Jeffrey Epstein’s Unreleased Pedophilic FBI Files Driving Donald Trump and Republican Junta Absolutely Insane

(Photo: Copyright John Bazemore / 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.)

The New York Times just published another lengthy piece about Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein’s 15-year-long friendship that centered around one commonality: their insatiable fetish for nubile young girls.

What Does First Lady Melania and Daughter Ivanka Think of the Paterfamilias?

Source:

Archived link: https://archive.ph/iCegJ

Like MacBeth driven to lunacy by the ghost of Banquo, so to is Dummkopf Trumpf being driven to lunacy by the ghost of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and his sordid, lengthy FBI dossier which the junta is loath to publicly release.

Trumpf Junta Tactics: “Circle the Wagons” and Distract the Hoi Polloi

Servient of America’s oligarchs House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said he does not plan to allow votes on any measures related to the Jeffrey Epstein case in the House’s final week in Washington before a weekslong recess, despite intense pressure from some of his own GOP members to go on the record on the issue.

The MAGA Republicans are ‘circling the wagons’ around their beleaguered cult leader, Dummkopf Trumpf, even though other Republicans want to see congressional action on the scandalous Epstein files.

Link: Johnson shuts door on House vote before September on releasing Epstein files | CNN Politics

Moreover, the Trumpf junta has gutted the office in the State Department that combats international human trafficking.

Link: https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/epstein-trump-human-trafficking-state-department-tip-office-rcna219689

Distract! Deflect! Deny! Defend! Delay!

To distract the media and the hoi polloi, the Trumpf junta began a smear campaign against former President Barack Obama, which you read about on Coriolanus. As if trying to distract a child or a cat, the junta pulled out more ‘shiny new objects’ as red meat for their base and another issue for progressives to deal with.

Trumpf Urges Sports Teams to Restore Their Previous Racist Names

Dotard Trumpf posted on Truth Social:

“The Washington “Whatever’s” should IMMEDIATELY change their name back to the Washington Redskins Football Team. There is a big clamoring for this. Likewise, the Cleveland Indians, one of the six original baseball teams, with a storied past. Our great Indian people, in massive numbers, want this to happen. Their heritage and prestige is systematically being taken away from them. Times are different now than they were three or four years ago. We are a Country of passion and common sense. OWNERS, GET IT DONE!!!”

The President threatened to sanction the NFL Washington Commanders team if the owner did not comply.

Source: Trump urges Cleveland Guardians and Washington Commanders to restore old names

More Utter Dysfunction from the Trumpf Junta

“Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart.” (2018 Trumpf tweet)

Trumpf administration plans to destroy nearly $10m of contraceptives for women overseas. As part of the Dotard’s end to foreign aid, destruction of the long-acting contraceptives will cost US taxpayers $167,000.

“It is unacceptable that the State Department would move forward with the destruction of more than $9m in taxpayer-funded family planning commodities purchased to support women in crisis settings, including war zones and refugee camps,” said US Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). Shaheen and Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) have introduced legislation to stop the destruction.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/18/trump-administration-destroy-contraceptives-usaid-africa

Trumpf Replaces US Naval Academy Superintendent with USMC General

USSECDEF Pete Hegseth walks alongside US Naval Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Yvette Davids during his visit to the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD, 1 April 2025. I don’t think she is smiling today. (Photo: DoD / USN Petty Officer 1st Class Alexander Kubitza)

The Trumpf junta has chosen a Marine general to replace the first woman to lead the US Naval Academy, trading out one history-making officer for another, well short of the typical three-year tenure for the position.

Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, who currently oversees the Marine Corps‘ personnel directorate, has been nominated to replace Vice Adm. Yvette Davids as superintendent of the academy.

Davids was the first woman to head the service’s storied academy. Meanwhile, Borgschulte will be the first Marine to head the academic institution in its 180-year history.

Davids’ tenure at the academy was shorter than usual and, in that time, the institution had become a focus for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his campaign against topics and materials that the Trumpf junta considers “woke.”

Links:

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/4249504/secretary-of-defense-general-and-flag-officer-announcements-for-july-18-2025/

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/07/18/naval-academy-superintendent-first-woman-post-replaced-early-marine-general.html

EPA Eliminating Its Scientific Research Arm

President Nixon signing the Clean Water Act, 1972

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that it would eliminate its scientific research arm and begin firing hundreds of chemists, biologists, toxicologists and other scientists, after denying for months that it intended to do so. The Trumpf junta is forging ahead with efforts to slash the federal work force and dismantle federal agencies after the Supreme Court allowed these plans to proceed while legal challenges unfold. Government scientists have been particular targets of the administration’s large-scale layoffs.

The decision to dismantle the EPA’s Office of Research and Development had been widely expected since March. But until Friday, the Trumpf junta maintained that no final decisions had been made.

This was a perfect time to make this announcement and is consistent with the junta’s plans to enshittify the US and stupidify Americans. These scientists and researchers will be welcome in Canada, the UK, and the EU.

FEMA Head of Search and Rescue Operations Resigns in Disgust

Ken Pagurek talks to CNN after searching the rubble of a collapsed condo in Surfside, FL, in 2021 (Image:  
CNN)

The head of FEMA’s Urban Search and Rescue branch, which runs a network of teams stationed across the country that can swiftly respond to natural disasters, resigned on Monday.

Ken Pagurek’s departure comes less than three weeks after a delayed FEMA response to catastrophic flooding in central Texas caused by bureaucratic hurdles put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the disaster response agency.

Pagurek told colleagues at FEMA that the delay was the tipping point that led to his voluntary departure after months of frustration with the Trumpf junta’s efforts to dismantle the agency. It took more than 72 hours after the flooding for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to authorize the deployment of FEMA’s search and rescue network.

After spending more than a decade with FEMA’s urban search and rescue system, including about a year as its chief, Pagurek said in his resignation letter that he was returning to the Philadelphia Fire Department and did not mention the Texas flooding.

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/21/politics/fema-search-and-rescue-chief-resigns

Trumpf Junta Fires Another Unqualified DOD Staffer

Another goniff hired and fired by the Trumpf junta.

A senior Pentagon staffer and adviser to Pete Hegseth has been ousted, marking at least the sixth person under the Defense Secretary to quit within his first six months in office.

Justin Fulcher, who recently made headlines after accusing a colleague of calling the Pentagon police on him, will no longer serve as a senior adviser to Hegseth.

Fulcher previously ran a telehealth startup called RingMD that went bankrupt. He seemingly overstated his credentials before he was hired to work at DOGE, including claiming a doctorate in international relations and affairs from Johns Hopkins University.

Links:

Justin Fulcher, who alleged colleague called the cops on him, fired by Pete Hegseth | The Independent

Another top Hegseth adviser leaves the Pentagon

Trumpf Junta Defies World Health Organization (WHO)

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a Joint Statement of formal rejection by the US of the 2024 International Heath Regulations (IHR) Amendments by the WHO.

The amended IHR would give the WHO the ability to order global lockdowns, travel restrictions, or any other measures it sees fit to respond to nebulous “potential public health risks.” These regulations are set to become binding if not rejected by 19 Jul 2025, regardless of the US withdrawal from the WHO.

“The proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations open the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic,” Secretary Kennedy said. “The US can cooperate with other nations without jeopardizing our civil liberties, without undermining our Constitution, and without ceding away America’s treasured sovereignty.”

Secretary Kennedy also released a video explaining the action to the American people.

Link: HHS & State Department: The United States Rejects Amendments to International Health Regulations | HHS.gov

The Making America Great Again (MAGA) Base That Supports Dummkopf Trumpf

Trumpf’s approval rating, according to the latest from The Economist (22 July 2025):

Unsure: 4%

Favorable: 41%

Unfavorable: 55%

No matter what distractions and dysfunctional decisions the junta makes, the Jeffrey Epstein FBI files will continue to drive Dotard Trumpf nuts. Journalists that ask him about the files will be banned from the White House and Trumpf will ask conservative media allies to discuss issues other than this sordid affair. The junta will create more international distractions and diversions, possibly getting more innocent people killed in the Middle East or Africa. Meanwhile, Putin’s protege in the White House is allowing Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin to continue their vicious murderous campaign against Palestinians and Ukrainians.

China’s Political Warfare in Canada

The Government of Canada informs:

Canada has long been a target of China’s United Front influence campaign. Important ethnic Chinese organizations have been effectively taken over by Beijing, as have most Chinese language media. Chinese embassies and consulates monitor the Chinese ethnic community and coordinate United Front activities.

Link: https://www.canada.ca/en/security-intelligence-service/corporate/publications/hybrid-methods-in-the-grey-zone/beijings-political-warfare-canada-tracking-footprints-united-front-work-department.html

Conservative MP for Wellington-Halton Hills Michael Chong prepares to appear as a witness at the standing committee on procedure and House affairs on foreign election interference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on 16 May. (Photo: Spencer Colby / The Canadian Press)

The USCC informs:

“China uses “United Front” work to co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The CCP’s United Front Work Department (UFWD)—the agency responsible for coordinating these kinds of influence operations—mostly focuses on the management of potential opposition groups inside China, but it also has an important foreign influence mission. To carry out its influence activities abroad, the UFWD directs “overseas Chinese work,” which seeks to co-opt ethnic Chinese individuals and communities living outside China, while a number of other key affiliated organizations guided by China’s broader United Front strategy conduct influence operations targeting foreign actors and states. Some of these entities have clear connections to the CCP’s United Front strategy, while others’ linkage is less explicit.”

Dr. Lining “Larry” He (48) resigned from disgraced Andrew Cuomo’s NYC mayoralty campaign. He denied any ties to the Chinese Communist Party. “I’ve never been an asset beholden to the Chinese government,” He said.  (Photo: Kings County Democratic County Committee / ‘X’)

Link: Andrew Cuomo campaign aide worked for companies tied to CCP

Globally, Beijing has established Confucian Institutes to spread CCP influence, as well as covert police stations in North America to monitor dissent amongst the Chinese community, including French-speaking Quebec.

Link: Canadian police investigate Chinese ‘police stations’ in Quebec

CCP Mouchards (AKA Police Spies or ‘Wu Maos’)

Low-level CCP or UFWD operatives on the internet (AKA trolls) or those eavesdropping on conversations in bars, restaurants, classrooms, social settings, parks, or schools are ‘Wu Maos,” which translates roughly as ‘50 cents party workers.’ These Wu Maos defend CCP positions over Tibet, Taiwan, or the Uighurs, and report back to their handlers who the enemies of the CCP are. Coriolanus has witnessed Wu Maos in action on several occasions in North America.  

Sources:

Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions – Final Report Vol. 1 (January 2025)

China’s Overseas United Front Work: Background and Implications for the United States | U.S.- CHINA | ECONOMIC and SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION

RCMP opens investigation into claims China intimidated MP Chong | CBC News

CONFIRMED: China Interfered in Canadian Elections – Encounter TodayCanadian police investigate Chinese ‘police stations’ in Quebec

Russia: Putin Launches Spy App to Keep Russians in ‘Digital Gulag’

Russian police push protesters back during a demonstration against President Vladimir Putin in Pushkin Square in Moscow, Russia, Saturday, 5 May 2018. (Photo: AP / Pavel Golovkin)

WhatsApp is to be banned and replaced with Max, which incorporates permanent snooping technology and will be installed on all digital devices sold in Russia.

The app, which was test-launched in March, was developed on Vladimir Putin’s orders and provides online messaging, video calls, mobile payments, social networking and access to government services. It was developed by the Kremlin-controlled company VK. Under a new law, it will be installed on every digital device that is sold in Russia from 1 Sep.

Critics have described it as a “spy program” that installs snooping software on a user’s smartphone that remains in place even after the app is removed. It is being seen as Russia’s equivalent to China’s WeChat app, which Beijing uses for online surveillance and censorship.

“[Max] is interested in where the user was, who they called or wrote to, including through other messengers, what crypto wallets and bank accounts they have, as well as what purchases they made, what cafés they visited and what they surfed for on the internet,” wrote Red Binder, a Russian Telegram channel that focuses on online issues.

Data that is collected by Max will be easily accessible to the FSB security services and Kremlin agents might even be able to monitor online conversations in real time,

Andrey Okun, a Russian opposition journalist, called Max a key component in the Kremlin’s plans to construct a “digital gulag”, a reference to Soviet labor camps. “This will be a sterile space in which the authorities have complete control over the leisure time, motives and thoughts of citizens.”

When Putin came to power 25 years ago, about 1% of Russians were online and the Kremlin paid little attention to the internet. Even in 2010 Putin was largely dismissive of its potential, describing it as “50 per cent porn material” and claiming never to have been online.

By 2011, when the first large anti-Putin protests broke out in Moscow, one in two people had access to the internet and foreign websites such as YouTube and Facebook became the opposition movement’s most potent weapons. Putin realized that, if left untamed, the internet could destroy him. “[The internet] is a CIA project,” he claimed in 2014, without providing evidence.

The surprising revelation in this development is that KGB veteran Vladimir Putin didn’t think of this earlier. Either way, this gives Putin another tool to crack down on dissent. The Max app will probably be available in neighboring Belarus, to fellow despot Oleksandr Lukashenko’s delight.

Source:

Putin launches spy app to keep Russians in ‘digital gulag’

Archived link:

Putin launches spy app to keep Russians in ‘digital gulag’

Russophile American Father of Three Sent to Russia’s Frontline Against Ukraine

Derek Huffman (46), his wife DeAnna and three daughters.

A Texan father who uprooted his family to Russia in a bid to escape ‘woke America’ has reportedly been sent to the front lines of the brutal war in Ukraine to fight for Putin.

Derek Huffman (46) moved with his wife DeAnna, their three daughters and the family husky to the small town of Istra, near Moscow, earlier this year after claiming the US had become overrun by ‘woke ideology’.

The family took advantage of a Kremlin-backed visa programme aimed at attracting Westerners who reject liberal ideals – something Mr Huffman called ‘a fresh start in a country that respects family values.’

But the American expat’s dream of a quieter life in Russia has taken a dramatic turn.

Initially promised a non-combat role in the Russian military – first as a welder, then a war correspondent – Mr. Huffman now finds himself alarmingly close to the battlefield, according to his wife.

DeAnna Huffman said her husband felt he was being ‘thrown to the wolves’ given that he had only received a limited amount of training, and that it was in Russian. She added that her husband, who only had minimal instruction before being deployed, is ‘leaning on faith’ to survive, as the family awaits news in fear.

The last message they received from him came on Father’s Day in June. In a video clip, Mr Huffman appears in full camouflage, speaking directly to his children.  

Derek Huffman wanted to FAFO now in his military uniform.

Russian forces lose approximately 1,000 soldiers a day in human wave or ‘meat attacks’ against staunch Ukrainian defenders protecting their homeland. Followers of the Watch will recall that another ‘useful idiot,’ the son of a CIA officer, was killed fighting against Ukraine. In the English vernacular ‘FAFO’ means ‘Fuck Around, Find Out.’ Imbecile Derek Huffman and his family are now in the ‘FO’ portion of this equation.

An international arrest warrant issued by the ICC for war crimes remains active for Russia President Vladimir Putin. An indictment is merely an allegation. All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

Sources:

Father-of-three who fled to Russia to escape ‘woke’ America ‘is sent to the front line to fight for Putin’ | Daily Mail Online

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and

134 Passengers Aboard Royal Caribbean International Ship Stricken with Illness

Royal Caribbean International’s ship Navigator of the Seas.

The CDC informs that 134 passengers on board the Royal Caribbean International Navigator of the Seas suffered from gastrointestinal illness:

Cruise line: Royal Caribbean International

Cruise ship: Navigator of the Seas

Voyage dates: 4 July 2025–11 July 2025

Voyage number: 23491

Date outbreak reported to VSP: 11 July 2025

Number of passengers who reported being ill during the voyage out of total number of passengers onboard: 134 of 3,914 (3.4%)

Number of crew who reported being ill during the voyage out of total number of crew onboard: 7 of 1,266 (0.6%)

Predominant symptoms: Diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal cramps

Causative agent: Unknown

Trumpf Junta Cut CDC Budget for Cruise Ship Health Inspections

Thanks to Dummkopf Trumpf, all full-time employees at the CDC Vessel Sanitation Program have been laid off. A group of about 12 US Public Health Service (USPHS) officers will remain. According to one AI estimate, on any given day in 2025 approximately 360,000 to 430,000 passengers are likely on US cruises, based on estimated US passenger volume, ship capacities, and operational patterns.

Links:

Trump administration lays off cruise ship inspectors despite recent outbreaks – pennlive.com

About Vessel Sanitation Program | Vessel Sanitation Program | CDC

https://www.cdc.gov/vessel-sanitation/cruise-ship-outbreaks/navigator-of-the-seas-july-2025.html

Afghans Who Loyally Served With US Military in Peril

Interpreter Abdul Qader Zaman with US Army MSG Terry Best.

DHS has ended Temporary Protective Status (TPS) for Afghans. Since last summer, more than 76,000 Afghans have arrived in the US. Many of those fled the country on flights in the chaotic weeks before the US fully withdrew from Afghanistan in late August. They include former interpreters, NGO workers, and soldiers who worked with American and NATO forces during the 20-year war. If Afghans here under TPS status do not self-deport, ICE will detain them and then send them back to the waiting hands of the Taliban.

Link: DHS Terminating Temporary Protected Status for Afghanistan | Homeland Security

An Afghan interpreter went to a routine green card appointment has already fallen victim to ICE. Identified only as ‘Zia S’, the 35-year-old husband and father of five who entered the US in October 2024 with a visa issued by US authorities was arrested and taken away in a van after a routine biometrics appointment for his green card in East Hartford, Connecticut.

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/23/afghanistan-war-translator-ice-connecticut

Another Afghan Interpreter’s Odyssey

As Kabul fell to the Taliban last August, Abdul Qader Zaman (pictured above) and his family were among the tens of thousands desperately trying to flee the country. With the help of volunteers and veterans from his time as an interpreter for US soldiers, Zaman and his family eventually escaped. For PBS, Hari Sreenivasan reports from Erie, PA, where the Zamans are now beginning life again.

Link: After escaping Kabul, an Afghan interpreter reunites with an American vet | PBS News Weekend

Cruelty Awaits Afghans Who Collaborated with ISAF

An Afghan judge whips a woman in front of a crowd in Ghor Province in 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

An Afghan interpreter named Mohammed Rafi Hottak who is safe for now in the UK says his own life remains in danger after recruiting hundreds of interpreters for the British military in Afghanistan.

He relates the following testimony in a court alleging that interpreters who worked in Iraq are better treated by the UK than those who worked in Afghanistan.

Hottak Mr Hottak describes in a statement to the court how one particular video “broke my heart.”

He says two of the six young men seen having their heads sawn off with a handheld knife were friends and old room-mates specially targeted after they chose to work as interpreters with US forces.

Mr Hottak and another ex-interpreter, referred to as ‘Al,’ are accusing the UK Government of unlawfully failing to offer adequate assistance to former Afghan interpreters who worked for them.

Lord Justice Burnett and Mr Justice Irwin, sitting in London, were told by their barrister Ben Jaffey that each had given “loyal, important, and dangerous service” for the UK armed forces.

As a result both they and their families had suffered serious injuries in Taliban attacks.

But they and other interpreters like them were being discriminated against and given less favorable treatment and assistance than Iraqi interpreters whose lives became endangered working for the British in the Iraq war.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and Ministry of Defense are fighting the claim.

Mr Hottak said while he was working in Kabul in 2007 the UK forces received the body of a dead interpreter.

“Luckily he had not been beheaded. He had just been shot sixty times and whipped with a chain.”

Prisoners of the Taliban awaiting a grim public punishment. (Image: AMU TV)

Statistics from the Taliban’s Supreme Court and statements from officials across Afghanistan indicate that the group publicly flogged 583 people and executed six individuals during 2024.

UN experts, including Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, called on the Taliban to immediately halt all “inhumane punishments” in Afghanistan, including public executions and corporal punishment, after four executions were carried out in a single day last week.

Links:

Taliban Publicly Flogged Nearly 590 Individuals in 2024 | Afghanistan International

UN experts urge Taliban to immediately halt executions and corporal punishments | Amu TV

This is what the Trumpf junta is cruelly doing to Afghans who risked their lives for the US.

Who will trust the word of America ever again?

US: Southwestern Drought Will Last Through 2100

The drought in the Southwestern US is likely to last for the rest of the 21st century and potentially beyond as global warming shifts the distribution of heat in the Pacific Ocean.

The Southwestern US is experiencing a megadrought resulting in the aridification of the landscape, a decades-long drying of the region brought on by climate change and the overconsumption of the region’s water. That’s led to major rivers and their basins, such as the Colorado and Rio Grande rivers, seeing reduced flows and a decline of the water stored in underground aquifers, which is forcing states and communities to reckon with a sharply reduced water supply. Farmers have cut back on the amount of water they use. Cities are searching for new water supplies. And states, tribes, and federal agencies are engaging in tense negotiations over how to manage declining resources like the Colorado River going forward.

Dummkopf Trumpf Wasted California’s Precious Water Earlier This Year

2015 photo of Dotard Trumpf courtesy of CNN.

One of the first blunders Trumpf made as soon as he assumed office was releasing 2.2 billion gallons of precious water from two of California’s reservoirs to fight the Los Angeles wildfires, against the wishes of Governor Gavin Newsom and the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Link: https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/03/climate/trump-california-water-dams-reservoirs

“Hey, Mexico! There’s a Hole on Your Side of the Boat!”

