putin

Desertions Spark Panic, and Pardons, in Ukraine’s Army

Oleksandr left his unit without permission after six months of hard fighting, but later returned to the army (Photo: AFP)

Oleksandr LNU (photo in link) deserted from the front line in eastern Ukraine after watching his fellow servicemen being pulverized by Russian bombardments for six months. Then, those remaining were ordered to counterattack.

It was the final straw for Oleksandr (45) who had been holding the line in the embattled Lugansk region in the early months of the war. Even his commanding officer was reluctant to send his men back toward what looked like certain death. So when Oleksandr saw an opening to save his life, he did.

“We wanted to live. We had no combat experience. We were just ordinary working people from villages,” the soft-spoken serviceman.

Family, friends, and army comrades gather to mourn Ukrainian army paramedic Nazarii Lavrovskyi (31) at his funeral at Lisove cemetery in Kiev, 24 April 2024 (Photo: Francisco Seco / AP)

Oleksandr’s is just one of many cases plaguing the Ukrainian military, which has already suffered at least 43,000 losses in nearly three years of fighting, President Volodymyr Zelensky revealed this month. The government is also struggling to recruit new troops.

Figures published by the Ukrainian general prosecutor’s office show that more than 90,000 cases have been opened into instances of soldiers going absent without leave or deserting since Russia invaded in 2022, with a sharp increase over the past year.

Members of Ukraine’s ‘Da Vinci’ Assault Battalion without masks or blurred faces. Kiev now offers amnesty for first-time deserters if they return to their units. (Photo: AFP)

Shell shock and PTSD have devastating effects on soldiers, on top of them dealing with plain innate fear and miserable living conditions in the front lines. This is not a new phenomenon. Drone operators or logistical personnel in the rear are most likely not deserting, but frontline soldiers are. During the Second World War, 50,000 American soldiers of the “Greatest Generation” deserted in the European Theater of Operations (ETO) from 1942 to 1945; there were no desertions reported in the Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO).

Kiev offering amnesty or pardons is a positive step in improving morale, as well as maintaining their exhausted manpower levels. The Ukrainian Army may also consider extended Rest and Recreation (R & R) leaves, like US servicemen enjoyed in Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia, Hawaii, Taiwan, and Singapore, during the long and tortured Vietnam War.

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/21/why-is-ukraines-army-facing-a-desertion-crisis

https://www.ibtimes.com/desertions-spark-panic-pardons-ukraines-army-3757026

https://www.npr.org/2013/06/17/189275754/wwii-deserters-stories-of-men-who-left-the-front-lines

Russian Arrested For Running Gay Travel Agency Found Dead in Cell

The late Andrei Kotov in court (Photo: SOTA)

Authorities claim Kotov organized a New Year holiday trip to Egypt and a Volga River cruise centered around LGBTI+ themes.

Denying the charges, Kotov defended himself in court, stating that the tours were purely of a tourist nature and did not involve any ideological propaganda.

“The LGBTQ+ community in Russia has been under legal and public pressure for over a decade but especially since the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine in 2022. Russian leader Vladimir Putin has argued that the war is a proxy battle with the West, which he says aims to destroy Russia and its “traditional family values” by pushing for LGBTQ+ rights.”

Helmeted riot police detain clearly dangerous looking LGBTQ+ rights activists during a St Petersburg march. (Photo: Getty Images)

One of Russia’s most famous sons, the man who composed “Swan Lake” and “The Nutcracker,” was LGBTQ+.

You wonder what music Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to?

“The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.”

― Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Sources:

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-lgbt-gay-travel-arrest-death/33257088.html

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/russian-man-arrested-for-allegedly-running-gay-travel-agency-dies-in-custody

What Will the Incoming Trump Regime Prosecute and What Will the FBI Investigate?

The President-elect already announced he will vindictively go after his enemies once he assumes power.

The Trump/Putin/Musk cabal, with advice from the rightwing Federalist Society (AKA the) “Feudalist Society”) will appoint Assistant US Attorneys (AUSAs), as well as the US District Marshals which are basically well-paying sinecures, in the below 94 federal districts.

Under the new regime, will these AUSAs defend anti-trust measures against oligarchs or prosecute violators of the Clean Water Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act?

The President-elect intends to nominate the reactionary and unpopular Kash Patel to be Director of the FBI.

If confirmed by the US Senate, this unqualified and incompetent Trump loyalist will be D/FBI. (Undated photo)

While the FBI will continue to investigate nefarious Iranian and Chinese operations in the US, as well as ISIS plots, will the FBI continue to investigate Russian espionage or white supremacist organizations?

Notorious convicted Russian spy Maria Butina infliltrated the GOP and the NRA.

Flesh-Eating Bacteria Cases in Florida Prompt Warnings for Disney World Guests

(Image credit: Inside The Magic)

In 2024, Florida reported 83 confirmed cases of Vibrio vulnificus, almost doubling the 46 cases seen in 2023. 17 deaths have been attributed to the bacterium this year compared to 11 in 2023.

The recent spike in cases is linked to two powerful hurricanes—Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton—which battered Florida with heavy rainfall and flooding. These conditions create ideal environments for Vibrio vulnificus to thrive in warm, brackish, and saltwater areas.

The Florida Department of Health has identified counties with elevated cases, including Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Lee, Pasco, Pinellas, and Sarasota. Fortunately, Disney World is located in Orange and Osceola Counties, where Vibrio vulnificus cases remain rare.

According to the CDC, this bacteria can enter a human through an open wound or by consuming seafood contaminated with Vibrio vulnificus.

Necrotizing fasciitis can result in life-long complications from loss of limbs or severe scarring due to surgically removing infected tissue. Even with treatment, up to 1 in 5 people died from the infection.

Global warming has been linked to the increase in flesh-eating bacteria in several states.

In 2016, Aimee Copeland went ziplining in Georgia and fell into shallow dirty water. She became infected with Vibrio vulnificus and lost all of her limbs.

Aimee Copeland was 24 at the time and pursuing an MA degree in psychology. (Photo: John Loomis)

Florida suffers red tide and blue-green algae blooms, which hurt people, animals, pets, and marine life. Emergency declarations have shut down beaches and fishing along large parts of both coasts. Nitrogen and phosphorus entered the watershed harming agriculture. There is a fresh water shortage in southern Florida because the salinity of Florida Bay has changed.

Remarkably, Floridians have no right to bodies of water ‘free of pollution.’ For the second time this year, a Florida appellate court has ruled against environmentalists fighting to enact a widely supported local clean water measure.

Sources:

https://insidethemagic.net/2024/12/disney-world-flesh-eating-bacteria-emd1/

https://www.cdc.gov/group-a-strep/about/necrotizing-fasciitis.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2024/02/02/flesh-eating-infections-rising-on-the-east-coast-scientists-warn—global-warming-is-making-it-worse/

https://people.com/human-interest/aimee-copeland-flesh-eating-bacteria-survivor/

https://www.yahoo.com/news/floridians-no-bodies-water-free-204050826.html

Florida’s Water Pollution

Retired US Army General: Elon Musk is National Security Risk

US Army Lieutenant-General Russel Honore in Cameron Prairie, LA on 25 Sep 2005. (Photo: Carlos Barria / Reuters)

Retired US Army Lieutenant General Russel L. Honoré branded Elon Musk a “national security risk,” citing Musk’s history of appeasing and praising the Chinese Communist Party and his multiple business deals with them, particularly in the space race.

In a scathing op-ed published in The New York Times (NYT), Honoré noted that Musk and his company SpaceX already face federal reviews for failing to provide details of meetings with foreign leaders, but said that such infractions were “just the beginning of my worries.”

Musk has previously borrowed at least $1.4 billion from banks controlled by the Chinese government to help build a “gigafactory” in Shanghai for Tesla. The factory was responsible for more than half of Tesla’s global deliveries in the third quarter of 2024.

“China does not tend to give things away,” Honoré wrote. “The country’s laws stipulate that the Communist Party can demand intelligence from any company doing business in China, in exchange for participating in the country’s markets. “This means Mr. Musk’s business dealings in China could require him to hand over sensitive classified information, learned either through his business interests or his proximity to President-elect Donald Trump.”

The NYT reports that the egomaniacal oligarch is being investigated by the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General, the USAF, and the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. Musk had not disclosed frequent meetings with foreign leaders, most notably Russian president Vladimir Putin. Musk has been violating the rules set out by his “top secret” security clearance for years and Israeli officials have expressed concerns that he could leak sensitive state secrets.

Elon Musk’s murky background of how he obtained his fabulous wealth and the circumstances surrounding his immigration to the US remain unclear. There have been calls to investigate and deport the racist Elon Musk back to South Africa for obtaining his US citizenship under false pretenses. Linked at bottom are the specific USCIS regulations on US naturalization which Musk may have violated.

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

Sources:

Opinion | Elon Musk Is a National Security Risk – The New York Times

Retired Army general declares Musk a ‘national security risk’ in brutal NYT op-ed | The Independent

https://futurism.com/elon-musk-investigated-violating-terms-top-secret-clearance

https://www.uscis.gov/policy-manual/volume-12-part-l-chapter-2

American Police Brutality: NYS Prison Guards Beat Inmate to Death

Warning: Some Followers of the Watch may find the following images graphic and disturbing. This is one of the most cruelest stories that ever beset the author’s eyes.

NYS prison inmate Robert L. Brooks bleeding and disoriented. (Photo: AFP)

This brutal racist attack on inmate Robert L. Brooks (43) happened at Marcy Correctional Facility in upstate NY on 9 Dec in an examination room. Brooks was serving a twelve-year sentence for assault. Other officers stood by and watched as the handcuffed and helpless Brooks was abused and beaten by several correctional officers while blood poured from his face during the 30-minute episode.

After the beat down, Brooks was taken to Wynn Hospital in Utica and declared dead from “asphyxia due to compression of the neck,” in the early morning of 10 Dec.

One guard is holding Brooks in a chokehold as officers try to move him. (Photo: AFP)

One prison guard kicks and stomps on Brooks’ chest. (Image: Office of the New York State Attorney General)

NYS Governor Kathy Hochul began the process of firing the guards and had already suspended 13 without pay. One guard has already resigned.

