Ukraine Intelligence Chief: North Korean Aid to Russia Poses Biggest Threat to Kiev
North Korea has recently bolstered military ties with Russia, with President Vladimir Putin making a rare visit to Pyongyang in Jun 2024, where he signed a mutual defense agreement with Kim Jong-Un.
North Korean military aid to Russia is the most damaging for Ukraine, intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said on 14 Sep. “Our biggest problem from all these allies of Russia is from North Korea. Because with the volume of military products that they supply, they actually affect the intensity of the fighting.” His remarks came as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged to deepen ties with Russia. Kyiv has been monitoring arms deliveries from Pyongyang to Moscow and feels their effect on the battlefield. “There is a direct correlation. They are supplying huge volumes of artillery ammunition, which is critical,” Budanov said.
Western powers have accused cash-strapped North Korea of selling ammunition to Russia in defiance of sanctions over the more than 30-month war in Ukraine.
North Korean state media showed leader Kim Jong Un (R) meeting with Russia’s Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu (L) at an undisclosed location (Image: AFP)
Russian security chief Sergei Shoigu held talks with Kim Jong-Un this weekend at an undisclosed location in North Korea. Experts suspect it was the Kumsusan Guest Palace in Pyongyang, which has hosted both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Shoigu heads Russia’s Security Council after stepping down as defence minister in May. He last met with Kim in July 2023, during a celebration in Pyongyang for the 70th anniversary of the 1953 Korean War armistice. Their latest meeting comes two days after North Korea fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles into waters east of the Korean peninsula. Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the testing spree was possibly of weapons meant “for export to Russia.”
Using debris analysis, a recent Conflict Armament Research report indicated “that missiles produced this year in North Korea are being used in Ukraine.”
An Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft belonging to North Korean air carrier Air Koryo takes off from Beijing airport after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un left Beijing, China, on 20 Jun. Photo by Wu Hong/EPA
Observers of North Korea detected increased air travel between the two pariah states after the Jun 2024 meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un. Five North Korean flights flew to Vladivostok, a trip unusually involving cargo planes.
Three cargo planes and two passenger flights of the North Korean national carrier Air Koryo traveled to Russia’s far-eastern port city. The trip involved three unusual cargo flights of the model used to transport personal armored vehicles of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his overseas trips, including his visit to China in June. The IL-76 cargo aircraft hasn’t made a trip to Vladivostok since 2010 and the cargo is unknown.
Two passenger flights make regular round-trips between Pyongyang and Vladivostok on Monday and Friday. And extra passenger flights were spotted flying during weekdays. One report cited an anonymous source saying the extra cargo flights were sent to bring back North Korean workers in the Russian city as their work permit expires soon.
As posted here on Coriolanus.page, North Korea recently released images of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time, and Kim stressed “the need to further augment the number of centrifuges in order to exponentially increase the nuclear weapons for self-defense”.
Russia, a historical ally of North Korea, is one of a handful of nations with which Pyongyang maintains friendly relations. Ties have warmed since the 2022 start of the Ukraine war ruptured Russia’s relations with the West.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country’s military to increase its number of troops by 180,000 to a total of 1.5 million, as Moscow’s brutal invasion of Ukraine drags on for more than 2 ½ years.
Sources:
North Korean Aid To Russia Poses Biggest Threat To Ukraine, Intelligence Chief Says (rferl.org)
North Korean cargo flights fly to Russia in unusual trip – UPI.com
N. Korea Pledges Deeper Ties With Russia As Security Chief Visits | IBTimes
IDF: ‘High Probability’ Three Hostages Mistakenly Killed in Airstrike in Nov 2023
People hold cut outs of yellow ribbons at a protest calling for a hostage deal outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem after six hostage bodies were recovered by the IDF from a tunnel in Rafah in Gaza, on 1 Sep. File photo by Debbie Hill/ UPI | License Photo
Israel’s military on Sunday concluded in an investigation there is “high probability” three Israeli hostages were killed during an airstrike in Nov 2023 intended to take out a Hamas northern Gaza brigade chief. The IDF informed the families last week that a comprehensive inquiry revealed they died by IDF actions. IDF officials and hostage families started to leak the results of the investigation.
On 14 Dec, three bodies were recovered from a tunnel in Jabaliya. The tunnel included a large elevator, large rooms, and split into side rooms, such as command centers, medical stations, prayer rooms, and rooms for manufacturing weapons. The three were abducted on 7 Oct.