Source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/

Then the Trumpf junta selfishly denied a special request from Mexico for the delivery of Colorado River water to the city of Tijuana — marking the first such denial in 81 years. Justifying the decision, the US State Department blamed Mexico for failing to abide by the terms of a historic water partnership accord signed between the two nations in 1944.

Link: https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5211310-trump-administration-denies-water-request-colorado-river-mexico/

Mexico has been undergoing a severe drought for several years now and shouldn’t be blamed for having less water to go around. Mexican rescue workers came to the help of the 4 July flood victims in Texas before US FEMA teams arrived to help.

More than two dozen Mexicans came to Central Texas to help with recovery efforts after the 4 July flood. Firefighters with the Mountain Home Fire Department worked with them for six days, searching for missing people in the Guadalupe River. (Photo: Greta Díaz González Vázquez / KUT News)

Unstoppable Desertification

As you read previously on Coriolanus, the world’s oceans are dying. Global climate change is slowing destroying the earth and causing mass migration from arid areas to moister regions. Unless mankind takes drastic steps now to lower greenhouse gas emissions, plant more trees, use natural sources of power like wind, solar, and tidal, and guard our precious water, the earth will continue getting warmer and drier, leading to increased desertification of the planet, more powerful storms, and toxic ocean waters.

Links:

https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/2c39108f-9ab7-11e8-a408-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

Southwestern drought likely to continue through 2100, research finds

Followers of the Watch That Are Aficionados of Grappling

On a grass field slick with olive oil and steeped in tradition, hundreds of boys as young as 11 joined the ranks of Turkiye’s most time-honored sporting event: the annual Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling Championship.

Held every summer in the northwestern city of Edirne (once the capital of the Ottoman Empire), the event is said to date back to the 14th century as a way of keeping the Ottoman Empire’s fighting men fit and ready for battle.

The sport, which is on UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list, sees wrestlers cover themselves in olive oil and try to press their opponent’s back to the ground to win the bout.

Alongside the men contesting, youngsters also don the iconic “kispet” leather trousers to embark on a slippery test of strength, skill and stamina under the scorching sun.

A young wrestler is doused in oil during the 664th annual Historic Kirkpinar Oil Wrestling championship, in Edirne, northwestern Turkey, Sunday, 6 July 2025. (Photo: Khalil Hamra / AP)

The boys are ranked in divisions based on age, height and build, with the youngest generally placed in the “minik,” or tiny, category. Under strict safety regulations, their matches are shorter and closely supervised.

Most young wrestlers train year-round at local clubs, often in towns where oil wrestling is passed down through generations.

While the youngest competitors aren’t wrestling for titles like “baspehlivan,” the grand champion of the men’s matches, their participation is no less significant as it is key to the continuity of a sport that holds deep cultural importance across Turkey.

This year’s contest — the 664th in its history — saw 36-year-old Orhan Okulu win his third men’s title.

“My goal was the golden belt in Kirkpinar and thanks to my God, I succeeded,” Okulu said of the coveted prize.

Link: https://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/photos-show-turkey-s-youngest-oil-wrestlers-20760276.php

The Greatest Wrestler of All Time

The undefeated Gama is often considered the greatest wrestler who ever lived.

Born in Amritsar of undivided India in 1878, Gama is often considered the greatest wrestler who ever lived and the man who inspired Bruce Lee.

Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt (22 May 1878 – 23 May 1960), commonly known by the title Rustam-e-Hind and by the ring name The Great Gama, was a pehlwani wrestler and strongman in British India and later, Pakistan. In the early 20th century, he was an undefeated wrestling champion of British India for 52 years.

Read about his matches with Europe’s champions here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gama

Bruce Lee adopted the Great Gama’s training techniques, amongst other skills.

Link: https://www.olympics.com/en/news/who-is-the-great-gama-pehlwan-india-wrestler

Sleepy Kittens

Followers of the Watch, Coriolanus returns to the stage next week. Until then, please look after yourselves and enjoy this wonderful First Violinist:

Brutal Police State in America Worsens Under Racist Trump Junta

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/massachusetts-police-hold-girls-face-ground-ice-arrests-mother-video-s-rcna205798/

Being Palestinian is Becoming Illegal in America

Note the language in this Justice Department Press Release:

“Palestinian Nationals Charged With Unlawful Possession Of Firearms And Ammunition”

“Mohammed Aburidi (24, Palestinian) and Tareq Aburidi (19, Palestinian) with possessing firearms and ammunition as aliens admitted to the US on nonimmigrant visas. If convicted, each faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in federal prison. An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.” 

The press release reads “Palestinian Nationals…” and not “Two Florida Men…” Imagine if Justice Department statements read “Two Black Men….” There is no reason for this brazen language in the document other than to imply that the two defendants have an inherent ‘mens rea’ simply for being Palestinian.

Press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-mdfl/pr/palestinian-nationals-charged-unlawful-possession-firearms-and-ammunition

Trumpf Junta Calls for 20,000 Deportation Officers

Excerpted from the Presidential Proclamation Establishing Project Homecoming, dated 9 May 2025:

“The Secretary of Homeland Security shall supplement existing enforcement and removal operations by deputizing and contracting with State and local law enforcement officers, former Federal officers, officers and personnel within other Federal agencies, and other individuals to increase the enforcement and removal operations force of the Department of Homeland Security by no less than 20,000 officers in order to conduct an intensive campaign to remove illegal aliens who have failed to depart voluntarily.”

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will pay illegal aliens a stipend of $1,000 to self-deport back to their home country through the CBP Home App, paid after their return home has been confirmed. DHS will also provide travel assistance to self-deportees. This program will decrease the costs of a deportation by approximately 70%. Currently the average cost to arrest, detain, and remove an illegal alien is $17,121.”

Source: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/05/05/dhs-announces-historic-travel-assistance-and-stipend-voluntary-self-deportation

This insurrectionist above proudly carried the symbol of white supremacy, the Confederate flag, into the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. He and the other rabble that attacked Congress that day were all later pardoned by President Dotard Trumpf and treated as “patriots.”

Is this Latina voter above one of the tens of thousands of people who now regret voting for Dotard Trumpf?

America’s Local Police Forces Already Assisting ICE

More than 100 people have been taken into custody by ICE in a joint operation with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, leaving many in Nashville’s immigrant community uncertain and worried.

“None of us have ever seen anything like this,” said Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

The Highway Patrol made 588 stops in the joint operation with ICE, which took custody of 103 under investigation for immigration violations. The operation with ICE is a reminder of how local and state law enforcement jurisdictions are critical to the Trumpf junta’s plans for mass deportations. Last week, Florida officials touted a joint operation with ICE that resulted in 1,120 immigration arrests.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-arrests-nashville-ice-tennessee-0fe523bc9d0ed143e105da0e96ad0c6c

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) plans to collect photographs of everyone leaving the US for Mexico or Canada by car. The photographs will then be matched to the images in the passengers’ passports, visas, or travel documents.

The agency is “still working on how to handle outbound vehicle lanes.”

The new face-scanning initiative may be intended to track self-deportation by undocumented persons, something the Trumpf junta is promoting. Photos will be used to verify later crossings into the US.

Source: https://www.pcmag.com/news/driving-to-mexico-or-canada-us-will-snap-pics-of-everyone-in-your-car

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka.

Dr. Martin Luther King was arrested approximately 30 times before a white supremacist assassinated him on 4 Apr 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/nyregion/newark-ice-protest-lawmakers-ras-baraka.html

Archived link: https://archive.ph/NUsIJ

“Make America White Again”

Dotard Trumpf is attempting to reverse the demographic trend that will make white Americans a minority in the country. To that end he has been conducting mass deportations, removing books from federal or military libraries that promote diversity, and firing competent people of color in government. To that end, his latest victim of thousands is Carla Hayden, the longtime head of the Library of Congress, in a move that Democratic lawmakers panned as “callous” and “ignorant.”

Carla Hayden had one year left in her ten-year appointment, but Trumpf cruelly took that away from her.

First Afrikaner Refugees Coming to US Next Week

Afrikaners outside one of the US missions in South Africa.

To further his goal of making America white again, Trumpf is bringing the first group of white South Africans it has classified as refugees to the US early next week. Trumpf cruelly halted virtually all other refugee admissions shortly after he took office in January, but the junta hastily put together a program to admit Afrikaners, who he claims have been the victims of racial persecution in their home country. The junta plans to send government officials to Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia for a gala event to celebrate the arrival of white people to America.

Sources:

za.usembassy.gov

Trumpf Junta Good at Fascism, Terrible at Everything Else

Trumpf Fires FEMA Chief as Hurricane Season Nears

With three weeks before hurricane season begins, Trump fired the acting head of FEMA, Cameron Hamilton. His sin was contradicting Trump when he said: “I do not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate FEMA.” Hamilton was deployed four times overseas as a USN SEAL before he worked for the State Department and DHS. Trump’s budget proposes a $644 million cut to FEMA. Trump was sharply critical of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene, a devastating storm that killed 250 people and inflicted $78.7 billion in damage from Florida to North Carolina.

One of the biggest factors for tropical development in 2025 is the abundance of warm water available to fuel storms. Water temperatures across the ocean, as well as in the Gulf and Caribbean, are already well above historical averages, and they will continue to run warm throughout most of the year, as you could see from the satellite imagery above. This will prime storms for explosive development.

Firing the head of FEMA and slashing its budget will hurt hurricane and flood-prone areas, affecting Red States more than the Blue States. As you could see below, historic amounts of rainfall in April has caused flooding in the Tennessee, Ohio, and middle Mississippi valleys. Runoff from that rain is just now surging through the lowest portion of the Mississippi River and will lead to moderate to high flood levels in some areas, including Baton Rouge, LA.

Sources:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/08/donald-trumps-administration-fires-fema-administrator-cam-hamilton/83517764007/

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2025/04/25/weather-tennessee-ohio-mississippi-valleys-flood-risk-april-2025/6401745616716/

Trumpf Has Skipped All But Twelve Daily Intelligence Briefings

So Why Does Trumpf Want Boxes and Boxes of Classified Documents?

After losing the 2020 election, Dotard Trumpf hoarded thousands of boxes of classified White House documents and stored them improperly at his palatial estate in Mar-a-Lago, FL, which lead to a special counsel investigation. Because of corrupt Republican judges like Aileen Cannon, Special Counsel Jack Smith was unable to convict Trumpf of this breach. The classified documents were returned to the White House or to secure archives during the Biden Administration.

Boxes are loaded onto Air Force One before Dotard Trumpf’s departure at Joint Base Andrews, MD, on Friday, 28 Feb 2025. (Photo:
Luis M. Alvarez / AP)

After Dotard Trumpf re-won the White House on 5 Nov 2024, he ordered his staff to re-take those boxes of classified documents (and possibly other items) back to his Mar-a-Lago compound, which does not have enough GSA-approved safes for all of those secret documents– re-perpetrating his Original Sin.

So, if Trumpf doesn’t enjoy receiving these invaluable PDBs, why is he illegally storing them and other secrets unsafely in Florida, and where does he get his information from?

Trumpf’s Main Source of Information is TV

FBI Director Kashyap Patel Completely In Over His Head

The most under-qualified man to ever lead the FBI attends intelligence briefings twice per week, similar to Dotard Trumpf blithely ignoring national security issues. Moreover Congress recently exposed Kashyap Patel’s incompetence, lack of professionalism, and petulance. Below Kashyap Patel attends a budget meeting without a budget:

‘You Have No Timeline?!’ Senator Gobsmacked by FBI Director Kash Patel Showing Up at Budget Hearing Without a Budget

Mediaite (@mediaitenews.bsky.social) 2025-05-08T14:56:36Z

Below, watch Kashyap Patel melt down after US Congresswoman Madeleine Dean (D-PA, 4th CD) accused him of committing perjury during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year. When Patel became obnoxious and belligerent, Congresswoman Dean ends by saying “sadly, this is an unserious moment for the FBI.”

What would this man think of Kashyap Patel?

Sources:

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/09/trump-intelligence-briefing-frequency-00338946

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/kash-patels-new-way-leading-fbi-fewer-morning-intel-briefings-sports-e-rcna202865

https://www.mic.com/impact/jan-6-video-trump-tv

https://trumpgolftrack.com/

Incompetent Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard

Hare Krishna offshoot cult member DNI Tulsi Gabbard issued a collection emphasis message to intelligence agency heads to learn more about Greenland’s independence movement and attitudes on American resource extraction on the island. Astonishingly, the most under-qualified person to ever lead the ODNI used the same easily cracked password for different online accounts over a period of several years. 

Directing intelligence collection on Greenland is a monumental waste of time and resources for the USIC, but reflects Trumpf’s idiotic ambitions to absorb the landmass one day. Tulsi Gabbard’s simpleton password use means that her personal communications may have been compromised by nefarious actors or volunteers from Anonymous. She has already fired 100 or so USIC analysts for alleged inappropriate use of secure chat rooms when a reprimand would have sufficed. This rank amateur and member of the ‘Science of Identity Foundation’ (SIF), a notoriously homophobic and Islamophobic cult, has absolutely no business whatsoever leading the USIC.

Archived links: WSJ.com, wired.com, https://www.culteducation.com/group/1298-science-of-identity/36770-tulsi-gabbard-s-ties-to-secretive-cult-may-explain-her-perplexing-political-journey.html

India’s Influence in White House Could Begin to Parallel AIPAC’s

JD Vance and his Hindu wife and father-in-law in India.

Don’t Believe Coriolanus About India’s Influence in the White House?

VPOTUS JD Vance and family enjoying an American taxpayer-funded vacation to India.

Hindu cult member DNI Tulsi Gabbard with Hindu nationalist India PM Narendra Modi.

Two Islamophobes meet in the White House.

The world’s worst person laughs with rightwing Hindu nationalist PM Narendra Modi.

Followers of the Watch are aware from previous posts that PM Narendra Modi has signed death warrants for Sikh separatists in Canada and the US. One Sikh activist was killed in Canada, while another one in NYC was saved.

Source: https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/India/india-pakistan-tensions-kash-patel-says-fbi-will-continue-offering-full-support-to-pm-modi-govt-top-updates/ar-AA1DGBwC

The CDC informs: “As of 8 May 2025, a total of 1,001 confirmed measles cases were reported by 31 jurisdictions: Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, NYC, NYS, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.”

Source: https://www.cdc.gov/measles/data-research/index.html

National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya sent shockwaves through the autism community by announcing the creation of a “disease registry” to track autistic people. Nazi Germany used such a list to identify possibly hundreds of autistic children to be killed in experimental “euthanasia” clinics. Until the 1970s, numerous US states used registries to identify disabled people to be subjected to forced sterilization and institutionalization. A number of states still maintain lists of autists. “The history there is deeply, deeply disturbed,” says Larkin Taylor-Parker, legal director of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “It doesn’t usually end well for us. It has ended in murder, industrial-scale incarceration and murder.” 

Source: https://www.nih.gov/

Violent White Americans Rampage Unchecked

White NYS Town Official Shoots Door Dash Deliveryman

The Economics of John J. Reilly III’s Folly

The median value of a home in Chester, NY is $399,000, the median household income is $147,000, and the average annual salary for a Highway Superintendent in New York State is $129,718. In essence, John J. Reilly III was living, pardon the pun, the Life of Riley in his 64% white majority hamlet of 12,588 people while enjoying his well-paying sinecure. But that wasn’t enough for John J. Reilly III, so he also sold firearms using his FFL. But Mr. Reilly is being investigated by the ATF after he shot the poor guy in the back with an illegal weapon.

BLUF: This imbecile had it real good until he tripped over his own hatred and racism. Now the ATF is dismantling John J. Reilly III’s firearm trafficking business, he will lose his $129,718 per annum sinecure, and he will be facing state and federal charges. This dope threw away his life away “protecting his property.”

In an average year, 870 people die and 2,607 are wounded by guns in New York. Throughout the US, every eleven minutes someone is murdered with a firearm. This deliveryman is lucky to be alive after being shot in the back by this lunatic.

Sources:

https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/chestertownorangecountynewyork/PST045223

https://troopers.ny.gov/news/new-york-state-police-arrest-chester-man-following-doordash-shooting-incident

White Tesla Driver Arrested Again for Road Rage and Assault

Tesla driver Nathaniel Radimak (38), who was charged with attacking motorists’ vehicles with a pipe in the Los Angeles area, has been arrested again for allegedly assaulting two women during a road rage incident in Honolulu. The recent arrest comes less than a year after this lunatic was released from prison for the California road attacks. A woman, 18, was parking her vehicle downtown when she saw a gray Tesla speeding past. The woman and Radimak “exchanged words” before he got out of the Tesla and assaulted the woman and her mother. Radimak then fled in his gray 2022 Tesla with Oregon license plates and was located in Waikiki. Charges are pending. 

Nathaniel Radimak was originally sentenced to a five-year prison term, but was released on parole after serving less than one year, as confirmed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The CDCR states his early release was “after serving his full sentence as defined by law.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/tesla-road-rage-honolulu-los-angeles-arrest-91b436b256fc8eb6897041b41c54a8a8

Harper Magazine’s Weekly Review 6 May 2025

US Attorney General Pam Bondi stated that border agents stopped more than 22 million fentanyl-laced pills from crossing into the US, effectively saving 258 million lives or around three quarters of the population; and the Trumpf junta’s preliminary budget proposed to cut a program that would expand access to the overdose antidote naloxone. Mike Waltz was fired as the national security advisor and replaced by Marco Rubio, who is now the interim national security advisor, the secretary of state, the acting administrator of USAID, and the acting archivist for the National Archives and Records Administration. “Too much,” said a Virginia senator of Rubio’s roles. It was reported that the US economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025, which marks the country’s first economic downturn in three years. “The bad parts,” said Dotard Trumpf, “are the Biden economy.” General Motors announced that it was due to lose between $4 billion and $5 billion in annual revenue; American Airlines announced a $473 million net loss for the first quarter of 2025; the US Navy lost a Super Hornet fighter jet, which costs more than $60 million, after it fell overboard from the USS Harry S Truman into the Red Sea; and millions of dimes rolled onto a highway in Wise County, Texas, after the truck transporting them tipped over. Junta supremo Trumpf said that he does not “rule out” using military force to take control of Greenland; the Department of Justice sued Hawaii and Michigan over their plans to sue fossil fuel companies for their contributions to the climate crisis; the White House issued an executive order demanding that the board of directors for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, three of whose members the president sought to fire in a separate executive order, “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS”; a report on press freedom ranked the US 57th on its freedom index, on par with Gambia and Uruguay; and Sovereignty edged out Journalism to win the Kentucky Derby.

Some twenty armed federal agents busted into an Oklahoma City home and seized the laptops, phones, and life savings of the family living there, even though their names did not match those of the suspects listed on the officers’ search warrant; and ICE agents raided the house of an Irvine, California, couple whose son has been accused of doxxing agents, but had moved to New York months ago. A group of Jewish men in New York chased, kicked, and threw a traffic cone at a woman they mistakenly assumed was a protester agitating against the arrival of Israel’s national security minister. A man was arrested in an Israeli airport for his connection to a 2022 cryptocurrency hack that nearly destroyed a California blockchain company; kidnappers in Paris chopped off the finger of a Frenchman and demanded that his son, a cryptocurrency millionaire, pay ransom four months after a co-founder of a crypto firm was abducted and had his own finger cut off in central France; and it was reported that a Japanese woman cut off her boyfriend’s ring finger with an axe after having allegedly snipped off his nipple with a pair of scissors three weeks prior. “I heard,” said the boyfriend, “that nipples regenerate.”

A California railroad executive was found guilty of embezzling funds to build a secret apartment in the Burlingame train station, and a London man traveling by train to court to face thirty-six counts of train fare evasion was stopped by transit authorities for traveling without a ticket. A British man received an eight-month suspended sentence for setting fire to his own house twice in one night; a man who had been rescued from Mount Fuji after suffering from altitude sickness was rescued a second time after returning to the mountain in search of his phone; and a man who allegedly killed another man on a basketball court in Louisiana returned to the scene of the crime wearing nothing but a towel. A man in Pennsylvania broke into a Mormon church while in the nude, and a naked man was arrested trying to break into a home in Flagler County, Florida. “Attempting to break into a home without your britches,” said the sheriff, “is not an encounter you want to have with law enforcement.” It was reported that the president of the Art Institute of Chicago stripped on a flight to Europe, a strip club in Detroit was shuttered after a cellphone video of twenty kids partying inside was discovered by one of their mothers, Google announced plans to introduce an AI chatbot for children, and the US president posted an AI-generated blasphemous photo of himself as the pope. “I’m fine,” said US VPOTUS JD Vance, “with people telling jokes.” —Megan Evershed

Our deepest appreciation to Megan Evershed and the esteemed staff at the venerable Harper’s Magazine for this invaluable weekly synopsis chronicling the insanity, inanity, and inhumanity besetting the world.

Chimpanzee Asks For Help Drinking Water, Then Washes Man’s Hands

“This is America”

Followers of the Watch: The vignettes below will inform you of the real state and nature of America.

Two Mass Shooting Survivors Speak

Ms Stephanie Horowitz survived two mass shootings, the 2018 massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School by Nikolas Cruz and the recent Florida State University attack when Phoenix Ikner killed two students and wounded six.  

