives in Israel – UPI.com

UN world court calls for prevention of genocidal acts in Gaza | UN News

Israel Apologizes After Strike Kills 3 Lebanese Soldiers – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

U.S. Security Cooperation With Lebanon – United States Department of State

Ukraine Military Intelligence: Russian Pilot Involved in Deadly Kremenchuk Strike ‘Eliminated’

The late Russian Air Force Colonel Dmitry Golenkov was an unindicted war criminal.

Ukraine’s Military Intelligence (HUR) announced on 21 Oct the “elimination” of Russian military pilot Dmitry Golenkov, a chief of staff in Russia’s 52nd heavy bomber aviation regiment who was involved in a deadly missile attack on a shopping center in Ukraine’s Kremenchuk in June 2022. The attack, carried out using Tu-22M3 bombers, resulted in 22 deaths and dozens of injuries among the nearly 1,000 civilians present at the Amstor shopping center at the time.

Rescuers working sift through rubble at the Amstor shopping center in Kremenchuk after it was hit by a Russian missile strike on 27 Jun 2022. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine / AFP

HUR also linked Golenkov to the January 2023 missile attack on a residential building in the city of Dnipro, which killed 46 people, including six children. The intelligence agency reported that Golenkov’s body was found with head injuries, possibly inflicted with a hammer, emphasizing “fair retribution for every war crime.” Russia had claimed the June 2022 attack targeted military storage facilities near Kremenchuk, not the civilian center. 

Ukraine’s espionage capabilities are constantly improving. Rather than attempt an abduction and bring this killer to face justice in a war crimes trial in Kiev, Colonel Golenkov was rendered ineffective on Russian soil and his unknown assailants have disappeared.

Source:

Kyiv Says Russian Pilot Involved In Deadly Kremenchuk Strike ‘Eliminated’ (rferl.org)

Food Safety Alert: McDonald’s Quarter Pounder Hamburgers

McDonald’s Quarter Pounder hamburgers are making people sick, with most illnesses in Colorado and Nebraska. At least 49 illnesses have been reported across ten states, including one death of an older person. Ten people have been hospitalized, including a child who had hemolytic uremic syndrome, a serious complication that can develop from an E. coli infection.

CDC, FDA, USDA FSIS, and public health officials in multiple states are investigating an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 infections. Most people in this outbreak are reporting eating the Quarter Pounder hamburger at McDonald’s before becoming sick. It is not yet known which specific food ingredient is contaminated.

McDonald’s is collaborating with investigation partners to determine what food ingredient in Quarter Pounders is making people sick. McDonald’s stopped using fresh slivered onions and quarter pound beef patties in several states while the investigation is ongoing to identify the ingredient causing illness.

McDonald’s recently opened a lawsuit against US beef suppliers for price-fixing and GOP hopeful Donald Trump completed a photo-op at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania which was ridiculed at many levels. As a Republican strategist once said, “everything Trump touches, dies.”

Sources:

E. coli Outbreak Linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders | E. coli infection | CDC

McDonald’s sues major beef producers in US price-fixing lawsuit | Reuters

South Korea May Send Weapons to Ukraine to Counter North Korea’s Troop Deployments

South Korea is a top-ten weapons producer in the world. Pictured above is the K239 Chunmoo, a multiple launch rocket system (MLRS). (Photo: Hanwha Defense / Armaments Agency)

South Korea could send weapons to Ukraine as part of “phased measures” it vowed to take against North Korea and Russia over their deepening military cooperation, a senior presidential official said.

The comment came after South Korea’s deputy national security adviser Kim Tae-hyo told a news conference that the South Korean government demanded that Pyongyang immediately withdraw troops it sent to Russia to help in the war with Ukraine.

“If the illegal military cooperation between North Korea and Russia continues, [we] will not stand by but respond firmly in collaboration with the international community,” Kim said, warning of “phased measures” in response to the level of their military ties.

A senior presidential official told reporters that the measures could include sending weapons for defense and attack, but the official did not elaborate. 

South Korea’s spy agency said last week that the North had decided to send about 12,000 troops to help Russia with its war in Ukraine, and had already dispatched 1,500 soldiers to Vladivostok for training.

18 of them have already deserted their posts in Russia. (Photo: ukranews.com)

North Korea has denied the report, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed speculation of North Korean troops going to Ukraine as “fake news.”