Marcy Correctional Facility received a scathing evaluation by an oversight agency following a two-day monitoring visit from 11-12 Oct 2022.

Key Highlights: Observations of a Retaliatory Environment, Racial Disparities in Disciplinary Process Affecting Access to Food for Incarcerated Individuals

Marcy Operating Outside HALT Guidelines by Incarcerating Individuals with Mental Health Conditions in SHU Units

The Empire State incarcerates approximately 32,600 convicts which provide white, rural non-college graduates with pensioned careers and peace officer status. There are over 15,000 sworn members in the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (NYSDOCCS). This nationwide pattern of hiring rural whites to guard minority convicts is called the “prison-industrial complex.”

Note the correlation between the prisons above and this 2020 election map below:

The competent NYS Attorney-General Letitia James will most likely be leading the prosecution.

Compare America with Scandinavia.

Norwegian prison guard playing volleyball with inmates. (Photo: NY Times)

Sources:

https://nypost.com/2024/12/27/us-news/ny-prison-guards-beat-handcuffed-inmate-robert-brooks-video/

https://www.correctionalassociation.org/press-releases-archive/2023-marcy-pvb-release

https://doccs.ny.gov/

https://www.syracuse.com/news/2024/12/body-cam-shows-ny-prison-guards-pummeled-handcuffed-inmate-during-fatal-assault-investigator-says.html

France: In 2023, 62% of Criminal Convictions Were for Sexual Offenses

This woman is protesting domestic violence, an issue that continues to plague France. A 2018 report said one out of ten women were raped at least once in their lifetimes. (Photo: The Globe Post and AFP)

Rape was the most frequently convicted crime in French courts in 2023, with 1,800 cases resulting in convictions.

Sexual crimes accounted for 62% of the 2,900 criminal convictions handed down by French courts in 2023.

Aggravating circumstances were considered in more than 70% of these cases, and 10% involved perpetrators who were the victim’s spouse or partner.

In total, nearly 550,000 people were convicted of all crimes in 2023, while some 900,000 offences were recorded in criminal records.

However, serious crimes such as murder, rape, armed robbery and violent crimes, accounted for only 0.3% of these infractions.

The average length of French prison sentences in 2023 was 9.7 months.

This outrageous case in 2024 blackened both of France’s eyes.

The hideous Dominique Pelicot, who drugged and raped his wife Gisele Pelicot, appears during his trial with 50 co-accused at the courthouse in Avignon, France, 17 Sep 2024, in this courtroom sketch. (ZZIIGG / Reuters)

Below are what French prisons look like. All photos courtesy of acidcow.com:

Endnote: France, an EU and NATO member which hosts INTERPOL headquarters in Lyon, is unhappily and ironically a top ten member of the Global Organized Crime Index.

Sources:

https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20241228-rape-tops-criminal-convictions-in-france-justice-report-shows

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2024/09/19/french-mass-rape-trial-something-was-wrong-suspect-tells-court_6726653_7.html

Cat Simply in Love With Woman That Saved Him

Gaza Strip: 96% of Palestinian Children Feel Imminent Death  

The American taxpayer dollar hard at work: Palestinian children injured in IDF air raids treated at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, 24 Oct 2023. (Photo: Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images)

The estimated death toll in Gaza is more than 44,000 and over 100,000 maimed. A recent assessment by the UN Human Rights Office found that 44% of the fatalities it was able to verify were children.

A new study of children living through the war in Gaza has found that 96% of them feel that their death is imminent and almost half want to die as a result of the trauma they have been through.

A needs assessment, carried out by a Gaza-based NGO sponsored by the War Child Alliance charity, also found that 92% of the children in the survey were “not accepting of reality”, 79% suffer from nightmares and 73% exhibit symptoms of aggression.

“This report lays bare that Gaza is one of the most horrifying places in the world to be a child,” Helen Pattinson, chief executive of War Child UK, said. “Alongside the levelling of hospitals, schools, and homes, a trail of psychological destruction has caused wounds unseen but no less destructive on children who hold no responsibility for this war.”

Two centuries ago, the ‘enemy’ wasn’t called terrorist, jihadist, or Hamas operative, but a ‘savage’ or a ‘redskin.’

The American Indian Wars (1865-1898) resulted in 1,944 total US casualties, including the 1876 Battle of Little Big Horn (AKA “Custer’s Last Stand”). And how did the indigenous muqawama fare against the mighty US Cavalry and the rapid-fire Gatling gun?

“By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous people remained of the estimated five million-plus living in North America before European contact.”

I bet you the children of those Indigenous people in North America 150 years ago felt the same way as Palestinian children in Gaza feel today.

No wonder war crimes-indicted Benjamin Netanyahu shut down al-Jazeera and is kicking the UNRWA out of Gaza: Eliminate any witnesses as well as any humanitarian organizations that can help Palestinians with food or medical care.

Sources:

Gaza and the West Bank – Where we work – War Child


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

https://www.history.com/news/native-americans-genocide-united-states

Death feels imminent for 96% of children in Gaza, study finds | Gaza | The Guardian

Russian Missile Scientist Assassinated Near Moscow

Mikhail Shatsky was rendered ineffective by Ukrainian intelligence operatives. (Undated photo)

A senior Russian cruise missile engineer was shot dead near Moscow which Ukrainian media attributed to their country’s espionage services.

Mikhail Shatsky was deputy chief of design and head of software at the Moscow Experimental Design Bureau Mars, which develops automatic control and navigation systems for satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles. Mars is part of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom.

The Russian military uses Kh-59, Kh-69 and Kh-101 missiles against Ukraine. The Ukrainian Air Force recently intercepted two Kh-59/69 missiles over the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Shatsky was apparently gunned down as part of a “special operation” by the Ukrainian military’s HUR defense intelligence agency.

Said an anonymous security service source:

“Anyone in any way involved in developing Russia’s military-industrial complex and thus supporting Russian aggression against Ukraine is a legitimate target for the [Ukrainian] defense forces.”

Meanwhile, President Zelensky visited frontlines as Russia continued to pound Ukraine’s power infrastructure with a massive drone and rocket attack in an attempt to cripple the energy grid to freeze and demoralize the civilians with winter fast approaching.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits soldiers of the 27th Rocket Artillery Brigade on 12 Dec.(Photo: AFP)

Ukraine’s sabotage apparatus continues to improve and Shatsky has been added to the list of other Russian High Value Targets (HVT) neutralized within Russia’s borders by car bomb, blunt trauma, or direct gunfire. This particular liquidation is reminiscent of Iranian nuclear scientists who have been reputedly killed over the years by Israeli intelligence.

Earlier this year Canada donated 10,500 9mm Browning Hi-Power automatic pistols to Kiev which are perfect for use by the Ukrainian police or their espionage network.

Canadian Forces soldiers firing reliable 9mm Browning Hi-Power pistols. (Photo: Able Seaman Camden Scott / DND)

Sources:

htps://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/12/12/top-russian-cruise-missile-engineer-gunned-down-near-moscow-reports-a87316

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canadian-military-second-world-war-pistols-slated-for-destruction-will-instead-be-sent-to-ukraine

UN Warning: Increase in Permanently Dry Land is ‘Redefining Life on Earth’

Just over 75 percent of the world’s land has been left “permanently drier” over the previous three decades, with massive implications for agriculture, food production, the eco-system, and mass forced migration the UN warns.

Dry land now covers around 40% of the Earth’s land mass, excluding Antarctica, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) study found, cautioning the shift could affect up to five billion people by 2100.

“Some 77.6% of Earth’s land experienced drier conditions during the three decades leading up to 2020 compared to the previous 30-year period.”

This is an “existential threat” posed by seemingly irreversible trends. Dry land regions where agriculture is difficult increased by 4.3 million square kms between 1990 and 2020, an area a third the size of India.

At the same time that land is being depleted, global demand for resources is increasing. By 2030, food production is estimated to require an additional 300 million hectares of land.

The changes are largely attributed to global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, which alter rainfall and increase water evaporation. The effects of the chronic water shortages include soil degradation, ecosystem collapse, food insecurity, and forced migration.

Already, 2.3 billion people live in expanding dry areas with projections showing a “worst-case scenario” of five billion people living in the conditions as the planet continues to warm.

This will add to the countless numbers of refugees trying to escape desertification, drought, poverty, famine, misery, and the attendant violence associated with desperate resource mongering, like we see in Haiti today.

North African migrants swimming from an overcrowded dinghy on 27 July 2015. Up to 30 refugees may have drowned that day according to the International Office of Migration (IOM). (Photo: Santi Palacios / AP)

Sources:

https://www.unccd.int/news-stories/press-releases/three-quarters-earths-land-became-permanently-drier-last-three-decades

Desertification and land degradation threaten global well-being

https://www.treehugger.com/what-is-desertification-5115926

US Charges Syrian National Living in South Carolina with Torturing Dissidents at Damascus Prison

Samir Ousman Alsheikh (L); then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (R) (2011 photo: SNHR)

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles, CA returned a superseding indictment charging Samir Ousman Alsheikh (72) of Lexington, SC with torture.

The defendant was the head of Damascus Central Prison (AKA the Adra Prison) from 2005 through 2008. In that role, Alsheikh allegedly ordered subordinates to inflict and was sometimes personally involved in inflicting severe physical and mental pain and suffering on political dissidents and other prisoners.

Samir Ousman Alsheikh was previously indicted for immigration fraud when he allegedly made similar false statements when applying for a visa that enabled him to enter the US in 2020, become a lawful permanent resident, and obtain a green card.

Recently an AMCIT named Travis Timmerman was freed from a Syrian prison who although himself was not tortured, heard the cries of the suffering from nearby cells.

Travis Timmerman in undated photo courtesy of http://www.indiatoday.in

Amnesty International debriefed former Syrian prisoners years ago and below are examples of how people were brutally tortured by the sadists in the ousted regime.

The “Tire” (Illustration: Mohamad Hamdoun)

The “Welcome Party” (Illustration: Mohamad Hamdoun)

The “Flying Carpet” (Illustration: Mohamad Hamdoun)

Members of the public who have information about human rights violators in the US or abroad are urged to contact US law enforcement through the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or visit https://tips.fbi.gov/home.