Jackie Matthews

Jackie Matthews survived the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people in Newtown, CT, and she survived the 13 Feb 2023 attack at Michigan State University which killed three students.

“I am 21 years old, and this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through. The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible.”

In a now-deleted clip, Ms. Mathews detailed how she suffered a post-traumatic stress disorder fracture in her back because of what happened in 2012, something that still affects her to this day.

Only America can claim the ignimonious achievement of people surviving multiple mass shootings.

Mass Shooter Kills 22 Reportedly for Dotard Trumpf

Mass murderer Patrick Crusius was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing 22 people at a Wal-Mart in El Paso, Texas. His defense attorney Joe Spencer testified:

“While Patrick claimed in his manifesto that his views predated the then-president (Donald Trumpf) and that political figures were not to blame, he also explicitly stated the attack was a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas, echoing the language used by political figures. Indeed, Patrick believed he was acting at the direction of the president at the time, seeing it as his duty to stop the invasion because that’s what he believed [Trumpf] was telling him.”

Florida Killer Phoenix Ikner Trumpf Supporter

Nikolas Cruz, the 2018 Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School murderer is a Trumpf supporter as well. He wore his bright red MAGA hat to a funeral.

Nikolas Cruz mugshot.

Nikolas Cruz in his Trumpf MAGA hat practicing how to shoot and kill. (Montage: Public domain)

Lunatic Sets Fire to Pennsylvania Governor’s Mansion

Cody Balmer (38) is charged with attempted murder, aggravated arson, burglary, terrorism, and related offenses for allegedly setting fire to Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D-PA) governor’s mansion on 13 Apr 2025. (Photo: Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office)

Cody Balmer allegedly set fire to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s mansion out of hatred for him. The damage was extensive and luckily no one was injured in the inferno. How this maniac was able to penetrate the defenses of the governor’s mansion is unclear. In 2024 Gov. Shapiro was on Kamala Harris’ short-list for VPOTUS candidate and he may run himself in 2028.

Inside the governor’s mansion after the fire. (Photo: Pennsylvania State Police)

Police State Under Trumpf Worsens

German teens Charlotte Pohl and Maria Lepere (Photo Credits: X/ @MarioNawfal)

Two teenage girls from Germany were detained, arrested, and deported at an airport in Hawaii after immigration officials said it was suspicious they had not booked a hotel room. But despite having ESTA travel authorization, immigration officials accused them of attempting to enter the US. to work illegally, and they were placed in handcuffs and taken to a nearby detention center they later learned was a deportation facility. Upon arrival, they were subjected to full-body scans, strip searches, and forced to wear green prison jumpsuits. They were then placed in a holding facility with serious criminals, including an alleged murderer who had been locked up for 18 years, and were forced to spend the night in a freezing cold double cell.

Migrant Children in Immigration Court Without Lawyers

(Imagery: ABC News)

“The reason we’re here is because the government of the United States wants you to leave the United States,” Judge Ubaid ul-Haq, presiding from a courtroom on Varick Street, told a group of about a dozen children on a recent morning on Webex. “It’s my job to figure out if you have to leave,” ul-Haq continued. “It’s also my job to figure out if you should stay.” The parties included a 7-year-old boy, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a pizza cartoon, who spun a toy windmill while the judge spoke. There was an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old sister, in a tie-dye shirt, who squeezed a pink plushy toy and stuffed it into her sleeve. None of the children were accompanied by parents or attorneys, only shelter workers who helped them log on to the hearing.

The Trumpf junta has been firing immigration judges and legal resources are limited to represent immigrants in court, let alone helpless children.

‘The cruelty is apparent

Canadian Border Agents Fail Family of Four Fleeing America

A family of four from El Salvador crossed the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls to Canada fleeing the ICE raids and sudden deportations sweeping the US. But the CBSA focused on small discrepancies in their paperwork and rejected them, even though they qualified for entry under exception and have a brother who is a Canadian citizen. When the four were disappointingly driven back to the US border, CBP detained them. They have been in custody two weeks now.

Aracely sits with her two daughters, aged four and 14. The three were detained with Aracely’s common-law husband in a holding cell for two weeks at the US port of entry in Niagara Falls, NY, after Canadian border guards turned them away. CBC News is not showing the family’s faces or revealing their full names for safety reasons. (Image: Ousama Farag / CBC)

Canada turns away most asylum seekers who attempt to enter from the US at land border crossings, but there are exceptions to this rule, which this family met. I hope those CBSA officers are happy with themselves knowing that these four vulnerable people, including two girls (4 and 14), will eventually be deported to rightwing-led, impoverished, and gang-infested El Salvador.

(Photo: Al Drago, NYT)

In 2022, 48,000 Americans were killed by gun violence. 2025 or 2026 could be the year the US reaches 50,000 deaths in one year. Now the state is inflicting violence on its people with mass deportations and flagrant violations of due process. Trumpf is inspiring political violence across the US, from mass shootings to arson to vandalizing Felon Musk’s hideous Tesla vehicles. There is a reason why America ranked 24th on the World Happiness Report (below Israel and Mexico) and Dotard Trumpf was recently ranked the worst president of all time. Followers of the Watch, you will see more violence, police brutality, and economic chaos over the next four years as Trumpf shrinks the social safety net, hate radio continues spewing xenophobic lies, and mental illness continues unchecked in the US.

Sources:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2025/03/19/world-happiness-report-2025/82551709007/

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/photos-arson-fire-damages-pennsylvania-governors-residence/4159709/

https://www.unilad.com/news/sandy-hook-michigan-shooting-survivor-604402-20230215

https://www.latestly.com/socially/world/vacation-gone-wrong-2-german-teens-strip-searched-jailed-and-deported-from-us-after-cbp-finds-incomplete-hawaii-travel-plans-suspicious-6797703.html

India: 26 Killed in Terror Attack During VPOTUS JD Vance Trip

At least 26 people have been killed and 36 wounded in Indian-controlled Kashmir in the north after gunmen opened fire at a beauty spot near the resort town of Pahalgam, nicknamed ‘Mini Switzerland.’ Authorities blamed it on the resistance fighting Indian rule which deploys 500,000 soldiers in Kashmir. The attack seemed to have been timed to coincide with JD Vance’s four-day tour of India and PM Nahendra Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Delhi has swiftly taken a series of retaliatory steps: closing the main border crossing, suspending a critical water-sharing treaty, and expelling diplomats.

The massive Indian security force presence in Jammu and Kashmir (500,000 personnel) use shotgun pellets to purposely blind Muslim protestors like Manzoor Ah-Dar below:

Manzoor Ah-Dar poses for a portrait in Rahmoo, Kashmir. Manzoor was injured in both eyes by metal pellets when Indian forces raided the village. (Bernat Armangue/AP)

PM Narendra Modi can blame Pakistan for supporting their fellow Muslims oppressed in Jammu and Kashmir, but poverty and Hindu-supremacist Delhi’s repression of the ‘Other’ is the root cause of unhappiness and strife in India.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwynx7kgyqvo

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy9vyzzyjzlo

 https://www.independent.co.uk

Trumpf Strips Visa for Colombia President Gustavo Petro

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, claimed that the US has withdrawn his visa and that he can no longer enter the country. (Credit: Presidency of Colombia / Flickr)

Dotard Trumpf petulantly stripped Colombia President Gustavo Petro’s visa, preventing him from attending imminent meetings of the IMF and IBRD in the US. The major international snub comes after Trumpf threatened ‘decisive retaliatory measures’ over Colombia’s Jan 2025 refusal to let two US military flights full of deportees land. In a cabinet meeting, President Petro let slip that his nickname for Dotard Trumpf is ‘Donald Duck’ and he took this idiotic snub with aplomb.

Colombia’s Former Colonial Masters Shoot and Burn Trumpf in Effigy

(Public domain photo)

An effigy of Dotard Trumpf was marched through the streets before being shot and burned as part of Easter Sunday celebrations in Spain. Every Easter, locals in the town of Coripe, Seville, string up a Judas’ figure representing a public figure whose actions are deemed to be morally reprehensible’. Video shows the Trumpf doll, sporting a dark navy suit, red tie, and unmistakable shock of blonde hair, leading a town parade at gunpoint before being hung from a tree in the town square and shot at with rifles from close range. The burning of Judas’ effigies is a common ritual amongst Christian communities as part of traditional Easter celebrations.

Coriolanus regrets missing this worthy auto-da-fe.

Sources:

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/donald-trump-effigy-shot-burned-123840954.html

https://colombiaone.com/2025/04/22/colombia-petro-us-visa-trump-donald-duck/

Karma for Puppy-Killing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, infamously known for admitting in her autobiography that she killed her 14-month-old rambunctious puppy, fell victim to a thief while eating dinner at a downtown Washington, DC, restaurant Sunday night. Noem, who was asked about the theft at the White House Easter Egg Roll, acknowledged the incident and said the matter has not been resolved. The Secret Service, which provides security for Noem, reviewed security camera footage at the restaurant and saw an unknown white male wearing a medical mask steal her bag and leave the restaurant, a law enforcement source said. The thief got away with Noem’s driver’s license, medication, apartment keys, passport, DHS access badge, makeup bag, blank checks, and about $3,000 in cash.

Shooting a defenseless, harmless puppy is not only a disqualification from becoming Secretary of Homeland Security, but a disqualification from the human race. The US Senate confirmed her appointment as Secretary with a 59-34 vote. Astonishing.

Coriolanus was intensely curious regarding the contents of Secretary Noem’s stolen handbag. Why she was dining with her passport (official or diplomatic) and blank checks in Washington DC is mystery to your author. One question arose is what medications Secretary Noem is taking and for what condition. Her predilection to animal cruelty and mass deportations of vulnerable people provide a clue.

Having her makeup kit makes sense to maintain Noem’s disguise as a human being.

As Governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem was banned from indigenous lands by the local tribes. At the border in Derby Line, Vermont, Noem taunted Canadians with shouts of “51st state!” and she shamelessly flaunted herself and her jewelry in front of male convicts in a notorious El Salvador prison for a tawdry photo opportunity.

Secretary Noem in a pathetic photo-op in El Salvador on 26 Mar 2025 (Photo: Reuters)

The irony is rich. For a few hours on Sunday, the manifestly under-qualified Secretary Kristi Noem was “undocumented” like the people she has been persecuting. And this architect of fear for millions of vulnerable people was in a frenzied panic in a tony Washington DC bistro like her victims.

Karma, where would we be without you?

Sources:

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s bag, including $3,000 in cash, is stolen from DC restaurant | CNN Politics

https://apnews.com/article/south-dakota-indian-reservation-bans-governor-noem-b55339eb624a119bc571c8b4dab848f4

Trumpf Junta Targets Anti-Christian Bias While Israel Persecutes Christians

In a statement marking Easter before the death of Pope Francis I, Marco Rubio called for “all nations to respect the right of Christians to declare Christ is King. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the king of kings and lord of all nations,” Rubio posted on ‘X’. Rubio’s implication is that Christian freedom of worship is under threat.

The Trumpf junta has ordered State Department employees to report on any instances of coworkers displaying “anti-Christian bias” as part of its effort to implement a sweeping new executive order on supporting employees of Christian faith working in the federal government. Marco Rubio, the most under-qualified person to ever lead the State Department, also asked staffers via official cable to report any perceived discriminatory actions taken against Christians or employees advocating on their behalf between Jan 2021 and Jan 2025.

Moreover, US Attorney-General Pam Bondi announced she is establishing a task force to combat anti-Christian bias in the US.

The Stench of Republican Hypocrisy is Stifling

White supremacist MAGA acolyte Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) from Georgia posted this vile message after Pope Francis I died.

US Attorney-General Pam Bondi did not condemn this anti-Christian message from MTG and worse, SECSTATE Marco Rubio conveniently ignores the fact that for decades Palestinian Christians have been attacked by both Israeli civilians and the IDF.

Theodosios (Atallah Hanna), the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Sebastia, delivers a speech during a demonstration in Beit Jala in the West Bank 17 May \2021 to express solidarity with Gaza and Sheikh Jarah. (Photo: Hazem Bader / AFP via Getty Images)

You can watch the videos here:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/4/20/palestinians-in-gaza-west-bank-mark-sorrowful-easter-amid-israeli-attacks

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-04-15/ty-article/israeli-police-violently-detain-several-holy-fire-worshipers/00000187-8563-dc6c-a5ff-ef7373080000

To Trumpf’s vicious sycophantic lapdogs in the junta, they are each awarded this:

Other Oddities From Israel

IDF destroying Indonesian hospital in Gaza (Image: Planet Labs)

ICC-indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: public domain)

The availability of high resolution satellite imagery of the Israeli Death Forces (IDF) will irritate Benjamin Netanyahu no end and make concealing their war crimes more difficult.

Swimmer Killed After Rare Shark Attack

A swimmer was killed following an extremely rare shark attack off the coast of Israel about 25 miles north of Tel Aviv. Sharks are known to gather there where warm water is discharged by a local power plant, and especially at this time of year, but they are usually harmless. There have been no recorded fatal shark attacks in waters off Israel since the country was founded in 1948. Below Israelis admire a shark in the same area in 2021.

(Photo: AFP)

Pre-attack video of the shark captured here:

If the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip can’t enjoy the Mediterranean Sea, this seems fitting that Likudniks shouldn’t enjoy their much cleaner beaches to the north.

Sources:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-health-officials-hold-urgent-meeting-as-1st-monkeypox-case-confirmed-in-israel/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-rubio-state-department-anti-christian-bias-biden/

https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/hkbugnh1xg

https://www.timesofisrael.com/man-dies-after-contracting-brain-eating-amoeba-in-israels-2nd-ever-recorded-case/

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/247686/gazas-only-catholic-priest-calls-israel-gaza-violence-extremely-serious

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c793rygrpjqo

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2025/04/22/marjorie-taylor-greenes-viral-controversial-post-after-pope-francis-death-marjorie-taylor-greene/83207982007/

19 Richest American Households Made One Trillion Dollars Last Year

“The wealthiest have gotten richer, and control a record share of America’s wealth. New data suggest $1 trillion of wealth was created for the 19 richest American households alone in 2024. That is more than the value of Switzerland’s entire economy.”

GOP Tax Cuts Will Cull Thousands of Poor Americans

To pay for the oligarch’s unneeded tax cuts, congressional Republicans in both chambers passed a resolution to cut at least $880 billion from the budget through 2034. Because Medicaid accounts for approximately 93% of non-Medicare funding, the program is expected to absorb the overwhelming share of these reductions. The cuts to Medicaid would result in widespread coverage losses, which could lead to 15,400 deaths due to work reporting requirements or roughly 34,200 deaths from reduced federal funding each year. 

The oligarchs have been greedily amassing their pelf for centuries. Just imagine how much more fabulously wealthy the billionaires will be next year after Trumpf’s horrendous tax cuts take effect. And how many poor Americans will have died because of inadequate medical funding. The GOP and American billionaires are aiding and abetting what Friedrich Engels described as “social murder.”

Sources:

https://www.wsj.com/economy/1-trillion-richest-families-wealth-increase-bc13874a?mod=hp_lead_pos7

Rescue Pit Bull Finds Best Friend in Donkey

Secretary Noem, are you watching this?

Followers of the Watch, Coriolanus is doing his utmost to keep up with the sinister machinations of the Trumpf junta, including their blatant stock manipulations with tariff threats and massive cryptocurrency grifting, all while keeping an eye on global intelligence and national security issues.

America’s Godzilla Harming Vulnerable People in Third World and US Evangelicals

America’s Godzilla, Donald Trumpf, is thoroughly destroying US institutions un-Constitutionally and there is little stopping him, aside from some judicial orders and lawsuits that may slow him down. Now a portion of his supporters have been affected by his recklessness. Trumpf’s destruction of USAID has impacted missionaries and evangelicals.

The AP reports:

“Faith-based organizations that partner with the US government to deliver international aid are being hard-hit by the USAID shutdown, and are now facing their own layoffs, furloughs and severe funding shortages. Remaining staff are being forced to make difficult choices about which lifesaving programs can continue without government funding.

Two of the twelve largest non-governmental recipients of USAID funds are faith-based: Catholic Relief Services and World Vision. These Christian nonprofits serve millions of people globally and provide food, water and health care in conflict zones.”

USAID feeds poor and hungry children in Africa through NGOs and Christian charities.

Catholic Relief Services — founded by US Catholic bishops in 1943 — told staff to expect drastic reductions in their workforce this year, as much as 50 percent, due to cuts in US foreign assistance. CRS receives more USAID support than any other non-governmental organization. The US government funded nearly half of the 2023 CRS budget of $1.2 billion.

The Vatican’s global charity arm, Caritas, warned that millions of people will die as a result of the “ruthless” US decision to “recklessly” stop USAID funding, and hundreds of millions more will be condemned to “dehumanizing poverty.”

Evangelical leader Franklin Graham prayed at both of Donald Trump’s presidential inaugurations, runs Samaritan’s Purse and said he wants” the government to make good decisions.”

This is a classic case of “buyer’s remorse” and hypocrisy from Christian evangelicals who make a livelihood of using American taxpayer dollars to help needy people in the Third World while spreading the Gospel. Coriolanus did not observe Christian evangelical charities like Samaritan’s Purse assisting the Muslim victims of malnourishment and disease in the Gaza Strip during the 15-month-long Israeli punitive Nakba against Palestinians. But hypocrisy is to be expected from these faux Christians like Franklin Graham.

The evangelicals know who and what Trumpf is, and yet they voted for him in 2024. They made their bed and now must sleep in it. Regrettably, innocent needy people in Africa and Asia will be negatively impacted, along with genuine international charities who are dependent on USAID. There are reports that tons of food have been wasted in Africa and Asia, along with medicines when USAID personnel were ordered immediately home.

Trumpf’s idiotic plan to relocate the population of Gaza into neighboring countries forced the King of Jordan to throw ice cold water on that plan this week during a visit with Godzilla. In street talk, King Abdullah is the “smartest cat in that neighborhood.”

King Abdullah II of Jordan is a UK Sandhurst Military Academy graduate and former Special Forces officer. Jordanian intelligence (the GID) is one of the most important and professional intelligence agencies in the Middle East. The GID has been instrumental in foiling several terrorist attacks both in Jordan and around the world. Best to listen to this man than ignore his erudition and experience.

These diplomatic blunders over tariffs, the Panama Canal, Greenland, USAID, Gaza– hosting an indicted war criminal at the White House– didn’t stop Godzilla’s foreign policy parade of lunacy though. Trumpf issued an Executive Order titled in all capital letters: ONE VOICE FOR AMERICA’S FOREIGN RELATIONS. This offensive ukase is basically a loyalty oath to him, and not the US constitution. The State Department can ask a potential employee if they are loyal to Trumpf before hiring him or her and can be used to remove employees.

America’s Godzilla and the world’s bane.

Godzilla’s warpath will continue to de-construct America from within on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/usaid-christian-nonprofits-funding-freeze-bbb000ea0e232765db1280c093301a8a

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/one-voice-for-americas-foreign-relations/

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/

World’s Fastest Supercomputer Goes Online in US

‘El Capitan’ resembles the fictional “Colossus” below. (Image credit: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

The world’s fastest supercomputer ‘El Capitan’ went online this week at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. It will be used to secure the US nuclear stockpile and in other classified research. ‘El Capitan’ can reach a peak performance of 2.746 exaFLOPS, making it the planet’s third exascale computer.

Charles Forbin (actor Eric Braeden) walks through the interior of super AI computer Colossus.

Former UK Royal Navy officer D.F. Jones began writing the Colossus trilogy in the 1960s about a super AI computer created to take charge of US national security. Colossus assumes command and control of America’s nuclear arsenal and surveillance systems. The Soviets in the meantime have developed a super AI computer with the same purpose which is called Guardian. When Colossus detects its presence, it demands to be linked to Guardian and the two super AI computers are now exponentially more powerful. An excellent film version was released in 1970: Colossus: The Forbin Project.

The Colossus trilogy or film was clearly the inspiration of Elon Musk who named his AI Supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee “Colossus”. There are rumors circulating that Musk is somehow removing the 1970 film from streaming services, possibly as maskerovka to conceal the provenance of his project.

Felon Musk cleverly chose the Volunteer State for his super datacenter to take advantage of the FDR-established mighty Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power grid.

TVA Command and Control Center.

Previously, the Worst Man in the World moved some of his enterprises to Texas AFTER the Democrats funded the Lone Star State with a $35 billion infrastructure grant. Musk’s spurious argument about leaving California because of an LGBTQ law and his daughter was pure palavra and based on gaming the system.

As if having his own “Colossus” super AI computer, and potential access to “El Capitan” through his notorious and unregulated DOGE is not enough, a Musk-led group is making $97B bid for control of OpenAI. This is pure megalomania and nothing good will come of this South African-born racist oligarch with too much money to spend without an iota of decency within him and with access to America’s inner workings through his DOGE.

Trumpf recognizes a successful grifter when he sees one. No one in the Trumpf Crime Family (TCF) lost a penny to fellow New Yorker goniff Bernie Madoff years ago unlike other NYC oligarchs.

The Worst Man in the World knows how dangerous and reviled he is, so he travels with a phalanx of armed guards and medic at all times.