South Korea has a long-standing policy of not supplying weapons to countries fighting wars and has maintained that stance with Ukraine, sending only humanitarian aid.

The official’s remarks came in response to the Ukrainian envoy’s comment that the North was planning to soon send “large-scale” regular troops to help Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine.

Russia said it would continue to strengthen ties with North Korea, while declining to confirm South Korea’s report. The US said it could not confirm the report, while North Korea’s state-run media outlets had remained silent at time of publication.

North Korea and Russia have moved closer over the past year or more amid widespread suspicion that North Korea has supplied conventional weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine in return for military and economic assistance. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly submitted a bill to the lower house of parliament on Monday to ratify a treaty to raise its relationship with North Korea to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The change was agreed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on 19 Jun in Pyongyang after summit talks during the Russian president’s state visit.   

The new partnership includes a mutual defense assistance clause that would apply in the case of “aggression” against one of the signatories.

Both raging wars in the Middle East and Ukraine are escalating and Vladimir Putin miscalculated the South Korean response. His attempt at disguising the North Koreans as Siberian Buryats was seen through and the Ukrainians could benefit greatly from the effective mass casualty-causing South Korean weapons. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is paralleling the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, with allies sending arms and personnel in a massive testing ground and battlefield meat-grinder. The North Korean “volunteers” will become cannon-fodder in “meat attacks” when they encounter tired, but combat-hardened and experienced Ukrainian soldiers like the Amazon pictured below and the dense intelligence web targeting them.

Anastasia Blyshchyk said she was initially rebuffed when she volunteered to fight. “I heard, ‘You’re a woman, you need to make babies, go home.’” Photo: Emile Ducke for The New York Times

While the Biden Administration cannot persuade Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un, or the Iranian leadership to de-escalate, Pres. Biden can talk to his so-called “ally” to a achieve a ceasefire in the Middle East. And like Tehran, Moscow, and Pyongyang, the Likud regime is not cooperating with him either. And hands down the US is Israel’s greatest benefactor in the world. Prolonged hostilities defer Netanyahu’s bribery and corruption trial and enfeebles the Biden Administration. Democratic Party leaders are right to suspect that Netanyahu wants to continue hostilities in the Middle East, as well as a right-wing GOP victory this November. Right-wingers like Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are birds of the same feather, like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un.

Sources:

Seoul could send weapons to Ukraine to counter North Korea’s troop deployments — Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

South Korea summons Russian envoy to urge it to stop North Korean Ukraine involvement

North Korea sending troops to aid Russia in Ukraine war: South’s spy agency

Russia forming North Korean battalion amid soldier shortage: reportOpinion | Ukrainian Women Fight for Their Own Liberation – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

American Warzone: Five Dead in Shooting at Home in Washington State; Teenager Arrested

Americans suffer wartime casualties every year because of the proliferation of firearms in the US. According to the CDC, in 2022 there were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the US.

Law enforcement officials found five people killed in a shooting inside a home southeast of Seattle on Monday morning and took a teenager into custody.

Several people called 911 around 5AM to report a shooting in Fall City, WA.

(Google Maps)

Arriving deputies immediately took one teen into custody while another teenager who had been hurt was taken to a Seattle hospital. Both teens live at the house.

Deputies entering the home found the bodies of five people. Two were adults and three were described as young teenagers. No names have been released yet.

“Once bodies were discovered, clearly we understand that this is a hugely significant crime scene,” the King County Sheriff’s office said.

The shooting appears to involve members of a family, but authorities didn’t yet know how they were related. There was no ongoing threat to the community.

“I have no reason to think that there will be any additional arrests,” said the sheriff’s department.

The teen in custody was booked into King County’s juvenile detention facility and will be arraigned on Tuesday or Wednesday.

A neighbor told KING-TV that a couple and their five children lived in the home.

“I’m just in total shock, I keep bursting into tears,” Lynne Trowern, told the news outlet.

King County Councilmember Sarah Perry said the shooting involved a family of seven people.

Sheriff Patricia Cole-Tindall told KING-TV that she was “very sad, very disturbed” to learn about the shooting.

Guns are in the households of an estimated 42.1% of Washington state residents. In 2021, 165,534 firearms licenses were recorded in the state. In an average year, 887 people die and 1,245 are wounded by guns in Washington State. Gun violence costs Washington $1,559 per resident each year. Gun deaths and injuries cost Washington $11.9 billion each year, of which $171.7 million is paid by taxpayers.