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.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-syrian-prison-official-charged-torture

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-syrian-prison-official-charged-immigration-fraud

https://snhr.org/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2016/08/syria-torture-prisons/

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-citizen-freed-syrian-prison-identified-travis-timmerman-not-austin-tice

Jack and the Green Sprouts Listeria Outbreak Sickens Four

The sprouts were sold in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, and recalled in early Oct 2024. At that time, the FDA says that there were no known illnesses associated with the sprouts.

Listeria monocytogenes infections can take up to 70 days to appear, although most people get sick within a month. The sprouts were recalled on 4 Oct 2024 and seventy days from that date is 16 Dec 2024. Some people may still get sick from eating tainted sprouts in October.

(Listeria bacteria image: CDC)

The classic early symptoms of listeriosis are nausea and diarrhea. If the illness progressed to a more serious form if the bacteria get into the bloodstream, patients experience a stiff neck, high fever, severe headache, muscle aches, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps.

About 1,600 people contract Listeria infections every year in the US and about 260 of those patients die.

Sources:

Jack and the Green Sprouts Alfalfa Sprouts Recalled For Listeria

CDC

Without Firing a Shot: This is How the Cold War Ends (for Now)

President-elect Donald Trump has picked the worst picks humanly possible to sit on his future cabinet: Unvetted, unqualified quacks, wonks, polemicists, misogynists, crackpots, racists, conspiracy theorists, oligarchs, TV personalities, kleptocrats, dipsomaniacs, and Islamophobes. One advisor wants to ban the polio vaccination. We need not go into their names again as they have been painfully burned into our braincells.  

A Russian TV host gleefully claimed that “Trump’s Cabinet picks will dismantle America.”

Republican programs will intentionally weaken, sicken, pauperize, and demoralize the American people with their destructive health, social, and economic policies. This is called “social murder” when unnatural deaths occur due to social, political, or economic oppression, instead of from direct violence. Failing to provide reproductive rights to pregnant women fall into this category. The concept of “social murder” was originally coined in 1845 by German philosopher Friedrich Engels and this is what he saw two centuries ago:

Poorhouses and debtor’s prisons were designed to punish the penniless.

The American public is already suffering with 44,000 firearms murders a year. Countless numbers of people died during the COVID epidemic when GOP governors did not enforce health regulations, such as masking, vaccinating, or avoiding mass gatherings. Women unable to receive reproductive care have died. The number of US fatalities will increase in all categories of morbidity under the incoming Trump administration to the delight of the Kremlin.

Senior US intelligence officials have already signalled their departure when Trump assumes the Presidency and only a sober and sane US Senate confirmation process of these odious Cabinet picks might help mitigate the future catastrophes that await the American people. But hope is not a plan as the US Army taught your humble author decades ago.

The American people can thank Fifth Columnists like these two grinning Republicans below for helping to hand over America to the Kremlin without the Russians having to fire a single shot.   

Examples of Lenin’s “useful idiots” You wonder how these two altacockers will feel when President Trump cuts their Social Security and Medicare benefits? (Photo: Jeremy Pelzer/Cleveland.com)

In October 1962, President John F. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent Soviet nuclear missiles from reaching an island 90 miles from the American shore. The Cold War was inches or seconds from becoming atomic hot.

So terrified were people of a nuclear war with the USSR,  Noël Regney (music) Gloria Shayne (lyrics) quickly wrote and produced this melodic song (in the key of C Major) as a plea for world peace which you will no doubt recognize:

The Kennedy Administration competently and coolly resolved the Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba; the US in turn removed Jupiter nuclear IRBMs from Turkiye and atomic Armageddon was averted.

So, what would WWII veteran and Cold Warrior President John F. Kennedy say today about Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” walking with Russian President Vladimir Putin pictured below?

45th President Donald Trump being led by his KGB handler in Helsinki, Finland, in 2018. In President Putin’s right hand are the detailed instructions he readied for his American protege. Putin speaks German fluently and English competently so he transmits his orders directly to Trump without need of an interpreter.

Sources:

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

Intelligence IGs head for the exits ahead of Trump’s return – Defense One

Cuban Missile Crisis

landscapecover.pdf

Alleged Chinese Spy with Links to Prince Andrew Banned from UK

Prince Andrew is pictured with the Chinese ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming. Photo: @AmbLiuXiaoMing circa 2020.

A Chinese businessman described as a “close confidant” of the Duke of York has lost an appeal against a decision to bar him from the UK on national security grounds. The man, known only as H6, brought the case after being banned from entering the country in March 2023. H6 had formed a close working relationship with Prince Andrew.

H6 brought his case to the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, a court set up to consider appeals against decisions to ban or remove someone from the country on national security or related grounds.

In the published ruling, the judge said that the then-home secretary, Suella Braverman, was “entitled to conclude that [H6] represented a risk to the national security of the United Kingdom, and that she was entitled to conclude that his exclusion was justified and proportionate”.

The court assessed that this meant H6 was in a position “to generate relationships between senior Chinese officials and prominent UK figures which could be leveraged for political interference purposes by the Chinese State”.

H6 was believed to be associated with the United Front Work Department (UFWD), an arm of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tasked with conducting influence operations.

MI5 had expressed concern about the threat posed to the UK by political interference by China and that bodies such as the UFWD were “mounting patient, well-funded, deceptive campaigns to buy and exert influence”.

The Home Office said they believed H6 had been engaged in covert and deceptive activity on behalf of the CCP and that his relationship with Prince Andrew could be used for political interference.

In November 2019, Prince Andrew stepped back from royal duties amid growing public anger about his friendship with the late US financier and thoroughly loathsome sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Questions were subsequently raised about his finances after he reached a settlement – believed to run into the millions – in a civil sexual assault case brought against him by Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers. The disgraced prince has always denied assaulting Ms. Giuffre.

Prince Andrew (L) and the incredibly repulsive Jeffrey Epstein (R).


Last month, a royal biography claimed the prince’s brother, King Charles, had cut Prince Andrew off financially, ceasing to pay for security at his home or provide him with a personal allowance.

Lo, how the mighty have fallen. Far above the proletariat, rather than seeking gainful employment like the working class people in the UK or the US, Prince Andrew cultivated contacts with Chinese intelligence to enrich himself. MI5 and MI6 already have their hands full with Chinese and Russian espionage and here Prince Andrew further dishonors himself publicly by putting Beijing’s interests over London’s for a mere 30 pieces of silver. At least no one died by this nefarious relationship that the public is aware of.

Sources:

H6 v SSHD OPEN Judgment final for hand down FINAL

Alleged Chinese spy with links to Prince Andrew banned from UK

Prince Andrew’s funding cut off by King Charles, claims book

Senior Cat Caged Most of Her Life is Finally Free

ICC Can Try Cases Of Alleged Executions Of Ukrainian POWs

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks at the roundtable in The Hague on 8 Oct. This is the same lawyer who prosecuted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes. (Photo: RFE/RL)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is entitled to try cases of the alleged execution of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs).

According to the latest data published by the Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office, investigators have so far obtained information on the execution of 93 Ukrainian prisoners of war by the Russian military.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine presented a report in March about the execution of at least 32 Ukrainian POWs in 12 separate cases between Dec 2023 and Feb 2024.

In Mar 2023, the ICC’s pretrial chamber issued warrants for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, charging them with the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia — a war crime under international legislation.

Meanwhile, Former US Marine Trevor Reed has been sentenced in absentia by a Russian court to 14 1/2 years in prison, on charges he joined the Ukrainian Army as a mercenary.

Trevor Reed vaulted into the news in 2020 when he was sentenced to nine years in a Russian prison on an assault charge he denied. (AFP File photo)

The Russian Investigative Committee said on October 9 that Reed enlisted with Ukrainian forces in May 2023 and participated in combat operations in the Donetsk region.

Reed’s participation in the war became public in Jul 2023 when he was injured by a mine explosion while fighting for Ukraine. He had been transferred to Germany for medical care.

In April 2022, Reed, who by then had served nearly three years in a Russian prison, was exchanged for Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who had been serving a 20-year sentence in the US for drug trafficking.

Reed’s conviction in absentia comes days after two other Americans were convicted and sentenced by Russian courts.

Stephen Hubbard (72) was sentenced by the Moscow City Court on 7 Oct to six years and 10 months in prison on charges of being a mercenary and fighting against Russia in Ukraine.

Robert Gilman (30), another former US Marine, was sentenced to seven years and one month in prison for assaulting a prison official and a state investigator.

Both cases follow a pattern of high-profile arrests and detentions of Americans in Russia, which are part of Moscow’s broader strategy to exert pressure on Washington and use these AMCITs for future prisoner swaps.

Sources:

https://www.rferl.org/a/icc-war-crimes-russia-ukraine-executions/33152240.html

https://www.rferl.org/a/trevor-reed-marine-ukraine-trial-ansentia-russia-sentence/33152282.html

US Issues Solar Storm Watch After Large Outburst From Sun

An image released by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows a solar flare, the bright flash in the center of the image, on 3 Oct Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA, via AP

Periodically, the sun spews out gigantic eruptions of particles into the solar system. Sometimes, when the solar eruptions are aimed right at Earth, the particles may create brilliant auroras in night skies in many parts of the planet. Then there are other occasions when the battering can damage satellites, mangle GPS signals and knock out power grids.

On Wednesday, a federal center issued a space weather severe storm watch after sun-watching spacecraft observed a large solar flare emanating from a sunspot in the sun’s northern hemisphere, accompanied by an explosion of particles known as a coronal mass ejection.

The charged particles from the latest event — protons, electrons and helium nuclei — are speeding at more than 2.5 million miles per hour and are expected to start slamming into the Earth’s magnetic field on Thursday morning Eastern time.

But the geomagnetic storm could last about 36 hours. If the storm reaches the severe level, the auroras in the Northern Hemisphere could stretch down into the middle of the US, potentially as far south as Alabama.

On top of the terrestrial super-storms wracking the American south, now comes an extra-terrestrial storm that may hamper the communications network during recovery operations.