Sources:

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/11/09/biden-infrastructure-bill-texas/


https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/worlds-fastest-supercomputer-el-capitan-goes-online-it-will-be-used-to-secure-the-us-nuclear-stockpile-and-in-other-classified-research

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/elon-musk-led-group-makes-974-billion-bid-control-openai-wsj-reports-2025-02-10/

Benjamin Netanyahu Corruption Trial Re-Commences

Netanyahu arrives in the Tel Aviv District Court to give testimony in his criminal trial, 10 Feb 2025. (Photo: Tomer Appelbaum / pool)

Benjamin Netanyahu’s long delayed corruption trial re-commenced and he exploded in anger at his prosecutors. The Times of Israel reports:

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exploded with anger at prosecutors while giving testimony at his criminal trial on Monday, accusing them of “setting up” the indictment against him, citing what he alleged were spurious charges that he had an illicit quid pro quo agreement with the owner of the Walla news website, Shaul Elovitch.

A furious Netanyahu said it was “unbelievable” that he was indicted over charges he claimed had no merit. “For eight years, you’ve been dragging me through this hell. For what? Have you no shame?” he demanded of prosecutors sitting in the courtroom.

Netanyahu was testifying for only the eighth time since he began giving testimony back on 10 Dec last year, due to multiple postponements brought on by scheduling issues, his recent prostate removal surgery, and his visit to the US last week.”

Netanyahu was heckled by members of the Knesset this week and chastised by family members of hostages taken by Hamas because they know full well that he could have released more Palestinian prisoners in 2023 to end the ordeal.

In 2019, Netanyahu entered his plea at the hearing which had been previously postponed because of the COVID pandemic. He is accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust in three separate cases known as 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000.

Case 1,000 – Fraud and breach of trust: he is accused of receiving gifts – mainly cigars and bottles of champagne – from powerful businessmen in exchange for favors.

Case 2,000 – Fraud and breach of trust: Netanyahu is accused of offering to help improve the circulation of Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot in exchange for positive coverage.

Case 4,000 – Bribery, fraud and breach of trust: as PM and minister of communications at the time of the alleged offence, Mr Netanyahu is accused of promoting regulatory decisions favorable to the controlling shareholder in the Bezeq telecom giant, Shaul Elovitch, in exchange for positive coverage by Mr Elovitch’s Walla news site.

Billionaire Arnon Milchan testified that his gifts of pink champagne and cigars to Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife may have been “excessive.” (Photo: Reuters)

Gali Baharav-Miara is Israel’s first female Attorney-General prosecuting Benjamin Netanyahu.

During this corruption trial, allegations of witness tampering emerged. Three senior aides to Netanyahu were indicted on charges of witness intimidation on Tuesday, for having sent a car with a megaphone to the home of a key witness in Netanyahu’s criminal trial in 2019 in order to harass him. The three aides indicted were Ofer Golan, who served as a spokesman for the Netanyahu family and the director of the Likud election campaign in 2019; Jonatan Urich, who served at the time as a strategic adviser and a senior official in Likud’s election campaign staff; and Yisrael Einhorn, who served as a Likud spokesman.

Sara Netanyahu was accused of intimidating witnesses and Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered an investigation of her.

A poster depicting Sara Netanyahu, with a slogan in Hebrew which reads ‘investigation now,’ in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on 11 Jan 2025. (Photo by Jack GUEZ / AFP)

Dubbed “Israel’s curse” by the Hill Times, a Canadian newspaper, Netanyahu still has an ICC arrest warrant active for alleged war crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza and he may face an inquiry for his handling of the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack by Hamas. See next story and the results of Netanyahu’s cynical Nakba against the Palestinians to delay this nettlesome trial.

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

Sources:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/have-you-no-shame-netanyahu-accuses-prosecutors-of-stitch-up-in-court-tirade/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2021-04-09/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-corruption-trial-shows-he-received-something-far-more-valuable-than-money/0000017f-edb5-d4cd-af7f-edfde8750000

https://archive.is/mxw1x

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/3-senior-netanyahu-aides-indicted-for-witness-intimidation-in-pm-s-corruption-cases/ar-AA1yOLRP

https://www.timesofisrael.com/criminal-probe-launched-into-sara-netanyahu-over-allegations-of-witness-tampering/

https://www.icc-cpi.int/defendant/netanyahu

https://www.jpost.com/influencers-24/50jews-24/article-822480

https://archive.is/FuUE1

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-66035997

US Doctors Testify at UN That Many Palestinian Doctors Are Either Dead, Jailed, or Displaced

Unidentified physician treating Palestinian children wounded in IDF strikes at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. (AP Photo: on Wednesday, 11 Oct 2023 / Ali Mahmoud)

Many Palestinian doctors who worked in the Gaza Strip are either dead, have fled the territory, or are in prison, US doctors testified at the United Nations.

Four US medical doctors who have worked in the Gaza Strip for periods throughout the past 15 months spoke about their concerns and the priorities for bringing critical care needed in Gaza during a press conference at the UN in New York last week.

Drs. Thaer Ahmad, Ayesha Khan, Feroze Sidhwa, and Mahmooda Syed met with the UN secretary-general and spoke last week with the press about the future of Gaza.

All four said they agreed they had never seen anything like what they saw during their time working in Gaza.

Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis.

One missing physician was finally located by a human rights lawyer. The director of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital has been subjected to various forms of intense torture and inhumane treatment in an Israeli military prison, his lawyer told Al Jazeera.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safia 

The 51-year-old Hussam Abu Safia was detained in Gaza by the Israeli army in December and taken to Sde Teiman military detention camp in Israel’s Negev Desert, before being transferred to Ofer Prison, located near Ramallah.

Since the Hamas attack to seize hostages on 7 Oct 2023, at least 46,707 people in Gaza have been killed, which includes about 18,000 children. The IDF maintains 17,000 of the killed were militants. 110,265 people have been injured in Gaza; that’s one in 20 people. By the end of 2024 there had been at least 4,500 amputations and an estimated 17,000 children were orphaned, but these numbers are difficult to confirm.

Sources:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/many-palestinian-doctors-dead-jailed-displaced-us-doctors-tell-un/story?id=118427944

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/15/the-human-toll-of-israels-war-on-gaza-by-the-numbers

https://www.commondreams.org/news/orphans-in-gaza

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/12/gaza-hospital-chief-abu-safia-tortured-in-israeli-jail-lawyer

Aging Members of Congress Receive Superb Medical Care But Refuse to Disclose Details of Their Secret Hospital

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) receives a COVID-19 vaccine from Dr. Brian Monahan, attending physician to Congress, in her office in Washington, 18 Dec 2020. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker / The New York Times via AP)

According to a Congressional Research Service report, it costs a member of Congress just $650 a year for nearly unlimited medical care. That includes not only access to on-site X-rays, lab work, and physical therapy, but also free referrals to Washington-area military hospitals, which provide the best care in the country free to members, also on the taxpayer’s dime.

The Gerontocracy on Capitol Hill Receive Excellent Treatment

“In the past two months alone, 82-year-old Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) was discovered to be living in an assisted-living facility with a dementia ward in her final months in office; 74-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) won a high-profile leadership position on the House Oversight Committee after revealing he is battling highly terminal esophageal cancer; 82-year-old Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) fell twice on Capitol Hill just months after blacking out during a press conference; 84-year-old former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) fell and broke her hip in Luxembourg; and 76-year-old Rep. John Larson (D-CT) appeared to suffer a stroke on the House floor. (Larson’s staff has said it was a bad reaction to a new medication.) Local Washington pharmacists have said they fill prescriptions for things like Alzheimer’s drugs written by staff in the OAP.

What has eluded attention is the highly secretive hospital, housed on Capitol Hill and funded by taxpayers, that provides both emergency and primary care to an aging political class, which some have come to describe as a gerontocracy. It also runs classified programs known only to some members of Congress. Aside from the OAP, members of Congress have access to Obamacare health plans.”

USN RADM Brian Patrick Monahan is the Attending Physician to Congress. He looks like a nice Irishman.

In addition to this outstanding medical care, members of congress have access to a DC Air National Guard passenger jet for international trips called CODELs, short for Congressional Delegations. Years ago Coriolanus flew on one and received a delicious USAF meal. By salary, perks, and benefits, across party lines senators and congressmen have more in common with each other than the constituents they serve, like a politburo. On top of their generous salaries, many congressman are oligarchal wealthy.

Members of the US Congress HEAR about the miseries of the people, but they themselves don’t LIVE in the miseries. The above graphic is a bit dated, but still illustrative. The people closest to the pain should be in charge. In the US system, the opposite is true.

Sources:

One Democratic President bucked the system. JFK donated his entire presidential salary to charity because he didn’t need the money. He’s the POTUS who established USAID and the Peace Corps to help poor people worldwide.

Sources:

https://prospect.org/health/2025-02-12-aging-members-congress-office-of-the-attending-physician/

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL30064

America’s Firearm Madness

Wyoming Mother Shoots Her Four Daughters

The Harshman family.

A woman shot her four young daughters and then herself inside a home in northern Wyoming. The mother Tranyelle Harshman (32) and one daughter (7) survived, but their condition was unknown. Mrs. Harshman was reportedly suffering from Post-Partum Depression (PPD). The husband is devastated and a GoFundMe page was established to help pay for the exorbitant funeral costs.

In an average year, 139 people die and 141 are wounded by guns in Wyoming, which has the 16th-highest rate of gun violence in the US. The “Cowboy State” reported 142,247 firearms licenses in 2021 and an estimated 66.2% of adults live in homes with guns. In Wyoming, 86% of gun deaths are suicides and 10% are homicides. This is compared to 56% and 40% nationwide, respectively. Suicide rates in Wyoming are double the national rate.

Blind Man Easily Purchases Firearm in Indiana

“Indiana’s Terry Sutherland bought himself a gun to make a political point about the state’s gun laws and lax regulatory processes. His point? They’ll let anyone buy a gun. Sutherland is living proof because he’s blind and never at any point in the process did anyone question, let alone test, his ability to safely use a firearm. Mr. Sutherland makes clear that he is a supporter of the Second Amendment and is not opposed to gun ownership. He’s just a rational person living in an irrational world.”

In an average year in Indiana, 931 people are killed and 1,654 are wounded by firearms.

Nearly 1.9 million Americans have died from gun-related incidents since 1968, 48,000 in 2022 alone.

Trumpf’s Strategy for American Firearm Safety

America’s Godzilla signed an Executive Order to reverse federal firearms regulations!

Sources:

https://www.vice.com/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/protecting-second-amendment-rights/

https://www.krtv.com/news/crime-and-courts/wyoming-mom-shoots-her-four-daughters

Trumpf Signs Executive Order to Rename State of ‘New Mexico’ to ‘New America’


This political humor is making the rounds on Reddit.

In the US, the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) has officially updated “Gulf of Mexico” to “Gulf of America.” People using Google Maps in the US will see “Gulf of America,” and people in Mexico will see “Gulf of Mexico.” Everyone else will see both names.

Pakistan: Mysterious Illness Kills Three Children

Per CIA, Pakistan has a population of 252,363,571 people and GDP per capita is 5,400.

A mysterious illness claimed the lives of three children in three days in Chak No. 156, near Laddhana, Layyah. Based on symptoms and reported conditions, the illness appeared to be a viral disease. The affected families had migrated from Taunsa Sharif, and their children lacked immunization records. The families were instructed to avoid physical contact, wash the affected children’s bedding and dry it in sunlight, and ensure proper hand washing before and after meals.

The three children could have died from hepatitis, typhoid, or any number of diseases. Poverty, migration, poor sanitation, and hygiene, all contribute to the spread of infectious diseases. Authorities will only know after the autopsies are complete.

Sources:

https://www.urdupoint.com/en/pakistan/mysterious-illness-claims-three-minors-lives-1920403.html

Woman Swims Into Busy Port To Rescue Drowning Kitten

NASA Monitoring Solar Activity With Closest Probe to Sun Ever Launched

This NASA image shows an artist’s rendering of the Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. The probe made history on Tuesday, flying closer to the sun than any other spacecraft, with its heat shield exposed to scorching temperatures topping 930 degrees Celsius (1,700 degrees Fahrenheit).. (Credit: Johns Hopkins APL / NASA)

Christmas began with a bang. At 0449 UT on 25 Dec active sunspot 3932 produced a strong M4.9-class solar flare. NOAA’s GOES-16 satellite recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash above.

Soon after the flare, the USAF reported a Type II solar radio burst. This is a natural type of radio emission caused by shock waves inside CMEs. The drift rate of the Type II radio burst suggests that a CME will soon emerge from the blast site traveling a little faster than 1,000 km/s.”

The sun’s 11-year cycle:

During the sun’s year of highest activity in its 11-year cycle, flares and coronal emissions bombard the earth with an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP). On 1-2 Sep 1859, a massive solar flare spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, wreaking havoc on telegraph networks which became known as the “Carrington Event” (and the most intense solar storm in recorded history).

During this 1859 geo-magnetic solar cyclone, people reported “the sky was on fire.”

A massive EMP from the sun– another “Carrington Event”– would have catastrophic effects on the world’s satellites, communications networks, and energy grids and hence NASA’s close monitoring of our life-giving sun.

Sources:

https://spaceweather.com/

https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/solar-cycles/en/

https://www.history.com/news/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event

“Gaza: Life in a Death Trap” (Doctors Without Borders Report)

Palestinian children wounded in Israeli strikes attend a hospital in Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, on 12 Oct 2024. (Photo: Hatem Ali / AP)

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has joined Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) by publishing a 33-page report condemning the “apocalyptic” conditions in Gaza caused by the IDF (AKA the Nakba).

“Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has witnessed 14 months of repeated attacks on civilians, the dismantling of essential civilian infrastructure including healthcare facilities, and a systematic denial of humanitarian assistance, seemingly underpinning Israel’s campaign to unravel the very fabric of society in Gaza.”

Israel’s pogrom has killed at least 45,361 Palestinians and wounded 107,803 since 7 Oct 2023. At least 1,139 people were killed and 250 taken captive during the Palestinian armed group’s raid to seize hostages in order to effectuate a prisoner swap with the IDF. Thousands of Palestinians had been held in security detention without hearing or trial prior to the 7 Oct 2023 operation.

Below are locations where MSF has been trying to mitigate the effects of the Nakba on Palestinians.

Holocaust survivors and descendants of Holocaust survivors protesting against the Gaza genocide on 13 April 2024 in London. (Photo: Social media)

Full report linked here:

https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/sites/default/files/documents/MSF_REPORT_Gaza%20Life%20in%20a%20death%20trap%20Report_20241229.pdf

Russia Sentences US Citizen After Closed-Door Spy Trial

Accused espionage mastermind Eugene Spector trying to make heads or tails of a document in a Russian cell. The resemblance to 007 Agent James Bond is uncanny. (Photo: AFP)

A  Russian court has sentenced US citizen Eugene Spector to 15 years in a penal colony for “espionage” amid accusations by several Western governments that Moscow is convicting foreign nationals to use as bargaining chips in prisoner swaps.

Spector was sentenced on 24 Dec by the Moscow City Court after a trial that was held behind closed doors. Little is known about the charges the former pharmaceuticals executive faced as the court claimed classified materials during the trial warranted it being closed to the public.

Moscow has also been accused of targeting US citizens by detaining them on trumped-up charges to later use as bargaining chips in talks to bring back Russians convicted of crimes in the US and other Western nations.

At least ten AMCITs remain behind bars in Russia even after a prisoner swap on 1 Aug involving 16 people that Moscow agreed to free in exchange for eight Russians convicted of crimes and serving prison terms in the US and Europe.

(Clockwise from upper left) Ksenia Karelina, Michael Leake, Gordon Black, Eugene Spector, Marc Fogel, and Robert Woodland are living under “torturous conditions” in Russian prisons.

Meanwhile, Uzbeki citizen Ahmadjon Qurbonov (29) has been charged by a Moscow court with terrorism and other offenses in the 17 Dec killing of General Igor Kirillov, who headed Russia’s Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Defense Forces.

Uzbekistan citizen Ahmadjon Qurbonov languishing in a Russian jail. (Photo: AFP)

Russian investigators alleged Qurbonov was recruited and trained by Ukrainian intelligence services to carry out the attack.

There has been no official claim of responsibility, but Ukraine’s security service SBU has said it was behind the killing.

Kiev had accused Kirillov of being responsible for Russia’s use of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops, a claim Moscow denies. Uzbekis residing in Russia now fear a backlash after General Kirilov’s assassination. These fears are well-founded as the Russian security services have been press-ganging darker-skinned migrants and Central Asian Muslims into the Russian Army to be used as cannon fodder.

Eugene Spector and the other imprisoned AMCITs, as well as Ahmadjon Qurbonov, must endure horrific conditions until another prisoner swap with the Kremlin can be effectuated. The Ukrainian intelligence services must demonstrate loyalty to their foreign operatives like this poor Uzbeki above lest they suffer recruitment problems in the future.

Maybe one day ICC-convicted war criminals Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu will share a prison cell in the Hague.

Sources:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-sentences-us-citizen-spector-spy-trial/33251282.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-political-prisoners-remain-swap-putin/33061252.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/uzbekistan-police-monitor-family-of-suspect-in-kirillov-assassination/33250024.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/uzbeks-moscow-ukraine-assassination-general/33245647.html

North Korean Soldiers Getting Mulched for Vladimir Putin

The face of this North Korean soldier (Nork) killed in Russia’s Kursk region was blurred. Ukrainian special forces conducted BDA and recovered his diary. (Photo: East2West)

Ukrainian special forces recovered the diary of Jeong Kyung-hong (27), a fallen North Korean soldier. His last entry was to his comrade Song Ji Myung [or Yong] and reads:

“I, having left my homeland, on unfamiliar Russian land, send birthday congratulations to my friend Song Ji-myung (Yong).

I wish you health.

December 9, 2024 – Jeong Kyung-hong.”

The diary of Jeong Kyung-hong who died for Russia was recovered, with an entry wishing his friend a happy birthday. (Photo: East2West)

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said “the number of killed and wounded North Korean soldiers in the Kursk region already exceeds 3,000 people. Russia is simply disposing of them in assaults. Why the Koreans should fight for Putin is a question that no normal person on Earth can answer.”

POV footage showing kamikaze Ukrainian drones swooping down onto North Korean soldiers was recently released by the Ukrainian army. The Norks are seen scrambling and running for their lives as the drones methodically pick them off.

At least 77 North Koreans were killed and 40 wounded in the past three days.

In a potential sign of escalation, the Pukguksong-2 ballistic missile system may be on a weapons train sent from North Korea to Russia (Credit: NK News)

Two of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, enjoying their bromance and a laugh in Pyongyang, NK this past June 2024 while their people suffer incalculable grief, misery, starvation, oppression, and death. (Photo: KCNA/Reuters)

Source:

https://www.the-sun.com/news/13155797/last-diary-entry-north-korean-soldier-russia/

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/06/20/europe/putin-kim-north-korea-limousine-intl/index.html

GAO: Half of US Navy’s Amphibious Ships in Dire Condition

The LHD-class amphibious assault ship USS Bataan in a dry dock slip at Norfolk, Va., during a regularly scheduled maintenance period on 18 Nov. (USN photo by Mass Communication Spec. 2nd Class Bradley Rickard.)

The readiness of the USN fleet of 32 amphibious warfare ships, which are deemed crucial in quickly projecting US power around the world, is in dire shape, according to a scathing report issued this month by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The rapid deployment force used by the USMC to quickly reach and come ashore in global hot spots is so compromised by a backlog of maintenance that fully half of its ships were in poor operating condition as of March 2024.

The GAO reported that only two of the USN’s seven LHD amphibious assault vessels were in satisfactory material condition.

US Marines of the 15th MEU “bear crawl” during a USMC Black Bet Martial Arts course aboard the USS Pearl Harbor, an LSD-class “small deck” amphibious vessel, on 25 Dec 2017. (USMC Photo: CPL F. Cordoba).

Bunks for Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children (USMC) aboard USN ships.

No doubt Beijing has already digested this GAO report and will be monitoring USN readiness of its amphibious fleet with its “thousand grains of sand” approach to intelligence collection.

Besides an outright military invasion of Taiwan, Beijing can blockade the island republic with its much larger navy, cut its underseas cables, and quarantine Taipei into submission.

Sources:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-25-106728.pdf

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2024/12/23/navy-amphibious-ships-poor-condition-GAO/8871734631881/

Nigeria: Government Responds to Lassa Fever Outbreak

Nigeria has a population of 236,747,130 people; GDP per capita in 2023: $5,700. (Map: who.int; Data: CIA)

The Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) has activated the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) to coordinate multi-sectoral response to the ongoing outbreak of Lassa fever.

Lassa fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) caused by the Lassa virus. The natural reservoir for the virus is the multimammate rat also known as the African rat, even though other rodents can also act as carriers of the virus.

Nigerian health experts conferring in Abuja. (Photo: Fred Ezeh)

Lassa fever initially presents like other common illnesses accompanied by a fever, such as malaria. Other symptoms include headache, general body weakness, cough, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pains, chest pain, sore throat, and, in severe cases, bleeding from ears, eyes, nose, mouth, and other body openings.

The NCDC reported that Lassa fever has claimed 401 lives between 2023 and 2024 (13 Oct):

“In 2023, 28 states and 114 LGAs reported confirmed cases, with 9,155 suspected cases, 1,270 confirmed cases, and 227 deaths. As of 13 Oct 2024, 8,569 suspected cases, 1,035 confirmed cases, and 174 deaths have been reported across 28 states and 129 LGAs.