Evidence included where bodies were found and their condition; a pathological report and one by the state’s forensic institute; and operations research into the battlefield situation and activities. Initially, the families were initially told the hostages had been killed by Hamas captors. In January, the IDF rejected Hamas’ assertions that they were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
In a video released by Hamas, the three hostages were seen holding up pieces of paper with their names and personal information. In a statement posted alongside the video, Hamas claimed that “they tried to keep them alive – but Netanyahu insisted on killing them.”
The airstrike on 10 Nov was intended to take out Ahmed Ghandour, who was taking cover in a tunnel.
“At the time of the strike, the IDF did not have information about the presence of hostages in the targeted compound,” the military said. “Furthermore, there was information suggesting that they were located elsewhere, and thus the area was not designated as one with suspected presence of hostages.”
In December, the IDF revealed finding five hostage bodies, three of whom were the ones later confirmed likely killed by IDF. In the same month, the Israeli military said its troops killed three hostages in Gaza after mistakenly identifying them as a threat.
Six to seven thousand Palestinians were being held in detention for alleged security violations, the majority who have never been convicted of a crime. 2,000 of the incarcerated Palestinians are being held in administrative detention, in which the Israeli military holds a person without charge or trial. Such detention can be renewed indefinitely based on secret information, which the detainee is not allowed to see. Administrative detainees are held on the presumption that they might commit an offense at some point in the future. Israeli authorities have held children, human rights defenders, Palestinian political activists, and healthcare workers, in administrative detention, often for prolonged periods.
Palestinian armed groups conducted a surprise attack on Israel on 7 Oct 2023 and seized hundreds of valuable Israeli hostages presumably for a prisoner swap. An estimated 101 Israelis remain hostage. Keeping them alive gives Palestinians a bargaining chip to release some of the thousands being held in Israeli prisons.
Sources:
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2023/12/15/IDF-Gaza-hostages-remains/6761702640286/
Dozens killed, injured in Gaza humanitarian zone as Israeli warplanes target Hamas
Hundreds of thousands march across Israel to demand return of hostages
Donald Trump Unharmed After Assassination Attempt at Florida Golf Resort
This screengrab taken from AFPTV on 16 Sep 2024 shows Ryan Wesley Routh speaking during an interview at a rally calling for humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians and Ukrainian servicemen from Mariupol in central Kiev, Ukraine, on 27 Apr 2022.
Former US President Donald Trump was unharmed late Sunday, after what the FBI said was an apparent assassination attempt at his golf club in West Palm Beach, FL. The incident, in which Trump was not hurt, came two months after he was grazed in the ear during a campaign event in Butler, PA.
Members of Trump’s security detail were securing areas of the golf course ahead of where Trump was playing Sunday when they spotted a gunman in the bushes. Secret Service agents fired at the suspect, who fled the area and was later arrested.
The local sheriff said the suspect left behind an “AK-47-style rifle” with a scope, a GoPro camera and two backpacks.
US President Joe Biden said in a Sunday evening statement that he was relieved Trump was unharmed. Vice President Kamala Harris said she was “deeply disturbed by the possible assassination attempt of former President Trump.”
Various national media sources cited unnamed law enforcement officials who identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh (58) of Hawaii. Social media posts show Routh backing Trump’s 2020 election campaign, but more recent posts expressing support for Biden and Harris. Routh also repeatedly discussed the war in Ukraine and appeared to try to recruit soldiers to aid in Ukraine’s war effort.
Trump has not announced any changes to his schedule and is set to speak live on X on Monday night from his Mar-a-Lago resort to launch his sons’ crypto platform.
Meanwhile, the leaders of a congressional bipartisan task force investigating the 13 Jul assassination attempt on Trump said they have requested a briefing by the USSS. The previous director the USSS resigned after the 13 Jul assassination attempt in Butler, PA, and several agents from the Pittsburgh Field Office were re-assigned.
Source:
Trump unharmed after second assassination attempt, authorities say (voanews.com)
Canada and Australia Sanction Iran
An Iranian walks next to a wall painting of Iran’s national flag at a street in Tehran, Iran, on 2 Jun 2022. Canada on Sunday expanded its list of Iranian government officials who are not admissible to the country. File Photo by Abedin Tahereknareh/EPA-EFE
Canada and Australia are banning more Iranian officials over the Middle Eastern country’s involvement in human rights violations and alleged terrorism on the second anniversary of the jailing and death of Mahsa Jina Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman was arrested in Sep 2022 for ‘improperly’ wearing her hijab.