Sources:

The New York Times and NASA

Israeli Forces Demolish Homes in the Occupied West Bank

Israeli forces demolished two homes under construction in a town west of Salfit, in the central occupied West Bank.

Local sources told the Wafa news agency that military bulldozers demolished the two houses in az-Zawiya, which belonged to local Palestinians.

The agency also reported Israeli soldiers fired tear gas at Palestinian civilians at the Hamra military checkpoint, in the northern Jordan Valley, while a mosque in Khirbet Tana was attacked by settlers.

Settlers entered and vandalized the mosque and smashed solar panels that generated electricity for it.

The cartoonist, Amos Biderman, explained in an interview with The Times of Israel that he meant to suggest that Mr. Netanyahu’s “arrogance” and policies on settlement construction in the West Bank had provoked “a disaster in Israel-US relations on the scale of 9/11.”

Sources:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/10/10/live-israel-kills-medics-in-lebanon-as-siege-on-north-gaza-enters-6th-day

https://yalibnan.com 10/31/2014

Ohio MAGA Militant Pleads Guilty to Felony Charges for Attacking US Capitol on 6 Jan

Dustin Martin (30) of Grove City, OH, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of civil disorder and a misdemeanor charge of disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds before US District Judge Loren L. AliKhan. Judge AliKhan will sentence Martin on 7 Feb 2025.


The FBI arrested Martin on 21 June 2023, in Ohio.

His accomplice, Cody Lee Tippet, was previously sentenced to 30 days in prison for his seditious role on 6 Jan 2021.

These two young men threw their lives away with these federal felony convictions over a misguided belief of white supremacy and the hateful lies of Donald J. Trump.

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

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

Source:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/ohio-man-pleads-guilty-felony-and-misdemeanor-charges-actions-during-jan-6-capitol

Ukrainian Missile Attack Kills Six North Korean Officers Near Donetsk

You wonder if any of the six North Korean officers were any of these lickspittles surrounding Kim Jong-Un. Photo: Reuters

Six North Korean military officers were among about 20 military personnel killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Russian-occupied territory near the city of Donetsk. Three North Korean servicemen were also wounded.

The DPRK officers were reportedly visiting the front lines as part of an ‘exchange of experience’ program.

That’s some experience they received!

The attack came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky accused North Korea of providing weapons to Russia.

Ukrainian intelligence officials said last year that North Korean military personnel, including engineers, were operating in Russian-occupied territory. Russia was planning to mobilize North Korean laborers for various construction projects in occupied Ukrainian territory.

And speaking of experience, for which battles, campaigns, or wars did these above North Korean generals earn all of these impressive-looking awards? North Korea hasn’t been at war since 1953.

America’s part-time Soldiers (Army National Guardsmen, Army and USMC Reservists) have more combat experience than these bloated uniformed popinjays.

Nota Bene: During the Vietnam War, South Korean soldiers fought Viet Cong guerrillas and the NVA; the ROK also deployed forces to Iraq in the early 2000s.

Source:

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/ukraine-russia-missile-attack-10062024234530.html

Japanese Encephalitis Cases Reported in Taiwan, Nepal

The mosquito species _Culex tritaeniorhynchus_ and other related _Culex_ species are efficient vectors of the JE virus and breed in wet areas such as rice paddies. Vector control is difficult because potential breeding sites are extensive.

In Nepal, 63 people have been infected with the mosquito-borne zoonotic viral disease since June 2024. As of 22 Sep 2024, 17 people, including children, have died from JE infections this year.

This JE outbreak has been detected in 29 Nepal districts, including those in the Kathmandu Valley, which is located at 5,000 feet, where virus-carrying mosquitoes are found.

Nepal’s health department estimates that about 12 million people, out of a total population of 31 million, are at risk of JE in 2024. Additionally, many of the one million visitors to Nepal this year may need protection from JE.

Taiwan health authorities announced the 3rd Japanese encephalitis case this year.

Health officials say the man started showing symptoms on 24 Sep 2024 and was hospitalized 1 Oct 2024.

Officials suspect a pigsty within two kms of his workplace as the origin of the mosquitos.

Authorities have taken measures to eradicate the contagious disease-carrying mosquitoes, which breed in places like rice paddies and ponds. Pigs play an essential role in the life cycle and serve as an amplifier host without suffering from the disease. They maintain prolonged high-level viremia, which allows mosquitoes to get infected easily.

The only measures to prevent JE infection are vaccination and avoidance of mosquito bites.

While there are very few local JEV cases in the US, the CDC cautions the millions of Californians who travel west to Asia and Pacific Ocean countries to protect themselves from infection.

In the US, Valneva SE’s IXIARO (JESPECT) vaccine has been approved by the US FDA and CDC for many years. This safe and effective vaccine is authorized for most children and adults traveling to Japanese encephalitis endemic areas.

As of 5 Oct 2024, IXIARO is available at travel vaccine clinics and pharmacies in the US.

Source:

https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/nepals-japanese-encephalitis-outbreak-claims-17-lives-2024-10-05

Trump and Putin Have Had ‘As Many as Seven’ Private Phone Calls Since Trump Left the White House

What are these two chatterboxes always talking about? Saving the planet? (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Former President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have apparently communicated several times since Trump left office in 2021, according to Bob Woodward.

CNN obtained an advance copy of Woodward’s revealing new book War, which went behind the scenes of President Joe Biden’s administration and touched on Trump’s time in office as both navigated recent foreign conflicts with world leaders. Among the revelations was Trump’s seemingly special treatment of Putin, including during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Woodward wrote that a former Trump aide recounted being told to leave a room so Trump “could have what he said was a private phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.” Woodward adds: “According to Trump’s aide, there have been multiple phone calls between Trump and Putin, maybe as many as seven in the period since Trump left the White House in 2021.”

In 2020, Woodward writes, Trump had “secretly sent Putin a bunch of Abbott Point of Care Covid test machines for his personal use.”

“Please don’t tell anybody you sent these to me,” Putin said to Trump, according to Woodward.

“I don’t care,” Trump replied. “Fine.”

“No, no,” Putin said. “I don’t want you to tell anybody because people will get mad at you, not me. They don’t care about me.”



Putin understands English (and speaks German), but rarely speaks it publicly. You can hear him in the YouTube link below. Trump and Putin do not need an interpreter. The two greatest threats to American national security are Donald J. Trump and his former national security advisor, disgraced US Army Gen. Michael Flynn.

Sources:

https://www.mediaite.com/

Kitten Comes Up to Man in His Front Yard, Brushing Against His Legs, Next He’s on His Shoulder, Ready to Stay

Roman and Janna had never had a cat, but a kitten inexplicably appeared in their yard, seemingly delivered by the mysterious workings of the “cat distribution system.”

Elvis the kitten. Janna at TikTok@jannaclavelli

The kitten approached Roman in his front yard, brushing against his legs. Next, he got on Roman’s shoulder and decided to stay. They named the kitten Elvis.

Janna at TikTok@jannaclavelli

With the help of the online community, Janna gave Elvis a warm bath, kitten food, and a flea comb to help clean him up. Elvis was so calm, soaking up every ounce of love and attention.

Janna at TikTok@jannaclavelli

Elvis likes to “help” when Janna does chores. Janna at TikTok@jannaclavelli

Janna at TikTok@jannaclavelli

Janna never imagined how this small, furry creature could become the missing piece she never knew she was searching for. “I had been struggling with anxiety… but since Elvis entered our lives, it has all gone away. I didn’t know I needed him till he came.”

More on Elvis on TikTok @jannaclavelli.

Source:

https://www.lovemeow.com/kitten-man-yard-shoulder-stay-2669360756.html

Two Florida “Proud Boys” Plead Guilty to Felony Charges for Attacking Capitol on 6 Jan

Trump supporters sprayed tear gas and trampled police officers when they stormed the US Capitol in Washington, DC on 6 Jan 2021. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)

Tom Vournas (63) of Bradenton, FL, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon and inflicting bodily injury. Leonard Lobianco (53) of North Port, FL, pleaded guilty on 23 Sep 2024 to a single felony charge of civil disorder.  

The Honorable US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth will sentence Vournas on 17 Jan 2025 and Lobianco on 28 Jan 2025.

On 6 Jan 2021, Vournas and Lobianco, members of the “Zone 5” Proud Boys joined in an attack against a police barricade. Members of this mob violently trampled the metal barriers, moved the barriers aside, and surged past officers to advance toward the Capitol. For the next hour, police struggled to contain the mob, while certain members of the Proud Boys assaulted and engaged with police. Vournas sprayed pepper gel, a dangerous weapon, twice toward a line of police officers, hitting a USCP officer in the face and causing bodily injury. After penetrating police lines, Vournas and Lobianco blithely took pictures together in the “Crypt” before leaving through the Senate Wing Door at approximately 2:25 PM.

The FBI arrested the two men on 4 Jan 2024 in Florida. 

Leonard Lobianco (L), Tom Vournas (R). These two runamoks represent America’s Fedayeen Saddam (FS), white supremacist dead-enders clinging on to the last vestiges of white privilege in the US.

MAGA supporters and white supremacists heeded the call of Donald Trump, but the Proud Boys have since turned on him. “Trump will go down as a total failure,” one member of the Proud Boys said in a chat on Telegram; another called Trump a “shill.” Imagery: SITE Intelligence Group

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.

Sources:

District of Columbia | Two Florida “Proud Boys” Plead Guilty to Felony Charges for Actions During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

Proud Boys turn on Donald Trump calling him a ‘total failure’ | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site

Two Russian Nationals Charged in Connection with Operating Billion Dollar Money Laundering Services

The US imposed sanctions on an alleged Russian money-laundering operation that caters to cybercriminals around the world and unsealed indictments against two Russian nationals for their alleged involvement in the operation.

The US and the Netherlands shut down the “prolific” money-laundering operation known as Cryptex and recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.

The two Russians named in the indictment, Sergei Ivanov and Timur Shakhmametov, remain at large. They are charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering using stolen credit and debit card information, and other charges. The State Department announced rewards of up to $10 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ivanov or Shakhmametov.