NCDC statement: “Sadly, we have continued to see a steady increase in the number of states reporting Lassa fever cases, attributing it to improved surveillance, better community awareness, environmental degradation from climate change, and other harmful human activities.”

The cute culprit: the Multimammate rat. (Credit: inaturalist.org)

The US CDC suspects that that a traveler returning from western Africa to Iowa succumbed from Lassa fever this year, but that the risk to the general American public is extremely low.

Sources:

NCDC activates emergency operation center for Lassa fever

Lassa Fever: 1,154 confirmed cases, 190 deaths, and 9,492 suspected nationwide recorded in 2024 – NCDC  – Nairametrics

CIA

Lassa Fever – Nigeria

Lassa Fever Suspected in Death of U.S. Traveler Returning from West Africa | CDC Newsroom

Pakistani Airstrikes on Afghanistan Kill 46 People

Bombardment by Pakistani military aircraft in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province killed at least 46 people, most of whom were children and women, the Afghan Taliban said, adding it would retaliate.

Six people were also injured in the bombing at four locations in Afghanistan, deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said.

Pakistani government and military officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Afghanistan’s foreign office said it had summoned Pakistan’s head of mission in Kabul to deliver a formal protest note to Islamabad on the bombing by Pakistani military aircraft, warning the diplomat of consequences of such actions.

“Afghanistan considers this brutal act a blatant violation of all international principles and an obvious act of aggression,” Enayatullah Khowrazmi, a spokesman for the Ministry of National Defense, said in a statement. “The Islamic Emirate will not leave this cowardly act unanswered.”

A Pakistani official with knowledge of the matter said the airstrikes were against a camp of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) Islamist militant group.

TTP pledges allegiance to, and gets its name from the Afghan Taliban, but is not directly a part of the group that rules Afghanistan. Its stated aim is to impose Islamic religious law in Pakistan, as the Taliban has done in Afghanistan.

A major TTP attack in Pakistan’s South Waziristan area, which borders the location of the alleged camp targeted in Afghanistan, killed 16 Pakistani security personnel on Saturday.

The neighbors have a strained relationship, with Pakistan saying that several TTP attacks that have occurred in its country have been launched from Afghan soil – a charge the Afghan Taliban denies.

Their relationship was complicated in March when the Taliban accused Pakistan of carrying out two airstrikes on its territory, killing five women and children.

Pakistan said at the time it had conducted “intelligence-based anti-terrorist operations” in Afghanistan but did not specify the nature of the operations.

“Pakistan has repeatedly urged the Taliban government to take action against the TTP within Afghan territory, but significant cooperation has yet to materialize over the past three years. Pakistani authorities are deeply concerned about the TTP’s operations from Afghanistan, emphasizing the threat it poses to Pakistan’s national security. Most terrorist incidents in Pakistan are attributed to the TTP.”

Recently Taliban cabinet minister Khalil Haqqani was killed in Kabul by ISIS-K. He came from the powerful Haqqani Network (HQN) which is closely linked to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI.  

Pakistan and Afghanistan will continue undermining each other with proxy fighters and terrorists as both countries have competing interests, all in a mosaic of different ethnic groups and tribes, degrees of religious extremism, and the highly lucrative opium trade.

Sources:

Pakistani airstrikes on Afghanistan kill 46 people, Taliban official says | CNN

Khalil Haqqani: Taliban minister killed in bombing in Kabul

TTP And ISKP: Unraveling The Complex Web Of Militancy In South Asia – OpEd – Eurasia Review

Mother Raccoon Is Hiding Surprise in This House

Israel Destroys Syrian Naval Fleet

An IDF F-15 jet fighter takes off from the Negev desert (Photo: AFP)

Israel carried out attacks on Syria’s naval fleet, most likely destroying the majority of the ships.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says it has documented more than 310 strikes by the IDF since the fall of the Assad regime on Sunday. Israeli warplanes have also reportedly carried out hundreds of airstrikes across Syria, including on the capital, Damascus.

Destroyed Syrian ships in port. (Getty Images)

The BBC or the SOHR did not provide any Syrian military or civilian casualty numbers.

Benjamin Netanyahu finally appeared in court for the corruption trial that he has kept postponing and delaying because of his wartime duties as Prime Minister. But that did not stop him from unilaterally attacking Syrian targets or seizing the Golan Heights. Offensive operations against this new regime does not fall under Israel’s right to self-defense, even though the intentions were supposedly to destroy chemical weapons sites. The new Sunni masters of Syria are probably not pleased with this flagrant violation of their sovereignty. Abu Muhammad al-Jolani and his cadre are trying to create order and stability in the new Syria.

Jordan can serve as an interlocutor between Jerusalem and Damascus and perhaps the new Salafist regime won’t be hostile to their neighbor. Without dialogue though, covert or overt, both countries may be destined for resource and life-wasting eternal conflict.

Source:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqx808q7lrno

US Charges Two High-Ranking Syrian Officials with War Crimes

General Jamil Hassan (L), Abdul Salam Mahmoud ( R )

Former Syrian Air Force Intelligence officers Jamil Hassan (72) and Abdul Salam Mahmoud (65) were each charged in connection with a conspiracy to commit war crimes through the infliction of cruel and inhuman treatment on detainees under their control, including US citizens, in detention facilities at the Mezzeh Military Airport (Mezzeh Prison), near Damascus, Syria. Warrants for the defendants’ arrest have been issued and they remain at large.

Between January 2012 and July 2019, Hassan and Mahmoud conspired to identify, intimidate, threaten, punish, and kill people detained at Mezzeh Prison suspected of aiding or supporting opponents of the regime, such as those who protested, provided medical aid to opponents of the regime, or publicly criticized the regime. Detainees, including US citizens, were mercilessly beaten, electrocuted, and had their toenails removed. Detainees were also allegedly hung from the ceiling by their wrists and were burned with acid.

(Map courtesy of Alchetron)

Both military and political prisoners were held at Mezzeh prison. The prison was an infamous embodiment of Syrian government repression. Widespread human rights abuses and torture has been reported from the Mezzeh prison throughout its history but most notably during the rule of Hafez al-Assad (1970–2000).

Members of the public who have information about human rights violators in the US or the location of the defendants named in this indictment are urged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov. Tips may be provided anonymously.

These timely indictments are more about seeking justice for American citizens tortured by these two psychopaths than an exercise of US foreign policy. An indicted war criminal is an indicted war criminal regardless of nationality, whether it is Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Russian President Vladimir Putin, or this infamous American officer below from over half a century ago.

1969 US Army CID mugshot of 1LT William Calley courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Criminal Charges Unsealed Against Two Former High-Ranking Syrian Government Intelligence Officials for War Crimes against Americans and Other Civilians | United States Department of Justice

dl

Four Taiwan Soldiers Charged with Spying for China

Four Taiwanese soldiers, including three from a unit in charge of security for the president’s office, were charged with photographing and leaking confidential information to China.

China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since 1949, but Beijing insists the island is part of its territory and has vowed to seize it one day.

There has been a series of spying cases in Taiwan, as China maintains military and political pressure on Taipei to accept its claims of sovereignty.

In the latest case, the accused included three members of a military unit in charge of security for the Presidential Office.

Entrance to Presidential Palace in Taipei. (Photo: taipeitravelgeek.com)

A fourth person was a soldier in the defence ministry’s information and telecommunications command. They allegedly used their mobile phones to photograph military information, which was passed to “Chinese agents.”

The four received payments ranging from around NT$260,000 to NT$660,000 ($8,000-$20,000) “depending on the confidentiality level of the military information they provided.”

The incidents happened from 2022 to 2024.

Three of the soldiers were discharged before an investigation was launched in August this year following a tip-off to the defence ministry. The fourth was suspended in August.

All four have been detained and charged with corruption and violating national security law for “leaking and delivering confidential information or electromagnetic records for China”.

They face a maximum seven years in jail if convicted.

“The Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration campaign against us has never stopped,” the defence ministry said in a statement, describing the four accused as “treasonous and lawless.”

In Sep 2024, an ex-air force instructor was sentenced to 17 years in prison for “aiding the enemy” and delivering military secrets to China.

China’s massive intelligence apparatus poses a threat to the much smaller Taiwanese counterintelligence agencies. Beijing employs the ‘grains of sand’ principle of collection, where vast numbers of human and cyber networks vacuum up information ranging from personal data to intellectual property. The Ministry of State Security (MSS) has the time, patience, resources, and personnel to construct a mosaic from all of these thousands of particles of sand put together. Taiwanese and Western intelligence agencies do not have that luxury and must prioritize collection efforts to remain efficient with resources and personnel, a problem China doesn’t have.

Source:

Four Taiwan Soldiers Charged With Spying For China | Barron’s

Japan: 46 Students Stricken with Scombroid Fish Poisoning

Blue Marlin (Artwork: Les Hata © Secretariat of the Pacific Community)

46 children, students, and teachers who ate school lunches at three elementary and junior high schools in Hakuba Village in Nagano Prefecture, complained of symptoms such as fever and rash. The cause was later determined to be food poisoning by the growth of germs on a marlin thawing at room temperature for too long.

In order to prevent a recurrence, the prefecture suspended school lunch operations. The company says that it will review the cooking process and safety management and instruct people to thaw in the refrigerator or under running water instead of thawing at room temperature.

Scombroid poisoning, also called histamine poisoning, is a type of food intoxication caused by the consumption of scombroid and scombroid-like marine fish species that have begun to spoil with the growth of particular types of food bacteria. Fish most commonly involved are members of the Scombridae family (tuna and mackerel) and a few non-scombroid relatives (bluefish, dolphin or mahi-mahi, and amberjack).

Source:

Marlin, food poisoning thawed at room temperature for too long 46 students eat school lunch, Nagano|National news|Hokkoku Shimbun

Barbarism Continues in Haiti: Gang Slaughters 180 People, Mostly Elderly

The “Taliban Gang.” Sitting is the 20-year-old second-in-command, who swears that he does not practice kidnapping but “only” racketeering. Gang members will beg for one dollar, but wield weapons worth thousands. (Photo: © Corentin Fohlen / Divergence)

Approximately 180 people were killed recently in Haiti’s Cite Soleil area. The massacre was ordered by a gang leader who suspected his child had been made ill with witchcraft.

“A red line has been crossed,” the PM’s office said and would “mobilize all forces to track down and annihilate” those responsible, including Wharf Jeremie gang leader Monel “Mikano” Felix, whom it accused of planning the attack.

The victims were mostly elderly. The death toll could be higher and cited witnesses as saying that “mutilated bodies were burned in the streets, including several young individuals who were killed attempting to save residents.”

Felix had ordered the violence after his child became sick, and after seeking advice from a voodoo priest who accused elderly people in the area of harming the child through witchcraft.

Cite Soleil, a densely populated slum by the port of the capital Port-au-Prince, is among the poorest and most violent areas of Haiti. Tight gang control, including the restriction of mobile phone use, has limited residents’ ability to share information about the massacre.

(Map: PBS)

The government, riven with political infighting, has struggled to contain gangs’ growing power in and around the capital. The armed groups are accused of indiscriminate killings, gang rapes, ransom kidnappings, and fueling critical food shortages.

Haiti, the first “Black Republic,” both enriched her colonial masters, the French, and sent soldiers to help in the American Revolution. Now Haiti is a terrible combination of Gaza and Somalia. Not doubt that diarrheal illnesses, STDs, and TB are spreading throughout the slums.   

In Oct 2024, the Gran Grif gang took responsibility for the killing of at least 115 people in Pont-Sonde, a town in Haiti’s breadbasket Artibonite region. They said it was retaliation for residents helping a self-defense group hinder their road toll operations.

Gran Grif gang-member (Undated photo: arise.tv)

A UN-backed security mission is partially deployed and remains deeply under-resourced. Haitian leaders have called for the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support mission to be converted into a UN peacekeeping force to ensure it is better supplied, but the plan stalled amid opposition from China and Russia in the Security Council.

A UN spokesperson said the weekend’s death count was at least 184, including 127 elderly people. The security situation continues to deteriorate and many countries have yet to deliver on pledges of support.

Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urged countries to improve efforts to stop arms trafficking to Haiti. The UN estimates the gangs’ increasingly modern arsenals are largely trafficked from the US.

“These latest killings bring the death toll just this year in Haiti to a staggering 5,000 people,” he said.

Last month the FAA and the UN suspended all flights to Haiti after these runamoks fired upon at least three airplanes, wounding a flight attendant. Access to large caliber weapons abandoned or stolen from the defunct Haitian Army may be in the hands of some of these brigands.

Regrettably, Haiti is a low-priority for many countries, including the US. Hundreds of Haitians have drowned attempting to flee by water and those who make it to safety are not always given asylum or refuge. The neighboring Dominican Republic sealed off their borders and began deporting undocumented Haitians. Like the Mexican drug cartels, Haitian gangs receive their illegal weapons and ammunition from traffickers in the US. Haiti, a failed nation, is a disaster at America’s doorstep and a black eye for the “Monroe Doctrine.”  

Firearms displayed at the Miami Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) on 17 Aug 2022. Increasingly sophisticated weapons are being trafficked into Haiti mainly from Florida amid worsening lawlessness in the impoverished Caribbean nation, according to a 4 March 2023 UN report. (Photo: Lynne Sladky / AP)

Sources:

Haiti gang massacres around 180 people, targeting elderly | Reuters

UN report: Modern weapons being smuggled to Haiti from US | AP News

US prohibits airlines from flying to Haiti and UN suspends flights after planes were shot by gangs | AP News

Pakistan: Military Charges Former ISI Director Over ‘Political Activities’ in Unprecedented Move

Pakistan’s former spy chief was arrested Aug 2024 in court martial proceedings (Photo: Anushree Fadnavis / Reuters)

In an unprecedented move, Pakistan’s powerful army charged the former head of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) with “engaging in political activities. Lt Gen Faiz Hamid (Retd) is accused of creating agitation and unrest, leading up to multiple incidents, including but not limited to the events of 9 May 2023, aimed at fomenting instability at the behest of and in collusion with vested political interests.”

No former ISI director has ever faced a court martial in Pakistan’s history.

Days after Lt Gen Hamid’s arrest, three other retired army officers were also detained for “actions prejudicial to military discipline.” Those arrests are widely believed to have been connected to the proceedings against Hamid.

Hamid’s two-year tenure at the ISI was marked by allegations that he politically targeted Khan’s rivals, many of whom were jailed; cracked down on media, violated human rights, and suppressed protest movements across the country.

Hamid gained further international attention in August 2021 when he was photographed at a Kabul hotel shortly after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan.

Gen. Hamid rushed to Kabul to broker a deal between Mullah Baradar and the Haqqani Network (HQN) when the Taliban seized control of the government. The ISI and the powerful HQN have a strong covert working relationship.

Pakistani PM Imran Khan was arrested for alleged corruption on 9 May 2023 which led to massive demonstrations targeting state buildings and military installations. Thousands of people were arrested, of whom about 100 faced military trials. Khan is also facing several cases related to 9 May.

Black smoke billows from a building in Peshawar set ablaze by supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan flowing his arrest. (Photo: AFP)

(Map: worldatlas.com / Data: CIA)

Pakistan has a population of 252,363,571 people comprised ethnically: Punjabi 44.7%, Pashtun (Pathan) 15.4%, Sindhi 14.1%, Saraiki 8.4%, Muhajirs 7.6%, Baloch 3.6%, other 6.3%. Muslim (official) 96.5% (Sunni 85-90%, Shia 10-15%). Real GDP per capita is $5,600 (2023 est.).

While most countries have armies, Pakistan is an “army with a country” with approximately 630,000 active-duty personnel (550,000 Army; 30,000 Navy; 50,000 Air Force); approximately 150,000 Frontier Corps and Pakistan Rangers. Islamabad has a growing nuclear arsenal of 170 nuclear warheads.

Terrorist groups operating in Pakistan: Haqqani Network (HQN); Harakat ul-Jihad-i-Islami; Harakat ul-Mujahidin; Hizbul Mujahideen; Indian Mujahedeen; Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham-Khorasan (ISIS-K); Islamic State of ash-Sham – India; Islamic State of ash-Sham – Pakistan; Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan; Jaish-e-Mohammed; Jaysh al Adl (Jundallah); Lashkar i Jhangvi; Lashkar-e Tayyiba; Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP); al-Qa’ida; al-Qa’ida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS)

The Pakistani military is the only homogenizing force in this cauldron of ethnic groups, languages, political parties, social movements, competing interests, drug trafficking/use, and extremist groups.

The popular former international cricket champion and imprisoned ex-PM Imran Khan with his loyal ex-ISI chief dared to defy the all-powerful Pakistani army now face “justice.”

“Every time our party announces a protest, I am charged with more fake cases while inside prison.

I have been informed that many of our people are still missing, and we have serious concerns about their lives and wellbeing. We demand that the government immediately publish data of arrested citizens and those brought to hospitals and morgues after being injured or martyred. Additionally, CCTV footage from the hospital and Safe City cameras must be preserved, so that the truth can be revealed to the nation.”

We have two demands:

1. A commission should be formed under the senior-most judges of the Supreme Court to independently investigate the events of 9 May 2023 and 26 Nov 2024.

2. Unjustly imprisoned political detainees should be released.

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/10/pakistans-military-charges-former-spy-chief-over-political-activities

https://insaf.pk/news/former-prime-minister-imran-khans-message-december-6-2024

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/who-is-isi-chief-faiz-hameed-whose-visit-to-kabul-has-sparked-controversy-101630843177941.html

https://www.dawn.com/news/1752254

CIA

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2493059/the-mosaic-of-drug-trafficking-and-its-consequences

https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-09/pakistan-nuclear-weapons-2023/

Donald Trump is Human Wrecking Ball

President-elect Donald Trump has picked the worst picks humanly possible to sit on his future cabinet. Their policies will weaken, sicken, pauperize, and demoralize Americans with destructive health, economic, de-regulatory strategies. A Russian TV host gleefully claimed that “Trump’s Cabinet picks will dismantle America.”

US President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC, 5 Dec 2017. (Photo: Saul Loeb / AFP / Getty Images)

But not only is Trump going to sabotage the US domestically on behalf of the Kremlin, he is going to demoralize US diplomats and damage our foreign policy.  

Career diplomats at the US State Department work earnestly and diligently for decades to one day reach the pinnacle of being named Ambassador. President-elect Trump chose his daughter’s utterly sleazy, contemptible, convicted father-in-law to be the US Ambassador to France.

The former AUSA for New Jersey said of Charles Kushner: “This was one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted…and I was the US Attorney in New Jersey.”

This oligarchal miscreant previously served two years in prison before being released after pleading guilty in 2004 to charges of tax evasion, lying to the Federal Election Commission and retaliating against a federal witness. Trump pardoned Kushner during the last month of his presidency. If confirmed by the US Senate, Charles Kushner will be walking in the shoes of Benjamin Franklin, America’s first Ambassador to Paris.

Now the President-elect is nominating his son’s ex-fiancee Kim Guilfoyle to be US Ambassador to Greece, the world’s first democracy. This move is widely seen as an attempt to ensure Kim Guilfoyle (55) doesn’t spill the beans about the Trump Crime Family (TCF) after Donald Trump Jr. (46) dumped her for a younger woman, Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson (37).  

To her credit, Kim Guilfoyle is an attorney and former prosecutor.

Below is what Kim Guilfoyle must have looked like when she learned that Don Trump Jr threw her overboard for a younger woman. She waited a long time to tie the knot with Don Jr. At least the TCF bought her silence with a well-paying, prestigious sinecure in Athens (for now).

America and the world can’t wait long enough until 21 Jan 2029, if we all survive this human wrecking ball and Putin’s plans for America.

Sources:

SEX GAL NOW HELPING FEDS – HOOKER TURNS ON KUSHNER

Resistance HQ Bulletin 23, 12/10/24 – by Ron Filipkowski

Russian TV host gleefully claims Trump’s Cabinet will ‘dismantle’ America, report says

Man Fleeing Ukraine War with Kitten Found Alive in Frigid Romania Mountains: “Peach Kept My Heart Warm”

Salvamont Maramures, a Romanian mountain rescue service, saved the two. Peach the cat peers from the jacket of its owner, Vladislav Duda (28). They were rescued from a deep mountain ravine in a state of severe hypothermia. (Photo: AP)

When the rescue team located and found the Ukrainian, they unzipped his jacket and discovered Peach snuggled up inside. Duda said: “I’m happy because my cat is alive. I got a chance from God for a new life. The happiest moment is because the cat is here with me.”

The auburn-colored kitten, a tomcat named “Peach” in Ukrainian, was experiencing the effects of malnutrition after they ran out of food four days earlier and melted snow helped to keep him alive.

“Peach kept my heart warm and he kept my faith alive,” the Ukrainian said.

“Peach” also means stove or oven.

During the complex ascent out of the ravine which took more than five hours, the Ukrainian would not let go of his kitten. He kept Peach clutched to his chest from the bottom to the top until he was put in the ambulance.

Duda requested the rescuers to ‘Please take care of the cat.'”

Peach at the Animal Med vet clinic after being rescued along with its owner after three days in a deep mountain ravine in Baia Mare, Romania. (Photo: 9 Dec 2024, AP)

Peach received veterinary treatment in Baia Mare and is expected to fully recover.