Sources:

Teen in custody after 5 found dead in shooting at home in Washington state (voanews.com)

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

11. Washington – Gun map: Ownership by state – statistics and rates (cbsnews.com)

https://www.cdc.gov/firearm-violence/data-research/facts-stats/index.html

Leptospirosis Cases Rising in Philippines

Est. population 118,277,063; GDP per capita: $9,700 (2023 est.) Map and data: CIA

The Philippines continues to log more leptospirosis cases and deaths. From January to October, the Philippines Dept of Health recorded 5,835 cases, 16 per cent more than in the same period last year. Meanwhile, 509 deaths have been reported across the country.

“As we expect more rain to come, we must always be mindful of what to do especially if there is flooding. Avoid floodwaters as much as possible,” Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa said. Leptospirosis is a bacterial infection commonly spread through water contaminated with animal urine.

Humans become infected through direct contact with the urine of infected animals or with a urine-contaminated environment. Cases of leptospirosis can increase after floods when people may have to wade through contaminated water.

Without treatment, leptospirosis in people can lead to kidney damage, meningitis (inflammation of the membrane around the brain and spinal cord), liver failure, trouble breathing, and even death.

About one million cases in people occur around the world each year, with nearly 60,000 deaths. Leptospirosis has been reported throughout the US. Leptospirosis is treated with antibiotics, such as doxycycline or penicillin.

Residents wade across a flooded street with their belongings in Sangli in Western Maharashtra, India. They are vulnerable to a host of water-borne diseases. (Undated photo: PTI)

Leptospirosis and other water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery will continue afflicting people in flood-prone areas. The ubiquitous mosquito will also thrive in these wetlands, becoming vectors for Zika, Chikungunya, Dengue, and Malaria. Mankind needs pesticides to combat these pests, but at the same time we see that some pesticide residues can contaminate water supplies, as we have seen in Martinique and France.

Sources:

https://assamtribune.com/health-and-fitness/leptospirosis-cases-continue-to-rise-in-the-philippines-1555127?infinitescroll=1

About Leptospirosis | Leptospirosis | CDC

View from Europe: Donald Trump’s Unpredictable Actions Fuel Concern for his Mental and Cognitive Health

Copyright John Bazemore/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.

With a few weeks to go before the presidential election, European writer Andrew Naughtie summarized concerns about Donald Trump mental and cognitive health.  

“In recent weeks, Trump has been behaving particularly oddly, rambling and slurring his words in increasingly long-winded speeches and at one point remaining on the stage after an event to spend half an hour silently dancing to a mournful playlist.

One particularly strange appearance lately saw him deliver a five-minute-plus monologue about the late golfer Arnold Palmer, in the course of which he alluded to other linksmen’s astonishment at the size of Palmer’s genitalia.”

Mr Naughtie further writes:

“Trump’s campaign has also declined to release his medical records and pulled him out of numerous public events and interviews, fueling speculation that he is “exhausted” and that they are trying to limit opportunities for him to give a particularly poor performance.

Meanwhile, Kamala Harris’s campaign is leaning hard into the idea that Trump is unfit to be president not just because of his previous conduct but because he is not psychologically up to the task.”

“It is clear: Donald Trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged,” Vice-President Kamala Harris said at a recent campaign stop. “And he is seeking unchecked power.”

In the 2016 presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Senator Hilary Clinton said:

“I will leave it for psychiatrists to explain [Trump’s] affection for tyrants.”

Mr Naughtie writes there was a great debate in the American psychiatric and psychological establishment over whether or not it was ethical for clinicians to diagnose Donald Trump with a personality disorder from afar without examining him in person.

He wrote that this argument dates back to the 1964 election when more than 1,000 psychiatrists told a survey that, in their professional opinion, then-Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater was unfit for office. This is called a “duty to warn.”

Mr. Naughtie concludes:

“Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, frequently deride Harris as intellectually subnormal, with Trump going so far as to deride her as “crazy” and “nuts”. While this may play well with their voters, there is so far no sign of any serious discussion about the state of Harris’s mental health.

The vice president has also released her medical records, which show her to be in excellent physical health besides minor myopia and seasonal allergies — and despite all the speculation about his physical and mental exhaustion, there is so far no indication that Trump will be releasing his.”