Ivanov’s services have been used by cybercrime marketplaces, ransomware groups, and hackers responsible for significant data breaches of major US companies.

Cryptex advertises its virtual currency services in Russian and has received over $51.2 million in funds derived from ransomware attacks.

Ivanov also allegedly created and operated Russian payment and exchange services UAPS, PinPays, and PM2BTC, which provided money-transfer and -laundering services directly to criminals.

For nearly two decades, Ivanov operated as a professional cyber-money-launderer, advertising his services to other cybercriminals on exclusive Russian-speaking criminal forums.

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Ivanov and Cryptex, which is based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines but operates in Russia.

The Treasury Department also identified PM2BTC as a “primary money-laundering concern” in connection with Russian illicit finance. PM2BTC has long-standing ties to Russian or Russian-affiliated financial institutions that are under U.S. sanctions or other restrictions.

Individuals visiting the sites now see a message indicating that the site has been seized by the federal government. The seizure prevents the owners and third parties from using the sites for money laundering.

Law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands seized the servers hosting PM2BTC and Cryptex. Those servers have been taken offline, and the Dutch have seized cryptocurrency from those servers worth more than $7 million.

The State Department is also offering rewards of up to $1 million each for information identifying the leaders of PM2BTC and stolen credit-card marketplaces PinPays and Joker’s Stash.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Two Russian Nationals Charged in Connection with Operating Billion Dollar Money Laundering Services | United States Department of Justice

Imposition of Special Measure Prohibiting the Transmittal of Funds Involving PM2BTC | FinCEN.gov

U.S. Moves To Break Up Cyber-Money-Laundering Operation Allegedly Run By Russians (rferl.org)

US Offers $20M for Details About Iranian Allegedly Behind Plot to Kill John Bolton

The US State Department announced a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former Republican White House official John Bolton.

In Aug 2022, US officials uncovered a plot by Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to kill Bolton, who served as national security adviser to former President Donald Trump. The announcement came as Donald Trump (78) claimed there were “big threats” on his life by Iran.

Bolton, considered a foreign policy hawk, is a fierce critic of Iran and advocated that Trump unilaterally and recklessly withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

Poursafi allegedly offered an unidentified person inside the US $300,000 to kill Bolton in the capital area. The plan was likely set in motion after the US killing of top IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on 3 Jan 2020  by a US drone strike outside Baghdad Int’l Airport (BIAP). But the reprisal plot never made headway because the ostensible assassin became an informant of the FBI. Iranian authorities have dismissed the allegations as “fiction.”

General Qasem Soleimani was a popular figure and hero in Iran, as well as 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. Ethnic Hazaras, the Northern Alliance, and the Quds Force liberated the city before US forces entered. Undated image: Wikimedia

The United States designated the entire IRGC a “foreign terrorist organization” in 2019, after previously designating its external operation wing, the Quds Force.

On 4 Dec 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333. Part 2.11 of E.O. 12333 reiterates a proscription on US intelligence agencies sponsoring or carrying out an assassination. It reads:

No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.

Sources:

Rewards for Justice – Reward Offer for Information on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Member Shahram Poursafi  – United States Department of State

US offers $20M for details about Iranian allegedly behind plot to kill official (voanews.com)

Iranian Special Forces Reportedly Fight Alongside US in Battle for Herat – SpongoBongo Blog (wordpress.com)

Federal Register :: Executive Order

Bashkirs, Tatars Bear Brunt of Putin’s War Against Ukraine

Tatarstan soldier Ruslan Sadykov was killed near Ukraine’s Mariupol in 2022.

According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, more soldiers from the central Russian regions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan have died than any other region in the country. The burden of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine is disproportionately falling on more distant regions of Russia, further away from the wealthy population centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The reason for the recent increase in minority casualties is unclear, but it comes two years after President Vladimir Putin stunned the country by announcing a “partial” mobilization that called up some 300,000 men to fight.

Overall, Russian casualties — killed or wounded in action — are believed to exceed 500,000 according to Western estimates, with more men killed over the past 30 months than in an entire decade of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The last official casualty announcement from the Kremlin came in September 2022, with 5,937 Russian soldiers reported killed. At the time, Ukraine was reporting Russian losses at nearly ten times that figure. Analysis reveals that nonethnic Russians, like Bashkirs and Tatars, have been disproportionately represented among the country’s military casualties.

Bashkortostan, a mid-Volga republic with a population a little over four million, had 3,026 confirmed deaths as of 26 Sep according to open-source analysis. In Tatarstan, which has a similar population, 2,740 deaths were registered.

Recent analysis by BBC Russian/Mediazona, which used a similar methodology, listed 2,705 confirmed deaths in Bashkortostan and 2,259 in Tatarstan.

Russia’s Bashkortostan region has borne more fatalities in the Ukraine invasion than any other region of Russia.

In Jan 2024, Bashkortostan saw a wave of nonviolent protests over the sentencing of Fail Alsynov, a popular activist longtime advocate for minority rights and the Bashkir language and culture, to four years in prison for purportedly stoking interethnic enmity. The protests were fueled in part by simmering discontent about the costs of the Ukraine war for the region. Map: kickassfacts.com

In addition to mobilized soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine, other fighters include prison inmates and private military company mercenaries, as well as “kontraktniki”— men who voluntarily sign contracts to fight, induced by extraordinarily high wages and veterans benefits for widows and survivors. Among kontraktniki, Bashkortostan leads Russia in the number of confirmed deaths: 965, according to the RFE/RL tally. Tatarstan ranked second, with 557 volunteer deaths.

By comparison, only 135 volunteers from Moscow — with an official population of more than 13 million — have been confirmed killed. Over the last four weeks, RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service has added 575 names to its list of dead soldiers from the two regions, nearly 20 per day.

The confirmed figures are assumed to be a major undercount given the difficulty in identifying deaths amid official secrecy. The exact number of men, kontraktniki, prison inmates, or mobilized troops sent from Bashkortostan and Tatarstan to fight in Ukraine is unclear.

Moscow is paying “special attention” to the Volga region, Tatar political analyst Ruslan Aysin said, as part of what he said was a deliberate Kremlin attempt to “confuse the political status” of the so-called ethnic republics, as the regions of Russia with large nonethnic-Russian populations are called.

Putin’s government, he said, is trying to bolster support for the war — or at least temper discontent — among ethnic Russians in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg by minimizing their casualty burden.

Aysin said that for the Russian authorities, each military death is “just a statistic. But for the republic, for the ethnic group, for the individual family, this is a great tragedy. There is a big gap between the leadership and the average citizen.”

Bashkortostan region head Radiy Khabirov (L) meets with volunteer soldiers near the front line in Ukraine earlier this month. In July 2022, Khabirov was sanctioned by the British government for openly supporting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is a member of the ruling United Russia party.

As pro-Ukraine Chechens have been fighting against pro-Kremlin Chechens (Kadyrovtsies), Kazan Tatars have been battling pro-Ukrainian Crimean Tatars. During the American Civil War, approximately 7,000 Jewish soldiers fought for the Union and 3,000 for the Confederacy; some 600 of them were killed in combat. Irishmen fought for both the Union (150,000) and the Confederacy (30-40,000; including six rebel generals). They fought each other fiercely during the day, but at night argued with each other across the picket lines about whose cause was right. The Northern Irish contended the Southern Irish were betraying the country that adopted them. The Southern Irish countered the Confederacy was like Ireland, seeking independence from an oppressor (Great Britain). You wonder what discussions today’s combatants would have with each other if circumstances allowed.  

Our immense gratitude to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, designated by the Kremlin as an ‘Undesirable Organization” in Feb 2024, for their comprehensive analysis.

Source:

RFE/RL Reveals Spike In War Deaths From Russia’s Ethnic Regions (rferl.org)

Military history of Jewish Americans – Wikipedia

‘The Violence is Getting Out of Hand’: Crime Grips Cuba’s Streets

19-year-old Jan Franco (L) was stabbed to death in Havana. “So many young people have been killed this year… The violence is getting out of hand,” said his sister, Samantha Gonzalez.

Few could deny that Cuba’s streets have traditionally been among the safest in the Americas. But this is changing. Samantha González will be the first to tell you. Her younger brother, an aspiring music producer named Jan Franco, was murdered two months ago in an apparent gang-related dispute. From the low-income Havana neighborhood of Cayo Hueso and just 19 years old when he was killed, Jan Franco was stabbed twice in the chest outside a recording studio. He was caught in the middle of an argument when someone pulled a knife. Cuba has a growing drug and gang problem where disputes are settled with knives, machetes, or sometimes guns.

The situation has been worsened by a new drug in Cuba called “quimico” – a cheap chemical high with a cannabis base. Samantha says that it’s increasingly popular among Cuban youth in the parks and on the streets.

The Cuban authorities have always been fiercely protective of their island’s reputation as crime-free and quick to point out that the streets are demonstrably safer than those of most cities in the US. Anything that highlights Cuba’s social problems is generally painted as biased criticism of their socialist system or as anti-revolutionary fabrications originating from Miami or Washington.

In August, an edition of nightly talk program Mesa Redonda – in which Communist Party officials are invited on air to deliver the party line – was titled Cuba Against Drugs. During the broadcast, Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, the head of the interior ministry’s anti-drug unit, acknowledged the existence, production, and distribution of the new drug, químico, and its impact on Cuba’s youth. He insisted the authorities were tackling the issue.

“Quimico” is allegedly prepared with epilepsy pills, formaldehyde, and animal anesthesia, and smoked in cigarettes like marijuana. Michael Fischer /Pexels/ Getty Images

For its part, the government largely blames the old enemy, the US, for both the existence of synthetic opioids in Cuba and for the decades-long US economic embargo on the island which they say is the reason some Cubans have resorted to crime.

According to http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com, 82 people died in Cuba from drug use in 2020. By contrast, drug use killed 3,686 people in Canada.