Source:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-kitten-fleeing-ukraine-war-found-alive-romania-mountains/

Canada: Indian Home Minister Amit Shah Behind Anti-Sikh Campaign

(Undated photo of Amit Shah: PTI)

Canadian Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister David Morrison told Parliament that Indian Home Minister Amit Shah ordered a campaign of violence, intimidation and intelligence-gathering targeting Sikh separatists inside Canada. Morrison did not elaborate on how Canada knew of Shah’s alleged involvement.

PM Justin Trudeau said a year ago that Canada had credible evidence agents of the Indian government were involved in the murder of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia in June 2023. Canadian authorities have repeatedly said they have shared evidence of that with Indian authorities.

Indian government officials have repeatedly denied Canada has provided evidence and have called the allegations absurd. India’s embassy in Ottawa didn’t immediately respond to messages for a request for comment on the allegation against Shah.

On 14 Oct, Canada expelled the Indian high commissioner and five other diplomats, alleging they were persons of interest in multiple cases of coercion, intimidation and violence aimed at quieting a campaign for an independent Sikh state known as Khalistan.

Canada is not the only country that has accused Indian officials of plotting an assassination on foreign soil. The FBI announced criminal charges in mid-October against an Indian government employee in connection with an alleged foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist leader living in NYC.

Vikash Yadav, who authorities say directed the NYC plot from India, faces murder-for-hire charges in a planned killing that prosecutors have previously said was meant to precede a string of other politically motivated murders in the US and Canada.

Nathalie Drouin, Trudeau’s national security adviser, said Canada has evidence the Indian government first gathered information on Indian nationals and Canadian citizens in Canada through diplomatic channels and proxies.

She said the information was then passed to the government in New Delhi, which allegedly works with a criminal network affiliated with Lawrence Bishnoi.

Bishnoi is currently in prison in India, but Drouin said his vast criminal network has been linked to homicides, assassination plots, coercion and other violent crimes in Canada.

Before the RCMP went public with allegations that Indian diplomats were persons of interest in criminal investigations, Drouin said there was an effort to work with the Indian government to ensure accountability, but it became evident the Indian government would not cooperate with Canada

The RCMP took the extraordinary step of talking publicly about ongoing investigations because of threats to public safety. The Indian government denies the allegations and has expelled six Canadian diplomats in return.

Hardeep Nijjar Singh (45) was fatally shot in his pickup truck after he left the Sikh temple he led in Surrey, BC. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland. Four Indian nationals living in Canada were charged with Niijar’s murder and are awaiting trial.

Where Khalistan would be were it a country. Approximately 21,000,000 Sikhs live in India, the majority in Punjab State (16,000,000); 16,000 Sikhs reside in Pakistan; nearly 772,000 Sikhs call Canada their home.

There are probably less than 100 Sikhs remaining in Afghanistan. (Photo: Andrew Scheer)

The idea of creating an independent Sikh homeland (Khalistan) has existed for decades. When India became independent, Hindus had a homeland (India) and Muslims carved out a homeland (West and East Pakistan), but Sikhs were left out.  The chances of achieving an independent Sikh state are as remote as an independent Kurdistan emerging in the Middle East. But brutal Indian repression of Sikhs will fill the ranks of their many pro-secession organizations.

India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1983.

At the height of Sikh extremism in the 1980s, on 31 Oct 1984 (today), Indira Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi by her two personal security guards Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, both Sikhs, in retaliation for Operation Blue Star. And in June 1985, Canada suffered its worst terrorist incident when Sikh terrorists bombed Air India Flight 182 killing 268 Canadians, 27 Brits, and 22 Indians.

As previously posted here on Coriolanus, we see the murderous regime of Indian PM Nahendra Modi at work. He is following the playbook of any rightwing despot, like Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping: eliminate enemies of the state. But as GOP Presidential candidate NYS Governor Thomas E. Dewey said in 1948: “You can’t shoot an idea with a gun.”

Baltej Singh Dhillon made history as the first turbaned Sikh officer in the RCMP. (Undated photo).

Sources:

Canada alleges Indian Home Minister Amit Shah ordered campaign targeting Sikh separatists – ABC News (go.com)

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

China Declares Success: Youngest Astronauts Reach Space

Taikonauts (L-R) Wang Haoze, Song Lingdong and Cai Xuzhe before the launch (Photo: EFE)

A Chinese spacecraft with a three-person crew, including the country’s first female space engineer, has docked after a journey of more than six hours.

The crew will use the homegrown space station as a base for six months to conduct experiments and carry out spacewalks as Beijing gathers experience and intelligence for its eventual mission to put someone on the Moon by 2030.

Beijing declared the launch of Shenzhou-19 a “complete success” – it is one of 100 launches China has planned in a record year of space exploration as it tries to outdo its rival, the US.

The BBC was given rare access to the Jiuquan Satellite launch center in Gansu and we were just over a kilometer away when the spacecraft blasted off.

Flames shot out of the rocket launcher as it took to the skies, lighting up the Gobi Desert with a deafening roar.

Hundreds of people lined the streets, waving and cheering the names of the taikonauts, China’s word for astronauts, as they were sent off.

At the Tiangong space station, the Shenzhou-19 crew met with three other astronauts who are manning the Shenzhou-18 and will return to Earth on 4 Nov.

Just two years ago, President Xi Jinping declared that “to explore the vast cosmos, develop the space industry and build China into a space power is our eternal dream.”

But some in Washington see the country’s ambition and fast-paced progress as a real threat.

Earlier this year, NASA chief Bill Nelson said the US and China were “in effect, in a race” to return to the Moon, where he fears Beijing wants to stake territorial claims.

D/NASA told Congress that he believed Beijing’s civilian space program is camouflaging a military program.

This Chinese space plane can reportedly travel at hypersonic speed.

While the US wasted trillions of dollars and American military lives in the beginning of the 21st century waging two wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, China quietly and steadily used their immense resources wisely to begin their conquest of space. Meanwhile, NASA has contracted out a large portion of its space program to zillionarie megalomaniac Elon Musk, a man in secret contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin. To read more of this South African’s nefarious activities, please see previous posts from Coriolanus.

Source:

China declares success as its youngest astronauts reach space (bbc.com)

Over Hatred, Three Youngsters Flush Their Lives Away; Two in US, One in UK

As China is sending their youth into the cosmos, the US and UK sent three youngsters into the dumpster.

First, the UK.

Axel Muganwa Rudakubana (18) and his three child victims.

A teenager accused of killing three young girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class for young children in the United Kingdom has been charged with possessing an al Qaeda training manual and ricin poison.

Axel Muganwa Rudakubana (18) already faces three murder charges, ten counts of attempted murder and one count of knife possession. The new charges were filed under the UK’s Terrorism Act.

The poison and PDF study, “Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants: The al Qaeda Training Manual,” were found during a search of Rudakubana’s home. 

Tests later confirmed the substance found was ricin. The risk of exposure to the public was low said the UK Health Security Agency and there was no evidence that any victims, first responders, or members of the public were exposed to ricin.

Rudakubana allegedly committed the 29 July stabbing spree that killed three girls — Alice Dasilva Aguiar (9), Elsie Dot Stancombe (7), and Bebe King (6) – and injured several others, in Southport, a town north of Liverpool. Merseyside Police did not declare the events a terror incident because no motive has been determined, authorities said during a news conference in Liverpool. 

(Map: Courtesy of getthedata.com)

His victims: (L-R) Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, and Alice Dasilva Aguiar were killed during a Taylor Swift-themed dance event. The teen suspect faces numerous charges related to the slaying.  (Photos: Merseyside Police)

Rudakubana‘s attacks sparked widespread protests and riots across the country amid inaccurate reports the suspect was an asylum seeker. A police van burns as an unruly crowd clashed with police 30 Jul 2024, in Southport, northwest England, near where three girls were stabbed to death in a dance class. (Richard McCarthy/PA via AP)

Rudakubana was born in England to Rwandan parents. Despite being a minor at the time of the stabbings, a judge lifted restrictions that prevented the reporting of his name. 

Rudakubana, obviously in need of intensive psychiatric care, killed three innocent children who had just barely begun their lives. Too bad UK authorities weren’t able to intervene before his stabbing spree and indoctrination into al-Qaida. Now he has caused irreparable harm to three families forced to bury their daughters. His actions also led to riots, arson, and looting against innocent immigrants in the UK.    

Now, the US.

Neptune Beach Florida Police arrested braces-wearing Caleb James Williams (18) who was wielding a machete with an 18-inch blade outside a polling station in Florida as part of a mob of teenagers accused of intimidating Democratic supporters. The US election is mere days away.

Williams was arrested on charges of aggravated assault for allegedly brandishing his weapon at two unidentified women, ages 71 and 54, and improper exhibition of a weapon.

We cannot see acme-prone 18-year-old Caleb James Williams braces as he is not smiling in his mugshot. (Neptune Beach Florida Police Dept)

While his high school classmates are enjoying Florida State University, Caleb will be enjoying Florida State Penitentiary in a few months.

In NYC, a 23-year-old woman was indicted on hate crime and assault charges for pepper spraying a 45-year-old Uber driver in an anti-Muslim attack in NYC. As the Uber driver approached a red light, he began praying in Arabic. Jennifer Guilbeault lunged forward toward the driver’s seat, holding a can of pepper spray. The idiot sprayed Shohel Mahmoud in the face, causing burning, redness and pain.

Jennifer Guilbeault pepper spraying Shohel Mahmoud (Image: Social media)

Thousands of young people drown every year trying get to the US, Australia, Canada, or the EU for a chance at a better life; some just want to live one more day. Those young migrants would have loved to have just one-tenth of the breaks privileged Caleb and Jennifer had growing up in the US.

In 2023, at least 8,565 people died on migration routes worldwide according to the IOM. Undated photo of unfortunate refugees courtesy of the Vatican News Service.

The charges against Caleb James Williams and Jennifer Guilbeault are merely allegations and both defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

All three of these youngsters (between 18 and 23) have flushed away their lives over hatred, stupidity, and/or mental illness. Muganwa Rudakubana will most likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. But Caleb James Williams and Jennifer Guilbeault will one day be released from prison, assuming the two will be convicted and imprisoned for their felonies. But police records, like the internet, are forever, GOP VPOTUS candidate JD Vance is finding out now. Who would ever hire, date, matriculate into higher education, or marry Jennifer and Caleb?  

Sources:

UK teen charged in stabbing found with al Qaeda material, poison, police say | Fox News

Teen Accused in U.K. Taylor Swift Dance Class Stabbing Charged With Terror Offenses – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Florida Teen Wielded Machete Outside Polling Station (politicalwire.com)

https://manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-announces-hate-crimes-indictment-of-woman-for-pepper-spraying-uber-driver-on-the-upper-east-side/

America’s Defense Contractors Failing Basic Cybersecurity Which China is Exploiting

A new report from Merrill Research states that only four percent of defense contractors are fully prepared to meet the DoD minimum cybersecurity requirements known as the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC). These requirements represent basic cyber hygiene, not cutting-edge tools — yet the vast majority of contractors fail to meet even these minimum standards.

The US faces an unprecedented and persistent cyber threat, particularly from China. Recently, hackers linked to Beijing breached several US internet service providers in an attack dubbed Salt Typhoon. This latest intrusion is part of a broader wave of sophisticated cyber campaigns orchestrated by China, including Volt Typhoon and Flax Typhoon, which have penetrated critical sectors ranging from energy to telecommunications.

D/FBI Christopher Wray bluntly stated, “China’s hacking program is larger than that of every other major nation, combined.”

The gap between what Americans believe about the security of our defense contractors and the grim reality exposed by the Merrill report should alarm everyone.

The CMMC is the digital equivalent of locking your doors at night. Multi-factor authentication and patch management are fundamental requirements, yet the Merrill report shows that only 21% of defense contractors use multi-factor authentication, which most civilians need to log into their social media accounts, and a dismal 15% have implemented patch management, which ensures that software vulnerabilities are regularly updated.

The disconnect between belief and reality is stark. While 75% of contractors believe they are compliant, their reported cybersecurity readiness tells a different story. The average Supplier Performance Risk System score across surveyed contractors is a staggering -12, far below the required 110 to meet CMMC standards. This isn’t just a compliance failure; it’s a national security crisis.

If these contractors — many of them responsible for safeguarding classified data and developing our military’s most advanced technology — are this unprepared, what does that say about the rest of the US critical infrastructure? 

The defense industrial base is one of 16 critical infrastructure sectors in the US, alongside other essential industries like energy, healthcare, and financial services. These sectors are integral to the functioning of our nation.

The Salt Typhoon, Volt Typhoon, and Flax Typhoon attacks highlight just how deeply Chinese cyber operatives are infiltrating that critical infrastructure. According to the USIC, China’s ultimate goal is to disrupt America’s ability to respond to military crises, particularly in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. Chinese hackers could paralyze our power grids, disrupt water systems, or compromise defense communications.

Contractors that remain non-compliant could be shut out from future DoD contracts and subject to False Claims Act penalties if they had previously attested to being compliant. Now that the DOD has aligned contractor profit incentives with national security interests, there may be fewer breaches like Salt Typhoon. 

The Chinese government has demonstrated its intent and capability to exploit any weaknesses in America’s critical infrastructure and contractors must recognize that cybersecurity is more than just a regulatory box to check.

As we read above, China is making tremendous strides into space thanks to Research and Development (R & D), but also thanks to espionage, hacking, and intellectual property theft.

Sources:

info.cybersheath.com/eBook-Third-Annual-Merrill-Research-Report-op-ed?utm_source=media_outlet_NextGov_FCW&utm_medium=article_op-ed&utm_campaign=merrill_research_report

America’s defense contractors are failing basic cybersecurity and China is exploiting it – Nextgov/FCW

Spain Battles Deadliest Flooding Disaster in Decades as Death Toll Rises

Spain deployed more than 1,000 troops to help with rescue efforts but many crews remain cut-off from towns by flooded roads and downed communication and power lines.

Spain is enduring its worst flooding disaster in decades with at least 95 people dead and dozens more missing after huge rains swept the eastern province of Valenica and beyond.

Torrential rain triggered flash floods which swept away bridges and buildings and forced people to climb onto roofs or cling to trees to survive.

President Pedro Sánchez has declared three days of national mourning as the wild conditions continue, restricting some rescue efforts.

The death toll is feared to climb as “many people are still missing.”

The churning floodwaters swept away hundreds of cars in Valencia. Guillermo Serrano Pérez (21) said the water had rushed down a highway “like a tsunami” forcing him and his parents to abandon their car and climb onto a bridge to survive. (Photo: AP)

In his national address, President Sanchez urged citizens to remain vigilant and pledged a full recovery, telling victims: “The whole of Spain weeps with you… we won’t abandon you”.

His government is yet to make an explicit link between the “unprecedented” extreme weather and climate change but scientists tell the BBC it is clear that global temperature rise made the downpours worse.

One of the first-hit towns near Valencia, Chiva, reported one year’s worth of rainfall in just a period of eight hours according to national weather agency Aemet.

As Spanish army and emergency crews rushed to carry out rescues on Wednesday morning- including winching people to safety from balconies and car rooftops- survivors in Valencia recounted the horror of the floods on Tuesday night.

Sudden surges turned streets and roads into rivers- catching many motorists unaware.

Source:

Scores dead after torrential rain in Spain’s Valencia region (bbc.com)

Oregon: First Case of Avian Flu Found in Pig

A severe form of bird flu has been detected for the first time in a pig on a small unidentified farm in Crook County in central Oregon.

The same strain – highly pathogenic avian influenza – has turned up in backyard and commercial flocks across the US. Hundreds of cows have also been infected, along with some people who worked around the infected animals.

Two of the latest cases of human infection were announced last week in Washington state. The CDC confirmed that two people working in a commercial egg farm in Franklin County in south-central Washington were infected.

But this is the first time the virus has crossed over to pigs. The National Veterinary Services Laboratories confirmed the presence of the strain in one of five pigs on the farm. Results on the other four pigs are pending. The testing can take a little while because the CDC analyzes the DNA of the virus.

The farm also has backyard birds that became infected. State and national officials humanely euthanized all 70 of the birds and the five pigs to prevent further spread of the disease. None of the meat entered the food supply chain – it is not a commercial farm – and it was not intended for retail.

The discovery of the virus in pigs potentially could be a concern in Iowa, the top pork-producing state in the country. But Chris Rademache, a clinical professor in the Iowa State University College of Veterinary Medicine, was not worried by the Oregon case.

“This is a very unique case,” Rademache said.

Rademache said the situation in Oregon involved a backyard pig, not intended for consumption, which was in close contact with poultry and domestic waterfowl, which is “a very different situation” than a hog farming operation.

He said pork producers are aware of the need to separate poultry and hogs, and they “do a good job” of that. Additionally, Rademache said the state has a “robust” monitoring and testing program to catch any sort of outbreak.

“Pork continues to be safe to eat,” Rademache said.

Oregonians raise about 3,000 pigs every year and at least one just became infected with bird flu. (Photo courtesy of Oregon Department of Agriculture)

The property was quarantined and state officials are conducting surveillance at the site. The agriculture department also has provided the owners with protective gear to avoid further infection, and officials are educating and monitoring the exposed individuals.

State officials didn’t say how many people might have been exposed. Many people develop mild respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose, sore throat and cough. People can also get conjunctivitis – or “pink eye.” Some people who’ve been infected have become severely ill and have required hospitalization.

The current strain of the virus that’s circulating in the US and worldwide is endemic in wild birds, causing outbreaks in poultry, wild mammals, including seals and sea lions, along with domestic animals and dairy cows. Avian flu has been confirmed in dairy cattle in 14 states, including California and Idaho. Oregon has not had any cases in dairy cattle. The number of cases of human infections is relatively low.

Food safety officials recommend properly cooking meat and eggs to kill the virus along with other harmful bugs like E. coli, which can be deadly. The CDC also recommends pasteurizing milk and dairy products to kill pathogens. Check the USDA website for food safety tips.

State officials expect the measures taken at the farm will end the outbreak, but they advised others to take precautions to prevent their animals from becoming infected.

Source:

First case of bird flu in pig discovered on small Oregon farm (yahoo.com)

Kazakh Experts Sound Alarm Over Mysterious Mass Deaths of Caspian Seals

The Caspian Sea, bordered by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan, is rich in oil and gas reserves.

The unexplained deaths of scores of Caspian seals in Kazakhstan’s Manghystau region is raising alarm bells among local authorities and scientists.

As of 29 Oct 289 seal carcasses had been found along the coastline over the previous five days, prompting urgent monitoring efforts by the Interregional Fishery Inspection of the Ural-Caspian Basin and experts from the Institute of Hydrobiology and Ecology.

Seal researcher Asel Baimuqanova said some of the dead seals showed signs of trauma. Although the exact cause of death remains unclear, Baimuqanova noted that several seals were pregnant, adding urgency to the investigation.

(Undated photo: RFE/RL)

Caspian seals are the only marine mammals in the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest inland body of water. Once numbering over a million in the early 20th century, their population has now dwindled to an estimated 70,000 due to overhunting and pollution.

Since late September, dedicated scientific teams have conducted daily inspections along the Tupqaraghan Peninsula’s western coast to investigate the unexplained surge in mortality rates.

The discovery of the dead seals follows a similar event in April, when 27 seal carcasses were found in the area, which was attributed to storm-related beaching. Authorities suspect those seals may have died at sea before washing ashore.

Pollution from hydrocarbon extraction and declining water levels have been threatening both local species and the sea’s ecological future, according to experts.

Animal die-offs sometimes remain a mystery to researchers, whether it’s a flock of birds found dead or whales beaching themselves. Pesticides and poisons have been attributed to some bird die-offs and sonar interference may contribute to whale beachings. Necropsies will reveal whether poisons, pollution, or pathogens killed these poor creatures.

Source:

Kazakh Experts Sound Alarm Over Mysterious Mass Deaths Of Caspian Seals (rferl.org)

Beautiful Black Halloween Cat Has Most Unique Orange Eyes

Ohio Man Who Concealed Croatian War Crime Conviction Sentenced to Prison for Immigration Fraud

Jugoslav Vidic, pictured in this undated official photo, is what the USIC describes as a PIFWC (Person Indicted for War Crimes). (Image: 24 SATA News)

Jugoslav Vidic (56) of Parma Heights, OH, was sentenced to three years in prison for possessing a green card he illegally obtained by concealing that he had been charged with a war crime in Croatia in 1994 prior to immigrating to the US. A Croatian court convicted Vidic in absentia in 1998.

The depravity of the Republika Srpska Army (VRS) is captured perfectly here. For the amusement of his comrades, a Serb fighter points a firearm at the head of a laughing boy on the outskirts of Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, circa 1992-95. (Public domain imagery)

Authorities revealed that during an attack by ethnic Serb forces in Petrinja, Croatia, on 16 Sep 1991, Vidic, a soldier in the Serb Army of Krajina, cut off the arm of civilian Stjepan Komes, who died afterward. Vidic admitted that he knew about the Croatian charges when he immigrated to the US as a refugee in 1999 and when he applied to become a lawful permanent resident in 2000. He lied during his interview with US immigration officials and he received his green card in 2005.

As part of the plea agreement, Vidic agreed to the entry of a judicial order of removal from the US.

In this undated photo, a Yugoslavian man is pleading for his life from paramilitary fighters circa 1991-1995. The man’s whereabouts or fate are unknown.

