russia

Trump Gives Elon Musk Access to All Unclassified Data in US Government

AI-generated image for DOGE.gov website, already taken down. (Source: Social media)

From Wired magazine:

“The fine print of a sweeping Trump executive order seemingly grants Elon Musk — the wealthiest and arguably most powerful unelected figure in the world — and his associates at the somehow-still-real Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) access to all unclassified data held by US government agencies.

Under the executive order, the Trump Administration didn’t create a new federal advisory committee. It instead repurposed the United States Digital Service (USDS), an existing government organization with sweeping access to vast caches of data across government agencies, including the sensitive information of US citizens, as the “United States DOGE Service” — a move that seemingly opens the door for Musk and his operatives to access a massive amount of data without much transparency oversight.”

Trump fired all three Democrats on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), bringing much of its work to a standstill. The move guts a board designed to ensure the government’s work to fight terrorism is balanced with protections for civil liberties.
The White House informed the three Democrats on the board on Thursday it was seeking their resignation, but the members were officially terminated Monday.

This stealthy move allows the Trump administration and his right-wing operatives to data mine the American people, and in essence, conduct warrantless internal surveillance. To go after political enemies like Liz Cheney or the Vindman brothers, DOGE will give Trumpf a superpower that Richard Nixon didn’t have when he ordered the IRS to conduct time-consuming audits on his enemies. Thanks to DOGE, Trump or his cronies can easily create a dossier about their enemies without a warrant in “one-stop shopping.”

More guardrails protecting the privacy and civil liberties of Americans have been eliminated. Democratic-appointed federal judges who oversee FISA warrants in the 94 US judicial districts remain. And without oversight, what is to stop white supremacist oligarch Elon Musk from selling this sensitive data about Americans to nefarious actors or corporations such as Amazon?

The Worst Person in the World

Volunteers immediately projected this on Musk’s factory in Germany, where rendering a Nazi salute is illegal.

And shame on the once reputable Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for disingenuously defending neo-Nazi Elon Musk while recklessly smearing Palestinian-Americans as antisemites.

Sources:

https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-data-us-government

https://www.wired.com/story/doge-elon-musk/

Trump fires all 3 Democrats on privacy oversight board

Russia Pressuring Relatives of Ukrainian POWs to Collaborate

Ukrainian prisoners after being freed. Look how happy the poor guy on the left is.

Russian intelligence services and their military are attempting to influence relatives of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) by contacting them immediately after their capture. The calls are used to pressure relatives into cooperating with Russian forces by demanding money, sensitive information, or illegal actions in exchange for promises of better treatment or inclusion in prisoner exchanges.

“This is done to shock, emotionally pressure, and force the family to cooperate,” an official from Kiev reported.

This comes as another example of Russia abusing or threatening Ukrainian captives as part of its all-out war against Ukraine. Kiev and Moscow have carried out several prisoner exchanges during the conflict, though Russia has been accused of deliberately slowing down the swaps and spreading disinformation about the process to destabilize Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities have documented widespread violations of the Geneva Conventions by Russia, including the execution of over 100 Ukrainian POWs in 2024 alone.

Reports of torture, murder, and ill-treatment of Ukrainian captives have surged in recent months, particularly in Donetsk Oblast, where intense fighting continues. On 23 Jan, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced it was investigating a case of Russian troops summarily executing six Ukrainian POWs in the region.

Whether there will be post Second World War Nuremburg-type trials for Russian war crimes after hostilities finally cease is doubtful. Russian President Vladimir Putin will remain an unarrested PIFWC, like his counterpart Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. Over time, the experienced Ukrainian espionage network will seek out justice in their own way, as we have seen with other Russian war criminals.

Source:

https://kyivindependent.com/russian-forces-pressure-relatives-of-ukrainian-pows-to-cooperate-ukrainian-officials-report/

Indonesian Forestry Minister Plans to Level 50 Million Acres for Food, Biofuels; Area 2x Size Of South Korea

 Per CIA, Indonesia has a population of 281,562,465 people. GDP per capita is $13,900,

An Indonesian government plan to clear forests spanning an area twice the size of South Korea for food and biofuel crops has sparked fears of massive greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss. The country’s forest ministry announced they identified forest areas spanning 20 million hectares (50 million acres) for potential conversion into “food and energy estates.”

The announcement triggered an immediate backlash, as similar food estate programs in the past have failed, often leaving a legacy of environmental destruction. Indonesia has the world’s third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest, after Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and such a vast amount of deforestation would deal a major blow to global efforts of limiting global warming.