In Nov 2022 Public Safety Canada designated Iran as a terrorist regime under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Iranians who have served as senior officials since 15 Nov have been barred from entering the North American country. Canada changed the inadmissibility date to 23 Jun 2003 — the day when Iranian authorities detained Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. She was detained while working as a journalist outside Iran’s infamous Evin prison. She was reportedly beaten and died from her injuries on 10 Jul 2003.
Any senior official who served in the Iranian government at any time since 23 June 2003, is now inadmissible to Canada. The move also opens those with temporary or permanent resident status to undefined “enforcement action” that could include removal from the country. Accord to statistics from the Canada Border Services Agency, some 17,800 applications were reviewed under the inadmissible rule as of 26 Aug, resulting in 82 visas cancelled.
Fifteen people were also reported inadmissible under the rule, with two issued deportation orders, adding that another person was removed from the country and five cases were pending. Canada’s Iranian diaspora community has a population of more than 200,000, according to government statistics.
Australia is also imposing more sanctions on Iranian officials on the second anniversary of the jailing and death of Mahsa Jina Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman was arrested in September 2022 for ‘improperly’ wearing her hijab.
Australia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said that Australia stood in solidarity “with Iranian women and girls in their struggle for equality and empowerment.”
Wong announced financial sanctions and travel bans on senior security and law enforcement officials who have allegedly been involved in the ‘violent repression’ of protests in Iran. Female activists continue to be detained and handed death sentences. She said that abuses by Iranian authorities have continued since the death of Amini two years ago.
“We have sanctioned five Iranian security and law enforcement officials who have been involved in these law enforcement so-called activities, which are ultimately a repression – a violent repression – of the Iranian people,” Wong said.
Australia has now imposed sanctions on almost 200 individuals and organizations with links to Iran, including those associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Sources:
Canada expands entry ban on Iranian officials – UPI.com
Australia imposes more sanctions on Iran over human rights concerns (bignewsnetwork.com)
Zimbabwe Orders Cull of 200 Elephants Amid Food Shortages from Drought
Elephants and giraffes near a watering hole in Zimbabwe which is home to an estimated 100,000 elephants – the second-biggest population in the world after Botswana. Photograph: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
Zimbabwe will cull 200 elephants as it faces an unprecedented drought that has led to food shortages, a move that tackle a ballooning population of the animals, the country’s wildlife authority has said. Zimbabwe had “more elephants than it needed”, the environment minister said in parliament, adding that the government had instructed the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority (ZimParks) to begin the culling process.
The 200 elephants would be hunted in areas where they had clashed with humans, including Hwange, home of Zimbabwe’s largest natural reserve. Due to conservation efforts, Hwange is home to 65,000 of the animals, more than four times its capacity, according to ZimParks. Zimbabwe last culled elephants in 1988.
Neighbouring Namibia said this month that it had already killed 160 wildlife animals in a planned cull of more than 700, including 83 elephants, to cope with its worst drought in decades.
Zimbabwe and Namibia are among a swathe of countries in southern Africa that have declared a state of emergency because of drought. About 42% of Zimbabweans live in poverty, according to UN estimates, and authorities say about six million will require food assistance during the November to March lean season, when food is scarcest.
The move to hunt the elephants for food was criticized by some, not least because the animals are a major draw for tourists. Namibia’s cull of elephants has been condemned by conservationists and the animal rights group Peta as shortsighted, cruel and ineffective.
But the government said the 83 to be culled would be only a small fraction of the estimated 20,000 elephants in the arid country, and would relieve pressure on grazing and water supplies.
Source:
Zimbabwe orders cull of 200 elephants amid food shortages from drought | Zimbabwe | The Guardian
281 Inmates Escape After Floods Bring Down Prison’s Walls in Northeast Nigeria
Nigeria Prison Escape© Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Nigerian authorities said 281 inmates escaped after devastating floods brought down a prison’s walls in the country’s northeast. Security personnel were able to recapture seven of the inmates and an operation is still ongoing to locate the rest.
A major dam collapsed on 10 Sep, unleashing severe flooding that left 30 people dead and over one million people displaced, prompting evacuations across the state of Borno.
Map: Researchgate.net
The collapse caused some of the state’s worst flooding since the same dam collapsed 30 years ago. The state government said the dam was at capacity due to unusually high rains. Two years ago, heavy flooding in Nigeria killed more than 600 people across the country. West Africa has experienced some of the heaviest flooding in decades this year, affecting over 2.3 million people, a threefold increase from 2023, according to the UN.
This summer Africa experienced two other prison breaks. Thirteen inmates escaped a police station in Nairobi, Kenya, including a suspect who police say confessed to the murders of 42 women and was being detained over the discovery of dismembered bodies.