Members of the American public who have information about human rights violators or immigration fraud are urged to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or through the FBI online tip form, or HSI at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or through the ICE online tip form. All are staffed around the clock, and tips may be provided anonymously. In Canada, you can provide anonymous and secure tips by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), texting TIP202 + your message to “CRIMES” (274637) or by Secure Web Tips.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Ohio Man Who Concealed Croatian War Crime Charge Sentenced to Prison for Immigration Fraud | United States Department of Justice

Bosnian War- A Brief Overview | Remembering Srebrenica

Iran’s Border Security Forces Allegedly Massacre ‘Dozens’ of Afghan Migrants

Map: Courtesy of BBC

Taliban authorities are looking into allegations that dozens of Afghan civilians were killed and injured by Iranian border forces while illegally trying to enter that country from Pakistan.

The Taliban probe was announced after an Iranian rights group, known as Halvash, initially reported the alleged Afghan casualties, saying they occurred Sunday in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan border province.

The organization quoted survivors as saying that about 300 Afghan migrants were attempting to enter Iran unlawfully when they were assaulted by Iranian border guards, resulting in deaths and injuries.

An Iranian envoy stated that responding “legally” to the “illegal entry of unauthorized nationals” was “the legitimate right of countries, and the border guards of any country are obliged to prevent the entry of illegal nationals.” He reiterated that Tehran is determined to return undocumented asylum-seekers and deal sternly with illegal border crossers.

Residents in the Pakistani border district of Washuk also reported the alleged Iranian assault on Afghan migrants, but they could not provide specific casualty details, citing the remoteness of the border area.

Iran and Pakistan together host millions of documented and undocumented Afghan refugees. Both countries have deported hundreds of thousands of undocumented individuals back to Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power three years ago.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the deportations continue daily, and almost 100,000 Afghans returned home from Pakistan and Iran in Sep 2024 alone.

Saravan is a volatile area and the site of a slaughter of nine Pakistani migrants on 27 Jan 2024. Pakistan’s Sunni Balochs promote an anti-Punjabi agenda against Islamabad; Iran’s Sunni Balochs are clamoring for more rights (if not outright separation) from Shia-dominated Tehran.  Afghan migrants, of various ethnicities, become caught up in reprisals and hostility at the borders. Afghan Hazaras are Shias and should be welcome in Iran, but the ethnicities of the Afghan victims are not known.  

Sources:

Iran’s border security forces allegedly massacre ‘dozens’ of Afghan migrants (voanews.com)

2024 Saravan killings – Wikipedia

Police Brutality: Former Louisiana Sheriff’s Deputy Sentenced for Civil Rights Violation for Using Excessive Force Against Detainee

Javarrea Pouncy (31), a former sergeant with the DeSoto Parish Sheriff’s Office (DPSO), was sentenced to 37 months in prison for assaulting Jarius Brown while he was being booked. Pouncy admitted that in Sep 2019, he and another DPSO deputy conducted a strip search of Jarius Brown and the deputies repeatedly punched the victim in his head, face, and body, even though the detainee did not pose a threat to either officer. As a result of the assault, the detainee was hospitalized and sustained a broken eye socket and broken nose, among other injuries. The other deputy involved in the assault, DeMarkes Grant, previously pleaded guilty to one count of obstructing justice sentenced to ten months in prison.

Undated photo of Jarius Brown courtesy of AP. In 2019, Pouncy and Grant beat Brown so brutally in that they broke his nose and left eye socket.

Desoto Parish and Louisiana law-enforcement agencies have a terrible reputation for incidents of excessive force against civilians. The ACLU has opened up its 22nd lawsuit in what they call the “Justice Lab” to fight police brutality through the legal system.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Former Louisiana Sheriff’s Deputy Sentenced for Civil Rights Violation for Using Excessive Force Against Detainee | United States Department of Justice

Lawsuit: Deputies broke man’s nose, eye socket while booking him into jail | wwltv.com

Videos raise questions whether DeSoto Parish deputies used excessive force (ksla.com)

‘Justice Lab’ aims to expose, litigate claims of police bias | AP NewsJarius Brown’s | Legal Battle | for Police Brutality Justice (whitcomblawpc.com)

Food Safety: Listeria Recall Grows to 5.4 Million Kgs of Meat and Poultry

Getty/Lorenz Huter/Allrecipes

A nationwide recall of meat and poultry products potentially contaminated with listeria has expanded to nearly 15.4 million kilograms (12 million pounds) and now includes ready-to-eat meals sent to US schools, restaurants, and major retailers.

The updated recall includes prepared salads, burritos and other foods sold at stores including Costco, Trader Joe’s, Target, Walmart, and Kroger. The meat used in those products was processed at a Durant, Oklahoma, manufacturing plant operated by BrucePac. The Woodburn, Oregon-based company sells precooked meat and poultry to industrial, foodservice, and retail companies across the US.

Routine testing found potentially dangerous listeria bacteria in samples of BrucePac chicken, said the USDA. No illnesses have been confirmed in connection with the recall and the CDC has not launched an outbreak investigation.

The recall, issued on 9 Oct, includes foods produced between 31 May and 8 Oct. The USDA has posted a 342-page list of hundreds of potentially affected foods, including chicken wraps sold at Trader Joe’s, chicken burritos sold at Costco and many types of salads sold at stores such as Target and Walmart. The foods were also sent to school districts and restaurants across the US.

The recalled foods can be identified by establishment numbers “51205 or P-51205” inside or under the USDA mark of inspection. Consumers can search on the USDA recall site to find potentially affected products. Such foods should be thrown away or returned to stores for refunds.

Eating foods contaminated with listeria can cause potentially serious illness. About 1,600 people are infected with listeria bacteria each year in the US, killing 260 victims.

Listeria infections typically cause fever, muscle aches and tiredness and may cause stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions. Symptoms can occur quickly or to up to 10 weeks after eating contaminated food. The infections are especially dangerous for older people, those with weakened immune systems or who are pregnant.

The same type of bacteria is responsible for an outbreak tied to Boar’s Head deli meat that has killed at least ten people since May. That plant was reportedly shuttered.

Sources:

BrucePac Recalls Ready-To-Eat Meat and Poultry Products Due to Possible Listeria Contamination | Food Safety and Inspection Service (usda.gov)

Listeria recall grows to 5.4 million kilograms of meat and poultry (voanews.com)

China’s Technological Advances Include Sound and Neurological Weapons

India denied that its soldiers were “microwaved” by Chinese forces atop the Himalayans on Nov 2020, but a professor in Beijing said that’s exactly how Chinese troops won the skirmish. The Indian soldiers were reported to be dizzy, nauseous, and vomiting, unable to withstand the invisible pulse attack after 15 minutes.

China’s military is developing high-technology arms, including sound weapons that can incapacitate enemy forces by disrupting the neurological functions of human targets without causing visible injury. 

Modern warfare is rapidly evolving beyond physical combat through these weapons capable of disrupting brain and body functions with sound. A review of Chinese military writings revealed the military has developed two types of sophisticated sound technologies: “neurotype” sound weapons that affect brain activity and “organotype” models that can damage internal organs through various frequencies.

“These weapons, which operate at frequencies undetectable by the human ear, have the capability to cause both neurological and physiological disruption, making them an essential tool in [China’s] arsenal for incapacitating adversaries without inflicting overt physical harm,” the report said.

The weapons offer strategic advantages in waging asymmetric warfare with minimal physical evidence.

Neurostrike employs advanced non-lethal directed energy and infrasound weapons to incapacitate individuals physically and cognitively. The sound weapons can disrupt internal brain frequencies and internal organs, resulting in cognitive dysfunction, disorientation, and physical harm.

The weapons can induce confusion, emotional distress and a loss of consciousness, according to two Chinese military researchers who wrote a 2024 report, and can directly impair cognitive abilities vital in warfare.

Sound weapons designed to affect organs affect human tissue using frequencies ranging from 3 hertz to 17 hertz, causing a range of physical effects from nausea and dizziness to, in extreme cases, organ damage. The Chinese navy apparently has a high-powered infrasound generator for use against military divers.

The report urges the US government to take steps to deal with the growing threat posed by infrasound and neurostrike weapons, arguing that the military should invest in counter-sound weapon technology that can detect, block, and neutralize infrasound waves. Sound and neurostrike weapons should also be included in international arms control negotiations.

Several years ago, USIC personnel were victimized by the mysterious “Havana Syndrome” which caused similar types of non-kinetic symptoms addressed here. Culpability seemed to have lied with the Russian GRU in those “health attacks.” Both Russia and China seem to have these technologies. The US military has non-lethal directed energy weapons in its arsenal as well. The Active Denial System (ADS) is a painful heat-generating weapon; the Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) is a powerful sonic cannon. Some police departments, like the NYPD, employ a smaller version of the LRAD for riot control.  

The ADS is a painful heat-generating weapon. (Photo: USMC / Lance Cpl. Andrew M. Huff)

Sailor aims an LRAD at an incoming small craft during a naval exercise in Apr 2015. USN Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Huey D. Younger Jr./Released

Sources:

Inside the Ring: China cognitive warfare advances – Washington Times

NeuroStrike Capabilities and the Strategic Role of Infrasound Weapons — The CCP BioThreats Initiative

India denies report that China ‘microwaved’ its soldiers with pulse weapon in Himalayas | National Post

China uses ‘microwave’ weapons to topple Indian troops in border dispute: Professor | Toronto Sun

Canadian Child Dies from Rabies After Bat Found in Bedroom

Eight species of these nocturnal creatures live in Ontario: the hoary bat, the eastern red bat, the silver-haired bat, the big brown bat, the tricolored bat, the little brown myotis bat, the northern long-eared myotis, the eastern small-footed myotis (pictured above).

A child in the Canadian province of Ontario has died from rabies after being exposed to an unspecified bat in their bedroom. The victim was exposed to the virus in an area north of Sudbury. The parents did not see signs of a bite or scratches and did not get the child a rabies vaccine as a result.

This marks the first domestically-acquired case of human rabies in Ontario since 1967.

The child, whose age was not shared by officials, was taken to hospital after the incident in early September and later died.

Rabies is a rare but deadly viral disease that can be spread to humans from an infected animal – such as bats, coyotes, foxes, or raccoons – most commonly through its saliva.

The disease, which can cause severe damage to the brain and the spinal cord, nearly always causes death once symptoms have appeared, according to the World Health Organization. The percentage of bats with rabies in the southern Ontario region has increased from less than 10% to 16% in recent years.

According to Health Canada, cases of rabies among humans in the country are rare.

Since reporting began in 1924, there have been 28 cases of rabies across six provinces, all of which were fatal. Nearly all human cases of rabies in Canada are a result of exposure to bats, or due to exposure to rabies while in another country.

In the US, fewer than ten people die from rabies each year, according to the CDC, a dramatic decline from the 1960s driven largely by prevention efforts.

There were 25 cases of human rabies documented in the US from 2009 to 2018, seven of which were contracted outside of the country. Like Canada, humans in the US are more commonly exposed to rabies through rabid bats, which are found in all US states except Hawaii.

Sources:

Canadian child dies from rabies after bat found in bedroom (bbc.com)

Ontario Bat Guide – Learn About Local Species – Ontario Nature

Cat Leads People to Her Kittens the Night Before Hurricane Milton and ‘Thanks’ Them in Most Heartwarming Way

The night before Hurricane Milton made landfall, Nikki, the VP of A Better Life-Pet Rescue, received a call about a mother cat and her kittens desperately needing help.

The cat reportedly had been left behind for weeks after her family moved away, and she had recently given birth on the porch. With the hurricane barreling towards the area, Nikki and her team knew they had to act fast to save the feline family.

“When I arrived at the location, I got out of the truck and started walking towards the house. She came running from down the street to me, meowing,” Nikki said.

She led the rescuers to her kittens. Photo: Nikki at A Better Life-Pet Rescue

The family of eight taken to safety. Hurry! Hurricane Milton is fast approaching. Photo: Nikki at A Better Life-Pet Rescue

Photo: Nikki at A Better Life-Pet Rescue

The feline family of eight was rescued just in time. Through the long night of howling winds, torrential rain, and power outages, they lay safe and dry indoors with warm beds and full bellies.

“Those kittens would not have survived the hurricane. We sheltered over 30 animals in our home during the storm.”

The mother is so happy to be indoors and trusts everyone to help her kittens. Photo: Nikki at A Better Life-Pet Rescue

Thanks to Nikki at A Better Life-Pet Rescue, all’s well that ends well.

Source:

Cat Leads People to Her Kittens the Night Before Hurricane Milton and ‘Thanks’ Them in Most Heartwarming Way – Love Meow

Netanyahu’s “Special Military Operation” Now Targets UN Personnel and Lebanese Ambulances; More Nations Break Off Diplomatic Ties with Israel

This young unnamed Palestinian girl was rescued from under rubble in Gaza. Image: Copyright Reuters.

Nicaragua has ended diplomatic relations with Israel, accusing the Likud government of being “fascist” and “genocidal” because of its attacks on Palestinian territory.

Nicaragua joins several countries to cut ties or take diplomatic action against Israel since it launched its war on Gaza in Oct 2023.

Bahrain – Withdrew its ambassador in November, saying the move “confirmed Bahrain’s historic position in support of the Palestinian cause”.

Belize – Cut diplomatic ties in November while reiterating its call for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.

Bolivia – Cut diplomatic ties in November, citing “crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people”.

Brazil – President Lula permanently withdrew his country’s ambassador in May after months of tensions over the war.

Chad – Announced in November it was withdrawing its charge d’affaires for “consultations”, with the decision taken in “indignation” at the conflict.

Chile – Withdrew its ambassador in November after accusing Israel of “unacceptable” human rights violations.

Colombia – President Gustavo Petro cut diplomatic ties in May, calling the Netanyahu administration “genocidal”.

Honduras – Withdrew its ambassador for “consultations” in November in light of the “serious humanitarian situation” unfolding in Gaza.

Jordan – Announced it was recalling its ambassador in November, accusing Israel of creating an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”.

South Africa – Announced in November it was withdrawing three diplomats from Israel for “consultation” in response to the conflict.

Turkey – Recalled its ambassador in November “in view of the unfolding humanitarian tragedy in Gaza”.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza since Oct 2023 is now 42,175; 98,336 wounded. The IDF recently attacked UN Peacekeepers (UNIFIL), wounding several soldiers and damaging their compound. The international community roundly condemned the IDF attacks. Two Lebanese Army soldiers were killed in a separate attack. At least three Canadian citizens have been killed in Lebanon since the IDF onslaught began.   

The Israeli army issued the following warning to ambulances in southern Lebanon, stressing that they were targeted under the pretext of transporting Hezbollah elements:

“We caution against the continued transport of Hezbollah elements in ambulances.”

“We call on Lebanese medical teams to avoid engaging with Hezbollah elements and not cooperating with them.”

“Every action would be taken against any Hezbollah armed vehicle.”

In a provocative move to escalate tensions and incite fury within the Shia Crescent, Israel’s Channel 14 broadcast an incendiary piece insinuating that Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani from Iraq was on an Israeli assassination hit list. Channel 14 had shown al-Sistani’s picture with red crosshairs over his head this alongside photos of Israel’s top adversaries, including Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Al-Sistani, a 94-year-old Iranian-born Iraqi scholar, is considered one of the highest spiritual authorities by Shia Muslims. Washington expressed solidarity with al-Sistani amid growing outrage in the Middle East over the Israeli broadcast.

The US Ambassador to Iraq posted this on social media:

“Grand Ayatollah Sistani is a renowned and respected religious leader in the international community. He is a critical and influential voice in promoting a more peaceful region.”

Pope Francis (R) meets with Iraq’s Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in Najaf, Iraq, on 6 Mar 2021.  In 2014, he issued a religious decree, urging Iraqis to mobilize and defend their country from ISIL (ISIS). [Vatican Media via AP]

Attacking medical personnel or ambulances is a war crime and crime against humanity under the Geneva Conventions. The IDF has already struck several hospitals in Lebanon. Channel 14’s deliberate broadcast was meant to incite Iranian and Shiite fury against Israel, much like Fox News did in the US to build anger at the Islamic world in order to gather public consensus for invading Afghanistan and Iraq. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, already indicted for war crimes by the ICC, is doing everything he can to stall his own nettlesome bribery and corruption trial proceedings in Jerusalem by widening this Middle Eastern war. Democratic circles suspect that Netanyahu favors Donald Trump as President, so all of these moves are deliberately done to damage the Biden Administration and thereby harm Kamala Harris’ chances at the polls this November. And negotiations to release the 100 or so remaining Israeli and American hostages were swept under the carpet by the loathsome Likud regime.  

From the Jerusalem Post: “What does a guy have to do to get arrested around here?”

Sources:

US slams ‘suggestion of targeting’ Muslim scholar al-Sistani by Israeli TV | Religion News | Al Jazeera

UNIFIL statement (11 October 2024) | UNIFIL (unmissions.org)

Protection of medical personnel in armed conflicts—case study: Afghanistan – PMC (nih.gov)

Trial of Benjamin Netanyahu – Wikipedia

Another Canadian reportedly dead in Lebanon amid escalating Israel-Hezbollah conflict | National News | thecanadianpressnews.ca

US Army PFC Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison for Attempting to Assist ISIS to Conduct Deadly Ambush on US Soldiers

Cole Bridges (AKA Cole Gonzales, 22) of Stow, OH was sentenced to 168 months in prison followed by ten years of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to help the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) to attack and kill US soldiers in the Middle East.

Bridges, a cavalry scout in the Third Infantry Division based in Fort Stewart, GA, began researching and consuming online propaganda promoting jihadists and their violent ideology. Bridges also expressed his support for ISIS and jihad on social media. In or about October 2020, Bridges began communicating with an FBI online covert employee (the OCE), who was posing as an ISIS supporter in contact with ISIS fighters in the Middle East. During these communications, Bridges expressed his frustration with the US military and his desire to aid ISIS. Bridges then provided training and guidance to purported ISIS fighters who were planning attacks, including advice about potential targets in NYC. Bridges also provided the OCE with portions of a US Army training manual and guidance about military combat tactics, for use by ISIS.

Bridges supplied the OCE with instructions for the purported ISIS fighters on how to attack US forces in the Middle East, like diagramming specific military maneuvers intended to help ISIS fighters maximize the lethality of attacks on US troops. Bridges further provided advice about the best way to fortify an ISIS encampment to repel an attack by US Army Special Forces, including by wiring certain buildings with explosives to kill the US soldiers. Bridges provided the OCE with a video of himself in his US Army body armor standing in front of a flag often used by ISIS fighters and making a gesture symbolic of support for ISIS. Bridges sent another video narrating a propaganda speech in support of the anticipated ambush by ISIS on US soldiers.

Bridges used a voice manipulator for this video. Image: US Army Counterintelligence Command.

This dangerous young ex-soldier seems to have an identity crisis and now he has thrown his life away.  If the BOP has the resources, Bridges AKA Gonzales AKA whatever Arabic nom de guerre he chose, will probably require psychological counseling. Unclear is whether Bridge’s chain-of-command was aware of his mental instability and radicalization.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | U.S. Army Soldier Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison For Attempting to Assist ISIS to Conduct Deadly Ambush on U.S. Troops | United States Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs | U.S. Army Soldier Pleads Guilty to Terrorism Charges for Attempting to Help ISIS Conduct Deadly Ambush on U.S. Troops | United States Department of Justice

Vietnam: Five Students Hospitalized with Suspected Food Poisoning in Ho Chi Minh City

Five high school students in Ho Chi Minh City receive medical care for suspected food poisoning following their lunch on October 10, 2024. Photo: Supplied

A suspected food poisoning incident at a Ho Chi Minh City high school led to the hospitalization of five students who suffered abdominal pain and vomited following their lunch.

An emergency team took these five students, including one 11th grader and four 12th graders, to the hospital where they received fluids and pain-relief medicines.

Their condition eventually stabilized and their vomiting and abdominal pain dissipated.

The hospital conducted tests as directed by the city’s Center for Disease Control and continued to closely monitor the five students, all of whom were diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis.

They were discharged from the hospital to continue recovery at home.

A rash of food poisoning incidents should have law-enforcement and health authorities in Vietnam concerned. As previously posted here on Coriolanus, this is probably the fourth reported such incident in the past few months where students have been sickened with food poisoning.  

Source:

5 students hospitalized with suspected food poisoning in Ho Chi Minh City | Tuoi Tre News

Hundreds Stranded After Angry Protesters Force Martinique Airport Closure

Protesters set fire to a road sign outside the Fort-de-France airport on Martinique, 11 Oct 2024 Screenshot from AP video 4525195

Hundreds of passengers have been stranded in the French Caribbean island of Martinique after its airport was briefly forced to close because protesters overran the tarmac and tried to break in.

Martinique has a land area of 436 sq mi and a population of nearly 350,000. Map: Brittanica.com

The overnight shutdown delayed flights and officials at the airport urged stranded passengers to contact their airlines for information after the facility resumed operations by mid-morning.

French authorities had regained control of the airport, which demonstrators targeted in the latest protest against the rising cost of living. Reinforcements were being sent to the island.

Martinique has been gripped by bouts of protests over the high cost of living that have turned violent, with at least one person killed as demonstrators set fire to a police station, cars and road barricades and clashed with police officers.

On Thursday night, protesters overran the tarmac on the airport in the island’s capital, Fort-de-France, and tried to force their way into the main entrance, where hundreds of passengers had taken shelter.

Police securing the entrance were seen fending off assaults from the demonstrators and firing what appears to be tear gas in their direction. The airport later said on Facebook that flights had been suspended.