A cleared area for the establishment of cassava plantation as a part of the food estate program in the Tewai Baru village, Gunung Mas district, Central Kalimantan. Image courtesy of Walhi Central Kalimantan.

The clearing of 20 million hectares of forests could release up to 22 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, equivalent to the annual emissions from nearly 5,300 coal-fired power plants. “This [food and energy estate plan] shows how the government doesn’t have a commitment to reforest and rehabilitate natural forests,” an environmentalist said. “In reality, we don’t have the luxury of deforesting amid the climate crisis.” Yet the plan aligns with the platform of President Prabowo Subianto, who has prioritized achieving both food and energy self-sufficiency as cornerstones of his administration. Since his election campaign, Prabowo has emphasized the need for Indonesia to achieve sovereignty in these critical sectors to bolster economic resilience and national security.

Massive arboricide is not what the world needs, but just the opposite. To reduce the carbon emissions in the atmosphere and reverse global climate change, millions of trees must be quickly grown and those alive in the Brazilian or DRC rain forest must be spared.

Source:

Indonesian forestry minister proposes 20m hectares of deforestation for crops

Warning of Possible TB Epidemic in Ecuador’s Largest Prison

The Litoral Penitentiary has capacity to house five thousand inmates, although by July 2021 it imprisoned approximately ten thousand.

Lawyers from Ecuador’s Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights warned of a possible tuberculosis epidemic in the Litoral Penitentiary, the country’s largest prison, where an estimated 500 inmates are infected.

Per CIA, Ecuador population: 18m people; $14,500 GDP per capita.

In a single pavilion there are 400 detainees with confirmed tuberculosis and in a second space of supposed containment, there are inmates with symptoms. The situation is aggravated because they live in an unhygienic condition with inadequate food.

There is no classification of prisoners, so inmates are all mixed according to their criminal gangs. The military does not generally interfere with the gangs and bloodshed is not uncommon. Hundreds of inmates have been killed since 2020.

The Armed Forces of Ecuador took control of Litoral Penitentiary on 25 Jul 2023 in Guayaquil. (Photo: Fuerzas Amadas / EFE)

Litoral Prison has been described as “Hell on Earth.”

Sources:

https://www.prensa-latina.cu/2025/01/16/advierten-de-posible-epidemia-en-mayor-prision-de-ecuador/

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/12/americas/ecuador-prison-clash-litoral-penitentiary-intl-latam/index.html

‘Unprecedented’ TB Outbreak in Kansas with Nearly 70 Cases

Kansas Department of Health and Environment announced 67 active outbreak cases and 79 latent infections in Kansas City, KS, since 2024. The majority of cases were declared to have broken out in Wyandotte County and Johnson County, just west and southwest of the metro area.

KDHE Deputy Secretary Ashley Goss told the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee: “Currently, Kansas has the largest outbreak that they’ve ever had in history.”

But despite this, officials stated that the outbreak had a very low risk to the general public and surrounding counties.

In addition to the growing avian flu epidemic, here is another potential health crisis for the Trump administration. His purposeful choice of quacks, unreputable experts, and mountebanks will no doubt hurt the American people as this man below already knows.

On his show, Russian TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov shared a particularly grim prediction of what Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, and the other Trump Cabinet appointments might mean for Americans: 

“What an excellent team is coming along with Trump! Not with respect to Ukraine, but as far as everything else goes. If they are allowed to get in, they will quickly dismantle America, brick by brick. They are so great!” 

Sources:

https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/2242/Tuberculosis-Outbreaks

https://www.cdc.gov/tb/hcp/clinical-guidance/index.html

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/russia-trump-cabinet-picks-kash-patel-tulsi-gabbard-rcna182927

Trump Issues Quotas to ICE to Ramp Up Arrests

President Trumpf issued a ukase for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to aggressively ramp up the number of people they arrest, from a few hundred per day to at least 1,200 to 1,500, because the president has been disappointed with the results of his mass deportation campaign so far.

The quotas were outlined in a call with senior ICE officials, who were told that each of the agency’s field offices should make 75 arrests per day and managers would be held accountable for missing those targets.

The orders significantly increase the chance that officers will engage in more indiscriminate enforcement tactics or face accusations of civil rights violations as they strain to meet quotas. At least 15 indigenous people in Arizona and New Mexico have reported being stopped at their homes and workplaces, questioned or detained by federal law enforcement and asked to produce proof of citizenship during immigration raids, according to Navajo Nation officials. Farmers have complained that harvests weren’t picked because migrant laborers were too terrified to come to work, wasting millions of dollars of crops that rotted.