An attempted jailbreak in Congo’s main prison left 129 people dead, including some who were shot and others who died in a stampede at the overcrowded facility. A provisional assessment showed that 24 inmates were fatally shot by “warning” shots fired by guards as they tried to escape from the Makala Central Prison in the capital of Kinshasa. There were 59 injuries including some cases of rape.
The main prison holds both male and female inmates and it was not known if all 129 fatalities were inmates. Also, it wasn’t immediately clear how the stampede occurred as details of the jailbreak remained sparse. Makala, Congo’s largest penitentiary with a capacity for 1,500 people, holds over 12,000 inmates, most of whom are awaiting trial, Amnesty International said in its latest country report.
Sources:
281 inmates escape after floods brought down prison’s walls in northeast Nigeria – ABC News (go.com)
Mass Prison Break Includes Man Who Confessed to Killing 42 Women – Newsweek
Over 30 Killed in Mexico Cartel Stronghold After Sinaloa Leaders Detained in US
A Mexican Army soldier stands guard after an armed attack against a business selling new and pre-owned cars in Culiacan, Sinaloa State, Mexico, on 12 Sep 2024. The US issued a security alert because of “reports of car thefts, gunfire, security forces operations, roadblocks, burning vehicles, and closed roadways” in the vicinity.
Eleven more people have been killed in a wave of violence in a Mexican cartel heartland shaken by gang infighting. The latest fatalities included five men whose bodies were found on a highway south of the city of Culiacan.
More than 30 people have been reported dead in a week of bloodshed in Sinaloa, although authorities did not specify how many were believed to be linked to the cartel infighting.
The clashes follow the dramatic arrest on US soil on 25 July of Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who claimed he had been kidnapped in Mexico and delivered into US custody against his will. Zambada pleaded not guilty last week in New York in a drug trafficking case that accuses him of engaging in murder plots and ordering torture.
Zambada (76) was detained along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of El Chapo, who is serving a life sentence in the US. The violence is believed to pit gang members loyal to El Chapo and his sons against others aligned with Zambada, who pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges in a New York court.
Schools were closed Thursday and Friday due to the violence and the governor said Sunday’s Independence Day festivities had been canceled.
In an unexpected twist, last month Mexican prosecutors said they were bringing charges against Guzmán for apparently kidnapping Zambada — but it also cited another charge under an article of Mexico’s criminal code that defines what he did as treason.
Nowhere in the statement does it mention that the younger Guzmán was a member of the Chapitos — “little Chapos” — faction of the Sinaloa cartel, made up of Chapo’s sons, that smuggles millions of doses of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the US, causing about 70,000 overdose deaths each year. According to a 2023 indictment by the US Justice Department, the Chapitos and their cartel associates used corkscrews, electrocution, and hot chiles to torture their rivals while some of their victims were “fed dead or alive to tigers.”
El Chapo, the Sinaloa cartel’s founder, is serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison in Colorado after being convicted in 2019 on charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and weapons-related offenses. Last year, El Chapo sent an “SOS” message to Mexico’s president, alleging that he has been subjected to “psychological torment” in prison.
This year Mexico elected its first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. Vladimir Putin was invited to attend the 1 Oct inauguration in Mexico City.
Source:
A Cat Named Drifter is Safe After Being Trapped in Sewer for Nearly Eight Weeks
A cat aptly named Drifter is safe at home after sneaking outside and getting trapped in a sewer for nearly eight weeks.
The 3-year-old tabby — an indoor feline who had aspirations of being an outdoor cat — went missing from the home of Clifton Nesseth and Ashley Comstock in the northeastern Minnesota city of Duluth on 18 Jul. His owners presume that he went to check out the construction underway in their neighborhood at some point.
The family, including their 12-year-old daughter, April Dressel, hung up posters and searched across the city without luck. They were beginning to plan a small memorial service for Drifter on Tuesday when neighbor kids came over and said they heard meowing coming from a storm drain at the construction site. The family also heard him meowing as they started digging through the dirt and cutting through the landscape fabric.
“A little paw shot out of a tear in the fabric,” Nesseth said. “It was a tabby cat paw. We tore the fabric more and then his head popped through.”
A neighbor, Dahlia Boberg (16) captured the reunion on video.
“Drifter!” Nesseth is seen exclaiming as he lifts the cat high, while neighbors who are gathered around laugh with delight and amazement. “He’s been under there the whole time! He’s really skinny.”
Source:
Coriolanus 