Sources:

Cuba’s crime rate soars, fuelled by gang crime and drugs (bbc.com)

Drug Use in Cuba (worldlifeexpectancy.com)

People Exposed to Pigs at Minnesota State Fair Contract Variant Flu Strain

A pig is guided through a showing during the closing weekend of the Minnesota State Fair. Nicole Neri for MPR News 2024

The Minnesota Department of Health has reported two human cases of H3N2v, a strain of influenza A, after people were exposed to pigs at the State Fair. The CDC said the two fairgoers are under the age of 18 and sought health care in early September.

One patient is said to have had direct contact with pigs while the other had indirect contact. Neither of them had been in contact with one another at the fair. 

The Minnesota Department of Health does not anticipate further spread. A spokesman said that “typically, humans don’t pass it to another human in the way that they would a normal human flu strain.” She added infection can occur in cases where people who are not typically exposed to pigs come in close contact and are exposed to respiratory droplets, but it does not always happen.  

“It’s not a very severe illness in humans, it’s like the regular flu. It can be mild to severe, but it’s not symptomatically, or in terms of severity, all that different from human flu.”

The Minnesota Department of Health encourage people to wash their hands after visiting agricultural farms or events and to maintain distance from the animals.  

Both fairgoers have recovered from their symptoms and were not hospitalized.  

The CDC reported that nine other variants of influenza have been reported during the 2023-2024 season. 

Sources:

People exposed to pigs at the Minnesota State Fair contract variant flu strain | MPR News

ROK Intelligence: North Korea May Conduct Nuclear Test After US Election

Getty Images / STR / Contributor; iStock / KREMLL

North Korea may conduct its seventh nuclear test after the US presidential vote in November, according to the NIS (formerly known as KCIA).  

This would be North Korea’s first nuclear test since 2017. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. All six have been underground.

The NIS also reported that the North possesses about 70 kgs of plutonium and a significant amount of highly enriched uranium (HEU), enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons.

Regarding the North’s disclosure of an HEU facility for the first time this month, the NIS said Pyongyang appeared to have the US election in mind, but it could be also trying to “instill confidence” in the domestic audience struggling with a crippled economy and food insecurity.

North Korea unveiled details of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time this month, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for increasing the number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment so it can build up its nuclear arsenal for self-defense. 

The South Korean intelligence agency said the North’s test launch of new tactical ballistic missiles on 18 Sept was aimed at verifying its precision strike capability. 

Calling it a “slight improvement from the past,” the NIS said one of the two missiles fired successfully reached the target, adding that the agency recognized it as a “grave threat” to South Korean security.

The NIS also said that North Korea-Russia relations were “improving and strengthening considerably and continuously” and that it was “watching closely with concerns about Russia’s economic support to North Korea, including the supply of refined oil and technical cooperation such as reconnaissance satellites, as a compensation for North Korea’s weapons supply.”

On Sino-North Korea relations, the NIS reported that they had “deteriorated over the crackdown on North Korean foreign currency earners operating in China.”

This undated photo released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency via KNS on 13 Sep 2024 shows North Korean supremo Kim Jong Un inspecting the Nuclear Weapons Institute and the production base of weapon-grade nuclear materials, at an undisclosed location in North Korea. STR/KCNA via KNS/AFP

North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un keeps holding his neighbors hostage with his growing nuclear prowess while his people starve. The US, South Korea, and Japan will continue their policy to contain and deter North Korea, as the alternatives are grim, including catastrophic radioactive fallout. Beijing disapproves of Pyongyang’s nuclear progress, but is also concerned about the massive instability if North Korea collapses.

Sources:

North Korea may conduct nuclear test after US election: South’s spy agency — Radio Free Asia (rfa.org)

National Intelligence Service (nis.go.kr)

https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2017/08/contain-deter-transform-a-winning-strategy-on-north.html

Bear Charges at British Columbia Man Inside His Garage

A British Columbia man came face-to-face with a bear inside his garage and the startling encounter was caught on camera.

Coquitlam resident Alex Gold posted a security camera footage to Instagram showing what happened when he was recently unloading groceries from his vehicle in front of his garage.

The video shows Gold’s extremely close encounter with a bear that wandered in through the open garage door.

“I came back to my car and I bumped into the bear,” Gold told CTV News. “She was kind of hissing.”

The video shows the bear charging at Gold multiple times as he claps his hands, makes loud sounds and slowly backs away.

Gold was able to get back into his SUV and honk the horn, which finally scared the mother bear — and her nearby cub — away from his property.

Lisa Lopez of the non-profit WildSafeBC praised Gold’s behavior during the tense encounter.

“The important thing to always remember is to not run,” Lopez said. “Because then it could become a predator-prey kind of situation.”

Source:

Watch: Bear charges at British Columbia man inside his garage – UPI.com

IDF Airstrikes Kill 14 in Gaza Strip as American Activist is Buried in Turkiye

Palestinians gather amid the rubble near a fuel tank damaged in IDF bombing in Gaza City on 14 Sep 2024.

Israeli airstrikes hit central and southern Gaza overnight into Saturday, killing at least 14 people as friends and family members of a Turkish-American activist killed by an Israeli soldier honored her in a funeral in Turkiye.

The airstrikes in Gaza City hit one home housing 11 people, including three women and four children, and another strike hit a tent in Khan Younis with displaced Palestinians. The attacks followed airstrikes earlier this week that hit a tent camp on Tuesday and a UN school sheltering displaced people on Wednesday.

A campaign to inoculate children in Gaza against polio slowed down. The WHO reported that about 559,000 people under the age of 10 — seven out of every eight children the campaign aimed to vaccinate — have recovered from their first dose. The second doses are expected to begin later this month.

Relatives, officials, and others look at the coffin of Turkish-American activist Aysenur Ezgi Eygi (26) during her funeral ceremony at a mosque in Aydin Province, Turkiye, on 14 Sep 2024. She was shot and killed by the IDF in the occupied West Bank.

The war has caused vast destruction and displaced roughly 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million, often multiple times, and plunged the territory into a severe humanitarian crisis. Gaza’s Health Ministry reports over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began, adding women and children make up just over half of the dead.

Source:

Israel strikes Gaza as American activist killed by Israeli fire is buried (voanews.com)

Russia’s Medvedev Threatens Nuclear Strike Would Turn Kiev into ‘Gray Spot’ on the Map

Former Russian President and current Deputy Security Council Chairman Dmitry Medvedev has hiked Moscow’s threat of the nuclear option. Vladimir Putin controls about 5,977 nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, recently warned that Kiev could be turned into a “gray melted spot” if restrictions against Ukraine’s use of Western weapons were loosened.

Russian officials have threatened that a possible decision by the West to allow Kiev to use donated weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory would result in a major escalation of its war against Ukraine that could include the use of nuclear weapons.

Kiev has repeatedly said it needs to be able to conduct longer-range strikes into Russian territory to defend itself against invading Russian forces.

In an apparent reference to a recent US-UK summit, Medvedev wrote that “the Anglo-Saxon imbeciles” do not want to admit that there is an end to Russia’s “patience” and that experts who have suggested Russia could resort to using nuclear weapons against Ukraine would be proven correct if that patience is exhausted.

“What do Western leaders and their political establishments, playing at war, think our country’s reaction to probable missile strikes ‘deep into the territory [of Russia]’ would be?” wrote Medvedev, who has frequently used his position to voice threats against Kiev and the West since Russia’s unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Medvedev said a nuclear conflict is a “very bad story with a very difficult outcome,” claiming that is why Russia has not decided to use “nonstrategic or strategic” nuclear weapons so far. However, he said, if it came to that there would be a “giant gray melted spot” on the site of Kiev, which he called the “mother city of Russia.”

Recent media reports claim Russia received Fath-360 missile systems from Iran. These missiles have an effective range of 19-75 miles and can carry a 330-lb warhead filled with high explosives.

Source:

Russia’s Medvedev Threatens Nuke Strike Would Turn Kyiv Into ‘Gray Spot’ On The Map (rferl.org)

Venezuela Arrests US and Spanish Citizens Over Alleged ‘Plot’

Three US citizens, two Spaniards and one Czech citizen were arrested in Venezuela for allegedly plotting to destabilize the country. Reportedly, hundreds of weapons had been seized and the detainees were plotting to assassinate Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and other top officials. The Spaniards were detained in Puerto Ayacucho, south of the capital Caracas.

The arrests come two days after Washington sanctioned 16 Venezuelan officials who are closely aligned with President Maduro, following his disputed election victory in July.

The Venezuelan government alleged the detained Spaniards are linked to Madrid’s National Intelligence Centre (CNI). However, Spanish government sources denied the two belong to the intelligence organization.

Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello alleged “the CIA is leading this operation, and that does not surprise us but they, the National Intelligence Centre of Spain, have always maintained a low profile knowing that the CIA operates in this area. These two detainees even tell us about a group of mercenaries they are looking for to bring to Venezuela with very clear objectives to assassinate President Nicolas Maduro, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, myself, and another group of comrades who are leading our party and our revolution.”

The US has rejected the accusations.

Nicolas Maduro was declared the winner of July’s presidential election by Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE), which is closely aligned with the government. But the CNE has not published any detailed voting tallies supporting a Maduro victory. Data published by the opposition suggests its candidate, Edmundo González, won instead.

Sources:

Venezuela arrests US and Spanish citizens over ‘plot’ (bbc.com)

Former CIA Employee Sentenced Ten Years in Prison for Spying for China

A screenshot from a video by an FBI undercover agent taken of Alexander Yuk Ching Ma in Jan 2019 during a meeting. (Photo: AP)

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma (71) of Honolulu, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee, was sentenced to ten years confinement and five years of supervised release for conspiring to gather and deliver national defense information to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Ma was arrested in August 2020, after admitting to an undercover FBI agent that he had facilitated the provision of classified information to intelligence officers employed by the PRC’s Shanghai State Security Bureau (SSSB).

Ma worked for the CIA from 1982 until 1989. His brother, who is now deceased, also worked for the CIA from 1967 until 1983. As CIA employees, both men held Top Secret security clearances that granted them access to sensitive and classified information, and both signed nondisclosure agreements.