Newly sworn in puppy-killing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem rides along on an immigration enforcement operation in New York City, 28 Jan 2025. (Photo: DHS)

White House “border czar” Tom Homan has said for weeks that ICE would not conduct mass roundups and its officers would prioritize immigrants with criminal records and who are gang members. But the quotas issued this weekend would place ICE officers under more pressure to seize a wider range of potential deportees to avoid reprimand, including immigrants who have not committed crimes.

During the Second World War, Supreme Commander Allied Forces in Europe General Dwight D. Eisenhower saw firsthand how millions of people could be relocated efficiently.

Jewish forced labor during WWII.

Victims of Operation Wetback in 1954. (Photo: US Border Patrol Museum)

As President, Eisenhower’s 1954 Operation Wetback deported 1.1 million vulnerable people en masse.

US immigration enforcement actions (returns and removals), 1940–1960

Republicans are full of friendship, charity, and benevolence aren’t they? And like “Ike,” the current President enjoys golfing. After telling a reporter he wouldn’t be playing on Monday (after playing on Sunday), Trumpf was photographed playing golf at his Doral club on Monday.

“It’s good to be the King!”

Sources:

Trump officials issue quotas to ICE officers to ramp up arrests – The Washington Post

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joins immigration enforcement operations in NYC – ABC News

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

Iran: 80 Female University Students Poisoned After Consuming Canned Tuna

Pishva Varamin University

80 students at Pishva Varamin University were afflicted with food poisoning. 22 of the affected students were treated on-site and discharged, while the rest were taken to the hospital for further care. Over the past year, multiple incidents of food poisoning involving students at various Iranian universities have been reported.

Per CIA, Iran has a population of 88m people and GDP per capita is $15,900 

In Dec 2024, Iranian media reported that 40 students from Shushtar Medical Sciences University experienced symptoms of food poisoning after having dinner at their dormitory, requiring hospitalization.

Food poisoning incidents in Iran are not limited to universities. Students and workers have also been affected, with some cases resulting in fatalities.

In Nov 2024, 42 students from a boys’ school in Kashmar, Khorasan Razavi Province, were hospitalized after consuming breakfast prepared at their school.

The recurring food poisoning incidents in Iran highlight systemic issues in food safety and hygiene standards in educational institutions and workplaces, raising concerns among the public. Addressing these concerns requires immediate action from authorities, including stricter regulations and monitoring of food preparation and distribution to ensure the health and safety of students and workers across the country.

A protester holds a photo of Mahsa Amini outside the UN on 21 Sep 2022 in NYC. Protests were held around the world after the 22-year-old Iranian woman died following her arrest for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code. (Photo: Stephanie Keith / Getty Images)

Activists allege that the food poisoning attacks against female students are reprisals for defying the Islamic Republic of Iran’s strict mores about dress, conduct, or alcohol consumption. particularly wearing the hijab. The number of food poisoning incidents without any arrests have drawn the suspicion of covert state involvement. Tehran does not like to publicly admit that they are like the Taliban in Afghanistan so they are using intimidation tactics like this.

There are two theories behind these food poisoning incidents. In the “guns versus butter” debate, Tehran’s budget may be prioritizing defense over social services and US-led sanctions are not helping Iran. The other theory is covert state involvement to intimidate female students. Perhaps this is a combination of both, with nefarious members of the religious police taking advantage of an already poor food situation.

With the Islamophobic Trumpf regime now in power, expect no let up on sanctions and future dust-ups with Iran as Israel will continue attacking Shia Houthis in Yemen who are undergoing their own food insecurity issues. With less allies in the world, Iran will continue supplying Russia with drones in their mutually beneficial relationship as a fellow BRICS country (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates). Please watch for an imminent post about Iranian espionage.

Sources:

http://www.khamma.com

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-schoolgirl-poison-attacks-1.6764821

Elephants Have Great Sense of Humor

Sanctioned Russian Firms Sold $2BN Air Defense System to Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia agreed to pay sanctioned Russian arms companies more than two billion euros for the Palantir air defense system, according to leaked documents. Trade data shows that some equipment was delivered in 2023, the year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Details about arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other countries are included in leaked emails and internal documents from Roselectronics, which were analyzed by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).  

The Pantsir is a self-propelled air defense missile and gun system which can shoot down missiles, airplanes, helicopters, aerial bombs, and drones, like the recent Azerbaijani Airlines flight.