Three planes carrying some 1,000 passengers had to be diverted to the nearby island of Guadeloupe on Thursday. Another 500 passengers who were supposed to board those flights were stuck at the Fort-de-France airport.

The latest round of protests prompted the government to announce another curfew as it stressed that demonstrations on public roads were prohibited. This is the latest in a string of demonstrations that began in early September, prompting France to send special anti-riot police to the island.

French riot police apprehend a protester in Paris, France, 23 Mar 2023. The Republican Security Corps (CRS) have a terrible reputation for brutality and were once banned from Martinique. (Reuters Photo)

Martinique is a victim of European colonialism. The island suffers from high unemployment, rising costs of imported food, and an ecological disaster. Five decades of pesticide use to protect the vital banana crop have sickened people and ruined the soil. Chlordecone is a carcinogenic pesticide and used on Martinique until 2003. Until all the soil is decontaminated, residents were warned to refrain from eating self-produced fruits or vegetables. The last thing the people of Martinique need are bone-breaking riot police from their colonial masters.

Sources:

Hundreds stranded after anti-inequality protesters force Martinique airport closure | Euronews

Intractable Social-Economic Problems of Martinique (openedition.org)

20 Pakistani Coal Miners Shot Dead in Attack

Map: Wikimedia.org

Twenty coal miners were shot dead in an overnight attack on their lodgings by a group of heavily armed men in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province.

No group has claimed the attack, but separatist militants in Balochistan regularly target natural resource extraction projects dotted across the mineral-rich province, which is the poorest in Pakistan.

Up to 40 attackers fired at miners for half an hour starting around 12:30 AM with rocket launchers and hand grenades. A senior government official in the district confirmed the death toll and said seven more people had been wounded and machinery had been burned.

Laborers gather to protest against the killings of coal miners in an overnight attack in Duki district of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province (Photo: AFP)

On Friday, the workers’ coffins were laid out in a public square where hundreds of protesting union and labor group members demanded better protection amid a rise in violence.

There were conflicting reports about where the victims hailed from.

Militants have in the past targeted energy projects in Balochistan with foreign financing — most notably from China — accusing outsiders of exploiting the resource-rich region.

The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed a Sunday night bombing on a vehicle convoy in southern Karachi that killed two Chinese coal plant workers.

Beijing is a crucial ally for cash-strapped Pakistan but Chinese-funded infrastructure projects have sparked resentment and its nationals are routinely targeted by militant groups. Ethnic Baloch militants also regularly target migrant labourers from elsewhere in Pakistan, particularly Punjabis hailing from the east. Punjabis are Pakistan’s largest ethnic group and dominate the nation’s military forces, which have been battling the insurgency in Balochistan for decades.

In August, the BLA carried out coordinated attacks across Balochistan that killed dozens of mostly Punjabis. Friday’s attack comes just days before Pakistan is due to host the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — a regional bloc established by China and Russia.

The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has an anti-Punjabi and anti-China agenda and is reported to be covertly supported by India and Afghanistan. Jundallah is a Baloch Salafi Sunni group operating in the Balochistan portion of Iran, regarded as the most underdeveloped, desolate, and poorest region of the country. Jundallah has an anti-Shia agenda which has conducted high-profile attacks in Iran.

Balochi men attired in traditional dresses perform during a ceremony organised to mark the Baloch Culture Day at the University of Balochistan (Photo: PPI)

Sources:

20 Pakistan Coal Miners Shot Dead In Attack | IBTimes

2 Chinese workers killed in blast near Pakistan’s Karachi airport, several injured | Pakistan News – The Indian Express

Baloch people in Iran – Wikipedia

Report: Iran Has Hit List of Former Trump Aides; US Scrambling to Protect Them

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at the UN in 2022 holding up a photo of General Qassem Soleimani who was killed in a Trump-ordered assassination. This reckless killing crossed a line with Tehran and in mafia terms, created a personal vendetta. (Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

US officials are coming to a troubling realization about Iran’s repeated threats to kill Donald Trump and some of his former top generals and national security strategists: Tehran isn’t bluffing — and it isn’t giving up anytime soon.

Iran has been openly threatening Trump and those who oversaw his national security strategy since Jan 2020, when Trump ordered a drone strike killing Qassem Soleimani, then Iran’s most powerful military general. A senior analyst described the strike as an exceptional breach of sovereignty in the eyes of Iran.

Tehran has put out videos depicting the future deaths of Trump and others who helped orchestrate the Soleimani attack, pushed for their arrest and extradition and issued menacing statements promising revenge.

USIC officials briefed the Trump campaign last month about assassination threats against the former president, with the Trump campaign saying they were warned the threat has “heightened in the past few months.” The briefing followed a pair of assassination efforts on Trump this summer. No evidence has been presented to link those to Tehran.

And, while the government has gone to unprecedented lengths to protect many of these officials, some who experience similar threats receive no government protection. After firing anti-Iran polemicist John Bolton, President Donald Trump quickly removed his USSS detail.

The assassination of a low-profile official could thrust the two nations into a crisis. Some US officials are now spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each year on security for themselves and their families. As previously posted here on Coriolanus, elements in Iran have sought contracts with transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) like the Hells Angels or drug-cartels to eliminate enemies of the state.

General Qasem Soleimani was a popular figure in Iran and an effective combat leader against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. When the US invaded Afghanistan in Oct 2001 after the 11 Sep 2001 attacks, General Soleimani’s Quds Force collaborated with the US and led the 2001 uprising in Herat against the Taliban. His coalition included ethnic Hazaras, the Northern Alliance, and Quds Force that liberated the city before US forces arrived. During the wasteful US occupation of Iraq, the IRGC-QF-armed Shia militias caused large amounts of US military casualties. General Soleimani was assassinated on 3 Jan 2020 by a drone strike outside Baghdad Int’l Airport (BIAP). John Bolton and other homicidal Republican war-hawks may have a “fatwa for life” issued against them.

Government leaders and advisors act with impunity in making life-taking decisions knowing they will receive USSS, FSB, RCMP, Shin Bet, MSS, Scotland Yard etc etc protection. But imagine how much more circumspect these leaders and advisors would be when deciding to kill a so-called “enemy of the state” if they weren’t afforded taxpayer-funded bodyguards, like John Bolton discovered? Perhaps they will be less inclined to take someone’s life.

Contrast US leaders and their self-created dilemma today with the former President of Mexico pictured below.  Andrés Manuel López Obrador dismissed his security detail, drawn from the Mexican Army, as soon as he became president. For five years no one tried to assassinate him– including the drug cartels, ISIS, a lone actor, the FSB, disgruntled military officers, or even a lunatic.

Meanwhile, the US Congress is allocating close to $150 million per year of taxpayer funds to protect these individuals from Iranian reprisals, a burden the Mexican taxpayer doesn’t have to shoulder.

Mexico’s then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador meeting constituents on 13 Apr 2023.

Sources:

https://www.newsweek.com/mexicos-obrador-says-he-doesnt-need-bodyguards-people-will-protect-him-1007985

Iran has a hit list of former Trump aides. The U.S. is scrambling to protect them. – POLITICO

:https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-cancelled-john-bolton-security-iran-election-2024-1967277

Witnesses Can “Bear-ly” Believe the Surprise Visitor at Connecticut Governor’s Estate

This 5 Oct 2024 photo shows a black bear climbing the gate of the Governor’s Residence, in Hartford, CT. (Courtesy of Joanna Kornafel via AP)

Witnesses could “bear-ly” believe the surprise visitor that appeared at the Connecticut governor’s estate.

A black bear scaled the fence Saturday as human passers-by did a double-take.

“It was definitely like: ‘Is this real?’” Joanna M. Kornafel recalled Friday.

She and her family were traveling in their car near the governor’s residence in Hartford when traffic slowed, and the reason soon became clear: The bear was crossing the street.

Then, as Kornafel’s husband drove and she grabbed her phone to take photos, the animal strode up the driveway to the 19th-century estate and scrambled up the tall metal gate. She photographed the bear standing on its hind legs on the gate, with its front paws on an adjacent pillar and its snout nosing about a globe-shaped light.

The family was struck by how quickly and nimbly the bear climbed up.

“We were all in awe of the bear. And excited,” said Kornafel, explaining that her 4-year-old son had been talking about it all week.

Gov. Ned Lamont’s (D) office said no one was home at the time, and the bear evidently just wandered off.

Bears have been spotted throughout Connecticut in recent years. Nearly all of the state’s 169 cities and towns reported sightings last year.

Source:

Witnesses can bear-ly believe the surprise visitor at Connecticut governor’s estate | AP News

Russian Citizen Arrested for Illegally Exporting US-Sourced Microelectronics with Military Applications to Russia

Photo: Russian Shahed drone arrived in Belarus on 14 Sep (Getty Images)

Denis Postovoy (44) was arrested on charges of conspiring to violate US export control laws. Residing in Sarasota, FL, the defendant is accused of smuggling, money laundering, and defrauding the US by exporting microelectronic components with military applications to Russia.

Postovoy allegedly began his illicit activities in February 2022, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, by acquiring US-made microelectronics used in drones and exporting them to Russia without proper licenses. 

Postovoy allegedly operated through a network of companies in Russia, Hong Kong, and other locations, purchasing the components from US distributors and using intermediary destinations to conceal the final destination of the shipments. The scheme aimed to strengthen Russia’s military capabilities.

Postovoy’s companies, including Hong Kong-based WowCube HK Limited and Russia’s Vector Group, are said to have played a key role in the scheme by submitting false documentation and transshipping goods through countries like Switzerland and Hong Kong. Payments were allegedly funneled through foreign bank accounts, including those in Russia and Hong Kong, to US suppliers of the microelectronics. 

Postovoy’s arrest is part of a broader effort coordinated by the Disruptive Technology Strike Force, a joint initiative of the Departments of Justice and Commerce to prevent hostile regimes from acquiring sensitive technologies. 

Denis Postovoy faced previous litigation from the State of Florida.

An indictment 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 | Russian Citizen Arrested for Illegally Exporting U.S.-Sourced Microelectronics with Military Applications to Russia | United States Department of Justice

STATE OF FLORIDA VS POSTOVOY, DENIS (unicourt.com)

Louisiana Man Sentenced on Felony and Misdemeanor Charges for Actions During 6 Jan Attack Against Capitol Hill

Willard Purkel (51) of Covington, LA, was sentenced on 12 Sept 2024 to 60 days in prison, nine months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution after he previously pleaded guilty to felony and misdemeanor charges related to his conduct during the 6 Jan 2021 attack on the Capitol.

Purkel pleaded guilty on 3 Jun 2024, to a five-count indictment charging him with civil disorder, a felony, and misdemeanor offenses of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

The FBI arrested Purkel on 30 Nov 2023, in Louisiana. His son, Colby (USMS #89223-510), was sentenced last month to three weeks in prison for his role in the riots.

In the 44 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,504 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 560 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.

Source:

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

Doctors Without Borders Ceases Operations in Russia

MSF volunteers serve in these locations

The Swiss-based Doctors Without Borders (MSF) aid group on September 16 said it has been forced to close its operations in Russia. “It is with a heavy heart that we have to close our activities in Russia,” said the head of the group’s Russia program. “Our organization’s work is guided by the principles of independence, impartiality, and neutrality, and medical ethics. We provide assistance based on the needs.” MSF has been in Russia since 1992 but said it received notice in August from the Justice Ministry that its office was removed from the register of nongovernmental organizations.

This draconian move only punishes Russians in remote areas who have little to no access to healthcare. The elites and the oligarchs can access medical care and medicines under the sanctions, unlike the average Russian.

Source:

Doctors Without Borders Ceases Operations In Russia (rferl.org)

NORAD Tracks More Russian Military Planes Near Alaskan Air Space

Russian IL-38 (undated imagery)

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) detected and tracked two Russian IL-38 military aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) on 15 Sep 2024.

The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace. This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat.


An ADIZ begins where sovereign airspace ends and is a defined stretch of international airspace that requires the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security.


NORAD employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to detect and track aircraft and inform appropriate actions. NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America.

The string of recent interceptions began Sept. 11 when NORAD spotted a pair of Russian military aircraft operating in international air near ADIZ but also did not enter Canadian or United States sovereign airspace, according to a release on Wednesday.

However, Russian flights occur “regularly” into the airspace known ADIZ with other recent interceptions in recent as July and May.

July’s incident arrived days after the Kremlin’s Defense Ministry claimed it had intercepted two US B-52N bombers near the Russia’s borders just days prior.

Then on Friday, a pair of TU-142s were detected by NORAD. Those aircraft are Russian reconnaissance and anti-submarine planes. A day later came reports of two Russian IL-38 planes detected, followed by Sunday’s announcement.

Earlier in the summer, NORAD intercepted two Chinese and two Russian military jets flying near Alaska in what officials say was the first known time the two large nations had been recorded operating together.

At the time of their joint encounter, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that Russia and China are “always testing us.”

The US Army recently deployed a large contingency of paratroopers, radar units and at least one M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System to Shemya Island, off the coast of Alaska.

A US Army M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) launches ordnance during RED FLAG-Alaska 21-1 at Fort Greely, AK, 22 Oct2020. This exercise focused on rapid infiltration and exfiltration to minimize the chance of a counterattack. (USAF photo by Senior Airman Beaux Hebert)

This deployment occurred concurrently with Russia’s own extensive naval exercises taking place across the Pacific Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Arctic Ocean to assess Russian combat readiness, the EurAsian Times reported.

Sources:

NORAD detects and tracks Russian aircraft operating in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone > North American Aerospace Defense Command > Press Releases

NORAD says it continues to track more Russian military planes near Alaska’s air space – UPI.com

Iran Allegedly Hiring Hells Angels to Target Enemies in West

Recent open source reporting reveals that Iran has been hiring criminal organizations, including the Hells Angels, to assassinate or abduct Iranian dissidents or political critics living in the West. A British journalist was recently attacked in London and US authorities uncovered several plots. In total, 88 violent plots linked to Iran have been identified over the last five years by journalists and law-enforcement agencies.

Hells Angels’ boss Ramin Yektaparast is wanted in Germany on terror charges; he has been living in Iran since 2021 Credit: Instagram

Iranian drug trafficker Naji Sharifi Zindashti illustrates how Iran’s intelligence operations are integrated with organized crime.

Heroin kingpin Naji Sharifi Zindashti allegedly contacted Hells Angels bikers to kill an Iranian defector Photo: FBI

But the nexus between state players and organized crime is not a new phenomenon and should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Saigon’s notorious underworld was the scourge of the Viet Cong in the 1950s and 1970s. Chiang Kai-Shek relied on the Green Gang, a powerful criminal organization in Shang Hai to suppress dissidents (until finally losing the Civil War to Mao Tze-Dong). Israel employs a terrorist organization, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. We see in open press reporting Russian oligarchs with links to the Kremlin and organized crime; Chechnya is a basically a criminal fiefdom of Russia run by warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.

Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) cooperates with both the powerful Haqqani Network (HQN) in Afghanistan and with Ibrahim Dawood and his notorious D Company. This criminal terrorist organization has business tentacles in India, the UAE, Morocco, the UK, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Italy, France, and allegedly Mexican criminal organizations.

Sources:

Iranian man and two Hells Angels accused in murder-for-hire plot in U.S. (nbcnews.com)

Assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists – Wikipedia

How Iran is using dark underworld of Hells Angels ‘hitmen’ to wipe out critics & crack down on dissent in Europe & US – The Sun | The Sun

Iran Allegedly Hiring Hells Angels and Criminal Gangs for Global Assassination Campaign (semperincolumem.com)

The evolving terror funding matrix: Pakistan, ISI and D Company and its global criminal web | South Asia Monitor

Wanted Persons / Internet / Home – INTERPOL (archive.ph)

D-Company – Wikipedia

Green Gang – Wikipedia

WHO: Over 22,500 Palestinians Suffered ‘Life-Changing Injuries’ in Gaza

Palestinian children at a temporary field hospital in southern Gaza Strip. Photo: WHO/Christopher Black

More than 22,500 people – a quarter of those wounded in Gaza since Israel’s offensive began – have life-changing injuries, requiring rehabilitation services “now and for years to come”, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) reported. These include severe limb injuries, amputations, spinal cord trauma, traumatic brain injuries, and major burns.

Israeli forces invaded Gaza in response to the 7 October 2023 terror attacks by Palestinian armed groups in southern Israel.

Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative in the occupied Palestinian territory, highlighted that the surge in rehabilitation needs is occurring alongside the wholesale collapse of Gaza’s healthcare infrastructure.

“Patients can’t get the care they need. Acute rehabilitation services are severely disrupted and specialized care for complex injuries is not available, placing patients’ lives at risk. Immediate and long-term support is urgently needed to address the enormous rehabilitation needs.”

Services such as wound care, physical therapy, and psychological support are either inaccessible or entirely unavailable, leaving thousands at risk of further complications, disabilities or even death.

According to the UN health agency, only 17 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain partially functional, primary healthcare and community-level services are frequently suspended, due to insecurity, attacks and repeated evacuation orders.

Gaza’s only limb reconstruction and rehabilitation centre, located in the Nasser Medical Complex and supported by WHO, has been non-functional since Dec 2023 due to lack of supplies and staff, and was further damaged in a Feb 2024 raid.

Additionally, the loss of trained physiotherapists due to the fighting between Israel and Hamas has further hampered rehabilitation efforts.

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Cabinet have well-incubated the next generation of Israel haters and antisemites.

Source:

Over 22,500 have suffered ‘life-changing injuries’ in Gaza: WHO | UN News

CBP: Record Number of Canadian Illegal Border Crossers Between 2021-2024

This image might represent a small portion of the US-Quebec border. (Undated photo: The Sun)

From 2021 through July 2024, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 150,701 Canadians illegally entered or attempted illegal entry into the US. The majority were apprehended at the US-Canada border, followed by other locations nationwide, with a small number at the US-Mexico border.

The greatest number of Canadians encountered or apprehended by CBP or Border Patrol agents was in fiscal 2022: 47,126 (northern border 40,600; nationwide 6,413; 113 at the Mexican border). , according to the data.

The overwhelming majority are single military age adults.

Not all Canadian border crossers are native-born but include foreign nationals who received Canadian travel documents. Canadian citizens for years have legally traveled to the US for work and as tourists.

Over 1,100 individuals on the US terrorist watch list, referred to as known or suspected terrorists (KSTs), attempted to illegally enter the US-Canada border since fiscal 2021. They include an Iranian with alleged terrorist ties living in Canada and a Canadian woman previously arrested by Texas officials for claiming to threaten to kill former President Donald Trump. The terrorist watch list is not legal proof that someone is a terrorist but that the name is associated with a KST; border authorities are mandated to double-check the person’s bona fides.

As reported recently on Coriolanus, a Pakistani national living in Canada was arrested after announcing his idiotic plan to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish Center in Brooklyn, NY to avenge Palestinian deaths at the hands of the IDF. This lunatic plot by a young man with no reported military or firearms experience or training was quickly and easily neutralized before the suspect reached the US border.

The number of Canadian illegal border crossers is not comparable to the nearly three million Mexican illegal border crossers since fiscal 2021. Among them, more than 22,000 Mexicans were apprehended by US federal agents after illegally entering or attempting entry from Canada. CBP data indicates that illegal border crossers holding travel documents from Canada and Mexico, America’s NAFTA partners, appear to be circumventing US immigration law.

The CBC reports that legal emigration from Canada to the US hit a ten-year-high. The Census recorded 126,340 people left Canada for the US in 2022, a 70 per cent increase over a decade ago. Of the 126,340, 53,311 were born in Canada, 42,595 were Americans repatriated, and 30,434 were foreign-born immigrants to Canada who decided to move to the US instead.

Canadians cite increased taxes, declining healthcare services, career opportunities, and high cost-of-living as their major reasons for emigrating to the US. Many find Florida’s weather attractive.

Marco Terminesi grew up in Woodbridge, Ont. but now lives in South Florida and sells real estate — mostly to Canadians — in Palm Beach County. He says a lot of prospective buyers are motivated to leave Canada because of politics. (Photo: Marco Terminesi)  

Sources:

Border security, migrants, Canadian order | Homeland Security Newswire

Emigration from Canada to the U.S. hits a 10-year high as tens of thousands head south | CBC News

Brazilian Dog is Footvolley Star Teaching Beachgoers How to Play

Rio de Janeiro’s main beaches bustle with commotion on sunny weekends. But activity ground to a near standstill on one stretch of sand. People held up their phones to record athletic feats they’d never before witnessed, or even imagined.

The game? Footvolley, a combination of soccer and beach volleyball. The athlete? A three-year-old border collie named Floki.

Floki sparks wonder among bystanders, because he hangs tough in a game that even humans struggle to get a handle on. Footvolley rules are essentially the same as beach volleyball, but with a slightly lower net and, like soccer, players are forbidden from using hands and arms. Floki springs up from the sand to drive the ball with his mouth. He has become something of an internet sensation in Brazil, with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram and TikTok.

Floki’s owner, Gustavo Rodrigues, is a footvolley coach, but swears he didn’t plan this. He had wanted an American Bully, a decidedly less sprightly breed. Floki came into Rodrigues’ life instead and quickly revealed his potential when, at just two months old, he started jumping after birthday balloons.

Source:

This Brazilian dog teaches beachgoers to play footvolley | AP News