After Ma and his brother were recruited by the SSSB, they provided Chinese intelligence officers with a “large volume of classified and sensitive information.” They were paid $50,000 in cash; an hourlong video showed Ma counting the money. Two years later, Ma applied for a job as a contract linguist in the FBI’s Honolulu field office. By then, US intelligence knew he was collaborating with Chinese intelligence officers, and they hired him in 2004 so they could keep an eye on his espionage activities.

Over the next six years, Ma regularly copied, photographed, and stole classified documents. He often took them on trips to China, returning with thousands of dollars in cash and expensive gifts, including a new set of golf clubs.

At one point in 2006, his handlers at the Shanghai state security bureau asked Ma to get his brother to help identify four people in photographs, and the brother did identify two of them. The fate of those he identified are not known.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, Ma confessed that he knowingly and willfully conspired with SSSB intelligence officers to communicate and transmit information that he knew would be used to injure the US or to advantage the PRC. Further, Ma must cooperate with the US and undergo polygraph tests for the rest of his life, as well as submit to debriefings by the USIC. Prosecutors told the court that Ma has been cooperative and has taken part in multiple interview sessions with government investigators.

Alexander Yuk Ching Ma (USMS# 12272-122) is incarcerated at FDC Honolulu, an administrative security federal detention center in Hawaii.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Former CIA Officer Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Conspiracy to Commit Espionage | United States Department of Justice

Former CIA officer sentenced to 10 years in prison for spying for China | Espionage | The Guardian

‘Catastrophe’ as Central Europe Deals with Deadly Floods

Flooding overwhelmed Slobozia Conachi, Romania (Photo: BBC)

In Glucholazy, southern Poland, firefighters built sandbag barriers to protect residents near the river. (Photo: BBC)

The flooded village of Krosnowice, southern Poland. (Photo: BBC)

Emergency services are shoring up flood defenses in central and eastern Europe after torrential rainfall caused by Storm Boris swelled rivers and damaged thousands of homes. Four people were killed in eastern Romania. In the Czech Republic, 51,000 households in the country’s northern areas were evacuated. Flood barriers have gone up in the capital Prague. Poland evacuated people from Glucholazy, a town near the Czech border, after a river burst its banks.

Extreme precipitation is becoming more likely in Europe, as across much of the world, due to climate change. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, which can lead to heavier rainfall.

“We are again facing the effects of climate change, which are increasingly present on the European continent, with dramatic consequences,” Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said.

These flood victims face another peril. Floods greatly increase the risk of diarrheal disease along with other waterborne, water-related, and communicable diseases. Diarrheal pathogens—cholera, E. coli, Shigella, rotavirus, norovirus, Cryptosporidium, and others—can spread through direct contact with floodwater itself or through compromised water sources.

Standing water left by flooding can become a breeding ground for mosquitos that carry pathogens. Communicable diseases can spread like wildfire through refugee and evacuation shelters.

Sources:

Central Europe floods: Rush to shore up flood defences amid deaths and evacuations (bbc.com)

After the floods: Diarrheal disease threats lurk behind natural disasters (defeatdd.org)

Zika Cases in Pune, India, Reach 100, Five Deaths Reported

Pune continues to grapple with an increasing number of Zika virus cases, as the total number of patients in the city has now reached 100. The most affected area in Pune is Dahanukar Colony, which has recorded 20 cases, followed by Erandwane with 16. The five Zika-related deaths involved elderly individuals with pre-existing health conditions.

The virus is transmitted by daytime flying Aedes, or “tiger mosquitos.” An invasive species, Aedes is now found on all continents except Antarctica.

Alarmingly, 45 of these patients are pregnant women. Zika can cause birth defects in newborn babies.

Dr. Rajesh Dighe, Assistant Health Officer at Pune Municipal Corporation, provided updates on the situation, noting that efforts to control the spread of the Zika virus are ongoing. This recent spike in Zika cases follows a series of warnings from health authorities, who had anticipated a possible outbreak. The city is now facing increased pressure to manage the outbreak, particularly as the number of pregnant women affected by the virus grows.

On top of this, medical staff in Pune hospitals are dealing with an acute blood shortage.

Sources:

Zika Cases in Pune Reach 100, Five Deaths Reported | The Bridge Chronicle

Blood Shortage Hits Pune Amid Rising Zika, Dengue, Chikungunya Cases | The Bridge Chronicle

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

Donald Trump Confuses Nicky Jam for a Woman Ahead of Latin Star’s Endorsement Speech in Las Vegas

Former president Donald Trump held a campaign rally at the World Market Center in downtown Las Vegas, where Nicky Jam, a 43-year-old male reggaetón veteran took the stage to show his support for the GOP candidate. But in an inter-galactically embarrassing faux pas, the ex-POTUS mistakenly referred to Nicky as a ‘she‘ when introducing him to the crowd.

“Do you know Nicky? She’s hot. Where’s Nicky. As the male singer approaches the stage, Trump then says, “Oh, look, I’m glad he came up.”

Nicky Jam, wearing a black sweatshirt and a red ‘Make America Great Again’ baseball cap, then took the stage to deliver a brief statement.

Artist Art Candee wrote, “Guess Donald Trump doesn’t know what a woman is…” and Team Kamala mocked the former president by posting a video of the flub on social media:

“Trump: Latin music superstar Nicky Jam. Do you know Nicky? She’s hot (Nicky Jam is a man),” the campaign wrote.

This is just one of a series of imbecilic comments and gaffes that Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance have made during the 2024 campaign. Political analysts, as well as his niece Mary Trump (a professional psychologist), have been raising alarms about the mental fitness of this elderly man who could be Commander-in-Chief of the world’s most powerful, and nuclear-armed, military.    

Source:

Donald Trump Confuses Nicky Jam for Woman at Las Vegas Rally (billboard.com)

Endangered Cotton-Top Tamarin Triplets Born at Disney World

Three infant cotton-top tamarins are perched atop the back of one of their parents Saturday shortly after their birth at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. They are the second set of the critically endangered tamarins to be born at the resort this year. (Photo courtesy Walt Disney World)

The second set of critically endangered cotton-top tamarin triplets to be born this year at Walt Disney World have arrived.

The three tiny primates were born at Animal Kingdom’s Discovery Island on Saturday and are bonding with their parents and siblings. An earlier batch of the small-but-powerful monkeys were born there in January.

Weighing only one pound in adulthood, the cotton-top tamarin is found in the rain forests of northwestern Colombia. They are known for their sophisticated social behaviors and have demonstrated evidence of simple grammatical capabilities.

Despite their small stature, their athletic capabilities are impressive — they can leap 15 feet from a stationary branch — while their appearance is highlighted by a wild mane of bright-white hair atop their heads.

The male and female parents of newborn tamarins share infant care equally, carrying their young on their backs until approximately 14 weeks of age.

An estimated 6,000 cotton-top tamarins remain in the wild, making them one of the rarest primates in the world. Disney World says it is working with organizations such as Proyecto Titi in Colombia to help protect the species through its Disney Conservation Fund.

Source:

New set of endangered cotton-top tamarin triplets born at Disney World – UPI.com

US Army Soldier from Hawaii Arrested for Assaulting Law Enforcement with Weapon and Other Charges During 6 Jan Attack on US Capitol

Alexander Cain Poplin (31), an active duty servicemember of the US Army, was arrested in Hawaii for allegedly assaulting law enforcement and other charges related to his conduct during the 6 Jan 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

In addition to the felonies of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a dangerous weapon and civil disorder, Poplin is charged with three misdemeanor offenses, including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, and engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds.

On the morning of 6 Jan 2021, Poplin attended a rally held by the former President at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Poplin was observed wearing a black Columbia jacket, a black beanie, and an Army ACU camouflage backpack. Throughout the day, he was seen holding various flags.

At approximately 2:30 p.m., Poplin was at the Lower West Plaza of the US Capitol Building and within the restricted perimeter. He was holding an “Area Closed” sign in his left hand and a flagpole with a blue flag in his right. Poplin allegedly repeatedly struck a Metropolitan Police Department officer with the blue flagpole. Video footage from open-source media and body-worn cameras captured the assault. Poplin’s alleged actions at the Lower West Plaza contributed to the chaos as rioters confronted law enforcement officers who were defending the Capitol. After the attack, Poplin reportedly posted on Facebook “we beat their fucking ass and stood for something” and “we took our house back.”

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

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

Civilian Cargo Ship Carrying Ukrainian Grain Attacked by Russian Jets in Black Sea

Ukraine accused Russia of using strategic bombers to fire missiles at a civilian ship carrying Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea.

The ship was in the maritime economic zone of Romania, a NATO member, when it was hit. The vessel was transporting the grain from Chernomorsk, Ukraine, to Istanbul when it was attacked. The ship’s cargo was bound for Egypt. Russia deployed Tupolev Tu-22 bombers to fire the missiles at around 11 PM local time on 11 Sep.

Tupolev Tu-22M-3 (Image courtesy of airliners.net).

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said the strike was “a brazen attack on freedom of navigation and global food security.”

The attack was confirmed by the Romanian Coast Guard, which said the vessel had a crew of 22 people on board. No one was injured and the ship headed to Constanta for damage assessment.

The ship was 55 kilometers from the town of Sfantu Gheorghe in the exclusive economic zone of Romania when the attack took place. The exclusive economic zone is the maritime area adjacent to a country’s territorial waters and can extend up to a maximum of 200 nautical miles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said earlier that a cargo ship carrying wheat was hit by a Russian missile strike in the Black Sea as it was headed for Egypt.

“Today’s strike in the Black Sea was against an ordinary civilian vessel immediately after leaving Ukrainian territorial waters. According to preliminary data, fortunately, there were no casualties,” he said. “Ukraine is one of the key global donors of food security. The internal stability and life of dozens of countries in different parts of the world depends on the normal and smooth operation of our export food corridor.”

Ukraine, one of the world’s leading grain producers and exporters, has been shipping about four million tons of grain each month through the Black Sea corridor, which was set up through a deal mediated by Turkey and the UN.

The US recently signalled that it may allow Ukraine to fire missiles more deeply into Russia. Aircraft like the TU-22M-3 could have easily sunk this unarmed cargo ship. This move by the Kremlin is probably a warning that if Ukraine is permitted to strike deep targets in Russia with Western hi-tech weapons, the Kremlin will retaliate with economic attacks like this.