Many Americans are dumb-founded that this election could be even this close between a convicted felon who was twice impeached as President and a former California Attorney-General, US Senator, and current VPOTUS. The only explanation is that whites, the bulk of the Republican Party, have no choice but to support Donald Trump, an avatar of white supremacy or “whiteness,” regardless of the catastrophic social and economic policies outlined in Project 2025 or his tremendous panoptic character flaws. Both Trump and Vance perpetrate lies about Haitian refugees eating pets or spread lies about Kamala Harris or Ken Walz as a distraction. Discussing the Christian Talibanization of America embodied in Project 2025 may turn off enough white female Republican voters in battleground states who have already lost reproductive rights thanks to the reactionary US Supreme Court.

Source:

Donald Trump’s unpredictable actions fuel concern for his mental and cognitive health | Euronews

Georgia Man Arrested for Assaulting Law Enforcement with Weapon and Other Charges During 6 Jan 2021 Assault on US Capitol

Cylester Maxwell at the Stop the Steal rally on 6 Jan 2021. (Photo: FBI)

Cylester Maxwell (42) of Alpharetta, GA was arrested by the FBI and charged in a criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia with felony offenses of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon and civil disorder during the 6 Jan 2021 assault on the US Capitol.

Maxwell was identified in open-source video footage on 6 Jan 2021, in Washington, DC marching with a crowd of rioters away from the “Stop the Steal” rally at the Ellipse and toward the Capitol building. By approximately 1:35 PM Maxwell made it onto restricted Capitol grounds positioned near the front of the crowd confronting a police line on the West Plaza near the Media Tower erected in front of the Inaugural Stage.

Maxwell, together with other members of the mob, shoved an eight feet tall and ten feet wide sign into the line of police like a battering ram. Several seconds later, after the sign was pushed into the officers, Maxwell let go of it and grabbed and pulled a barricade away from the police line.  

(Photo: FBI)

Maxwell pulled another bike rack barricade away from the police and successfully broke through the West Plaza police line. He then remained on or near the West Plaza for some time as rioters flooded the Capitol’s Lower and Upper West Terraces.

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.

This brontosaurus heeded the call of idiotic call of Donald Trump, behaved violently at his behest, and now has thrown his life away listening to the ex-President, whose mental fitness is being questioned.

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

Sources:

District of Columbia | Georgia Man Arrested for Assaulting Law Enforcement with a Weapon and Other Charges During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

New Zealand Airport Sets Time Limit on Goodbyes and Hugs

The cuddle cap was imposed in Sep 2024 to “keep things moving smoothly” in the redesigned passenger drop-off area outside the airport, CEO Dan De Bono told the AP. It was the airport’s way of reminding people that the zone was for “quick farewells” only. (Photo: AP)

Emotional farewells are a common sight at airports, but travelers leaving the New Zealand city of Dunedin will have to be quick. A new three-minute time limit on goodbye hugs in the airport’s drop-off area is intended to prevent lingering cuddles from causing traffic jams.

“Max hug time three minutes,” warn signs outside the terminal, adding that those seeking “fonder farewells” should head to the airport’s parking lot instead.

(Map: ontheworldmap.com)

The signs had polarized social media users, De Bono said.

AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on a ‘hug cap’ imposed at a New Zealand airport.

“We were accused of breaching basic human rights and how dare we limit how long someone can have a hug for,” he said, adding that others had welcomed the change.

The signs were meant as an alternative to those at other airports warning of wheel clamping or fines for drivers parked in drop-off areas. Some in Britain have imposed fees for all drop-offs — however brief.

Dunedin’s airport — a modest terminal serving a city of 135,000 people on New Zealand’s South Island — preferred a “quirky” approach, De Bono said.

Three minutes was “plenty of time to pull up, say farewell to your loved ones and move on,” he said. “The time limit is really a nicer way of saying, you know, get on with it.”

A 20-second hug is long enough to release the wellbeing-boosting hormones oxytocin and serotonin, De Bono said. Anything longer was “really awkward.”

But passengers need not worry unduly about enforcement. “We do not have hug police,” De Bono said.

Visitors might, however, be asked to move their lingering embraces to the parking lot, where they can cuddle free of charge for up to 15 minutes.

At age 57, Lynda Perry has become the oldest ‘new’ constable in the history of the Royal New Zealand Police College. Luckily, she won’t be enforcing any hug violations at the airport.

Source:

New Zealand airport wants you to hug goodbye faster | AP News