Sources:

Civilian Cargo Ship Carrying Ukrainian Grain Hit By Russian Strike In Black Sea (rferl.org)

US reconsidering Ukraine missile restrictions on firing into Russia (voanews.com)

NYPD Commissioner to Resign After FBI Seized His Phone

Edward Caban (L) being sworn in as NYPD Police Commissioner on 17 July 2023. Mayor Eric Adams is on the right.

NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban said he would resign Thursday, one week after it emerged that his phone was seized as part of a federal investigation that touched several members of Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle.

Edward Caban (57) had been in charge of the nation’s largest police department for about 15 months. Of Puerto Rican heritage, he was the first Latino to lead the 179-year-old NYPD and oversee its annual budget of over $5 billion. There are approximately 36,000 sworn officers in New York’s Finest.

Caban was one of several high-ranking city officials whose electronic devices were seized recently by federal investigators. The subject of the investigation, which is being led by the SDNY US Attorney, remains unclear. Federal authorities are also investigating Caban’s twin brother, James Caban, who runs a nightclub security business.

Other NYC officials whose devices were recently seized include First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright; Philip Banks, the deputy mayor for public safety; his brother David Banks, the Board of Education chancellor; and Timothy Pearson, a mayoral adviser and former high-ranking NYPD official.

Mayor Adams, a first-term Democrat, was subpoenaed in July, eight months after federal agents seized his cell phones and an iPad while he was leaving an event in Manhattan. Federal authorities haven’t publicly accused him or any officials of any crimes and Adams has denied any wrongdoing. The SDNY investigation may have to do with campaign fundraising.

Under Commissioner Caban, from 1 Jan 2024 to 1 Sep 2024, the NYPD tallied 243 murders, compared with 279 in the same period last year. Burglary, grand larceny, and auto thefts were also down. At the same time, there was a 17.8% spike in reported hate crimes, 11.1% jump in rapes and smaller increases in some other categories.

Caban was criticized for his handling of officer discipline. The NYPD has stifled more than 400 cases of alleged misconduct this year which an oversight board had investigated and substantiated. Two examples follow.

In April, Caban declined to take disciplinary action against two officers involved in the fatal 2019 shooting of Kawaski Trawick inside his Bronx apartment. Caban said the officers “acted within the law” and that the city’s police watchdog agency waited too long to bring administrative charges.

In August, Caban upheld a department administrative trial judge’s recommendation to drop a disciplinary case against Chief of Department Jeffrey Maddrey, who was accused of ordering officers to void the November 2021 arrest of a retired officer who previously worked for him. The trial judge, Rosemarie Maldonado, said the watchdog agency didn’t have jurisdiction to investigate the case.

Mayor Adams named retired FBI Special Agent Thomas Donlon interim police commissioner. The timing of Caban’s resignation is astonishing with the UN General Assembly (UNGA) convening in NYC. Several weeks ago, the director of the US Secret Service resigned in the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign.

Sources:

New York City police commissioner to resign after his phone was seized in federal investigation (voanews.com)

FBI seized phones, iPad of NYC mayor amid campaign fundraising probe | CBC News

https://www.propublica.org/article/nypd-tossed-out-police-misconduct-discipline-cases-edward-caban

Bomb Threats Reported in Springfield, Ohio, Amid False Malignant Claims Targeting Haitian Migrants

Donald Trump pandering to the Haitian vote during a 2016 visit to Little Haiti, Miami. Now Haitians have becoming a convenient scapegoat for him. Photo courtesy of Michael Bennett via miamitimesonline.com.

Local and federal law enforcement agencies responded Thursday to a bomb threat made against multiple facilities in the Ohio city of Springfield. City Hall, a driver’s exam station, an Ohio BMV facility, the Springfield Academy of Excellence, and Fulton Elementary School were all evacuated and cleared by explosive-detecting K9s.

The threat comes days after Donald Trump repeated baseless and dehumanizing claims made online that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating residents’ pets. He made the comments during his Tuesday debate against Vice President Kamala Harris which were echoed by his running mate, JD Vance.

The city of some 58,000 people has pushed back against the claims, with City Manager Bryan Heck explaining in a recorded statement “it is disappointing that some of the narratives surrounding our city has been skewed by misinformation circulating on social media and further amplified by political rhetoric in the current highly charged presidential election cycle.”

The city manager added Springfield is experiencing challenges due to the rapid growth of its immigrant population, those challenges “are primarily due to the pace of the growth rather than the rumors.”

Sources:

Bomb threats reported in Springfield amid false claims targeting migrants – UPI.com

Trump, missing-in-action with Haitians, still draws handful of supporters – The Haitian Times

North Korea Releases Rare Images of Uranium Enrichment Site

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits a uranium enrichment facility, which produces weapon-grade nuclear materials. The photos were published by North Korean state media on Friday, 13 Sep 2024. No located or date were released for the photos and certain faces in the pictures had been blurred before their release. (Courtesy: KCNA / Rodong Sinmun)

New pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un touring what state media described is a uranium enrichment facility have given an extremely rare glimpse inside the isolated nation’s closely guarded nuclear weapons program.

According to a report from Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim visited the facility – a bright, sterile warehouse filled with long rows of cylindrical machinery – which is used to produce weapons-grade nuclear material for the North’s growing arsenal. The report comes as North Korea continues to ramp up its illegal nuclear weapons program and strengthens relations with Russia, deepening widespread concern in the West over the isolated nation’s direction under Kim.

The location and exact date of Kim’s visit to the site were not disclosed in the report, but the purpose of his inspection was clear, according to KCNA: to lay out a “long-term plan for increasing the production of weapon-grade nuclear materials.”

Experts say the images – which show Kim flanked by men in military uniforms and crisp white lab shirts – underscore North Korea’s growing confidence in its position as a nuclear power.

In a speech celebrating the 76th anniversary of North Korea’s founding on Monday, Kim pledged to “exponentially” expand the regime’s nuclear arsenal, reiterating bellicose rhetoric he has used in the past.

As reported here on Coriolanus, the North Korean supremo ordered the launch of a ballistic missile into the sea when the dust settled after the US presidential debate. For years the West kept “kicking the can down the road” regarding North Korea and the dynastic family which has been producing WMDs while starving their own people. Neighboring South Korea, Japan, and China, must be wondering how this dangerous dynasty will one day end and what type of fallout will ensue.

Sources:

North Korea releases images of Kim Jong Un visiting a uranium enrichment site | CNN

Four Black Rights Activists Convicted Over Nefarious Russian Links

Protesters gathered outside the US Embassy in London to support Omali Yeshitela (Imagery: BBC, circa Sep 2024)

Four activists for black rights have been convicted of federal charges of conspiring to act as unregistered Russian agents.

Omali Yeshitela (82), Penny Hess (78), Jesse Nevel (34), and Augustus Romain (38), face maximum sentences of five years in prison. A jury in Tampa, FL, found them not guilty of the more serious charge of acting as agents of a foreign government. A date has not yet been set for sentencing.

Yeshitela is the founder of the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP) and Uhuru Movement. Hess and Nevel are white allies of the groups. Romain is the leader of a Georgia-based spinoff known as Black Hammer. The four carried out a number of actions in the US between 2015 and 2022 on behalf of the Russian government and received money and support from Aleksandr Ionov, the president of the Moscow-based group Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia.

Mr. Ionov used the APSP, Uhuru Movement, and Black Hammer to promote Russian views on politics, the Ukraine war, and other issues. The US State Dept is offering a reward up to $10 million for information that would lead to his arrest.

Sources:

Office of Public Affairs | U.S. Citizens Convicted of Conspiring to Act as Illegal Agents of the Russian Government | United States Department of Justice

Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov – Rewards For Justice

US black-rights activists convicted over Russian links (bbc.com)

Usutu Virus Threatens Blackbirds in Germany

The blackbird is one of the most common birds in Germany, but the spread of Usutu virus is threatening their population. Numerous cases have been identified in the Rendsburg and Eckernförde areas of Germany (see map). Infested birds become disoriented, begin to stagger, and often die within a few days.

The Usutu virus, which originated in South Africa, was first detected in Germany in 2011. Since the disease mostly affects blackbirds, the Usutu epidemic is also known as “blackbird death”. The virus is generally transmitted by mosquitoes. Humans can become infected with the virus – but serious illness is rare. Most recently, the pathogen caused a severe bird mortality in Germany in 2018.

Source:

Dead blackbirds: Usutu virus reaches the Rendsburg area | SHZ

Trump Tower Declared ‘Public Nuisance’ After Killing Thousands of Fish in Chicago

Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. Locals have long derided the building as an aesthetical and architectural eyesore which doesn’t blend in with the Windy City’s marvelous architecture. (Courtesy Ghornephoto / Getty Images).

An Illinois Cook County judge has ruled that Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago has been conducting operations that violate state and federal environmental law, operates without a legitimate state environmental permit, and has killed thousands of fish over the years.

Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thaddeus L. Wilson on Monday found that Trump International Hotel & Tower “committed a continuing public nuisance through a series of failures to comply with state and federal law dating back to 2008.”

This ruling has taken years of litigation to achieve, with Friends of the Chicago River, the Sierra Club, and the Illinois Attorney General having filed the lawsuit in 2018.

Sources:

Trump Tower Declared ‘Public Nuisance’ After Killing Thousands of Fish | IBTimes

News Detail Page (illinoisattorneygeneral.gov)

Dog Rushes into Burning Ukraine Home to Save Helpless Kitten

A few years ago, an explosion occurred in a defense industry building near Donetsk City, Ukraine. Fire and smoke spread to nearby areas. As people rushed out of burning buildings and homes, they made sure that family members were with them, but some pets got left behind in the chaos. One dog re-entered a burning house to the surprise of the owner and neighbors. After a while, the dog emerged from the house fire with a tiny fluff ball in his jaws. The dog had gently picked up a kitten from the burning home and carried him to safety.

The lucky kitten has eight lives left.

Source:

Dog Rushes Into Burning Ukraine Home To Save Helpless Kitten (iheartdogs.com)