The documents show that Saudi Arabia ordered 39 trucks capable of shooting down aircraft, as well as ten vehicles housing “command posts” to direct the operations of combat vehicles. Also included in the purchase were hundreds of missiles, as well as additional vehicles.

A sanctioned Rostec subsidiary called United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation, was appointed to oversee the supply of the radio communications systems that were also purchased under the contract.

Efforts were made to conceal the identities of the clients.

For example, in the de-coded documents, foreign customer “012” stands for Algeria. In 2022, Russia was going to supply Algeria with its Acacia-E automatic aerospace defense system.

Foreign customer “364” of the Post-3M radio reconnaissance station in 2021 was Iran. Foreign customer “818″ of the Polyana-D4M1 command and control system is Egypt. Project 82P is Saudi Arabia.  The “82” is a part of the country code for Saudi Arabia (682), and the letter “P” refers to the product name — Pantsir.

And these Russian arms sales provide geo-political influence at the UN.

Saudi Arabia voted for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine while promising to provide Ukraine with $400 million in humanitarian aid. However, Riyadh abstained from voting on more than half of the UN resolutions regarding Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Other countries doing arms deals with the Kremlin either voted in Russia’s favor or abstained: Algeria, Egypt, India, Uganda, Belarus, China, Uganda, Ethiopia.   

President Trump’s first phone calls included one to bully the Danish PM over selling Greenland to the US. His other call was to Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS), the notorious murderer of Saudi dissident/journalist Jamal Khashoggi and financial backer of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law. Whatever matters these two malefactors discussed, it wasn’t in the best interest of international peace, justice, or the masses.  

Sources:

Sanctioned Russian Firms Sold $2B Air Defense System to Saudi Arabia, Leaked Documents Show | OCCRP

European arms imports nearly double, US and French exports rise, and Russian exports fall sharply | SIPRI

A Peek at the Poland-Belarus Border

Per CIA, Belarus has a population of 9.5 million people and GDP per capita is $27,700. Poland, an EU and NATO member has a population of over 39 million people and GDP per capita is $44,400.

For almost four years, Poland has been on a permanent state of high alert because of Belarus, which stands accused of luring asylum seekers from far-away destitute nations and pushing them en masse towards the border with the purpose of sowing chaos and polarising Polish society. During its six-month presidency of the EU Council, Poland presented a program under the slogan “Security, Europe!” that broke down the concept of security into seven different dimensions, one of them was migration.

And thanks to Belarusian Supremo Aleksandr Lukashenko, here’s what the Polish-Belarusian border looks like:

(Copyright Euronews)

The Polish-Belarusian border is equipped with thermos-vision cameras and sensor cables. (Copyright Euronews)

This road connecting the two countries is firmly blocked. (Copyright Euronews)

Poland argues its actions, such as turning away migrants, are necessary to defend the EU’s external borders. (Copyright Euronews)

Warsaw has urged the EU to think of migration as a security issue. (Copyright Euronews)

A Polish-German border crossing.

And the man responsible for this, Aleksandr Lukashenko, is set to win a seventh term in an election the opposition calls another “farce”. Amnesty International described the Belarus elections as being held in a “climate of total fear and repression.”

Just one of the thousands of Lukashenko’s political victims:

Imprisoned Belarusian human rights activist and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski sits in a defendant’s cage during a court session in Minsk on 5 Jan 2023. (Photo: Vitaly Pivovarchyk / BelTA Pool Photo via AP)

Here is a Lukashenko protestor from 2020. (Photo: Tut.by via AP)

Recent protests against Lukashenko resulted in a brutal crackdown with more than 65,000 arrests and thousands beaten, bringing condemnation and sanctions from the West. His iron-fisted rule since 1994 — Lukashenko took office two years after the demise of the Soviet Union — earned him the nickname of “Europe’s Last Dictator,” relying on subsidies and political support from close ally Russia. The Belarussian dictator never bothered to change the name of the KGB like Russia and Ukraine did after the fall of the USSR.

(Image: Nataliia Shulga / Al Jazeera)

The 71-year-old Lukashenko, who only knows about life from the former Soviet Union, is afraid of his own people as well as losing power. And people in his proximity are afraid. A former minister said that officials sit with their heads down during meetings with him, avoiding eye contact with him out fear.

Sources:

At the Poland-Belarus border, security and migration merge into one | Euronews

Belarus strongman set to win a 7th term in an election the opposition calls a farce – ABC News

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/01/belarus-authorities-hold-presidential-election-in-climate-of-total-fear-and-repression/

“Jacuzzi of Death” for Sealife in Gulf of Mexico

Imagery courtesy of The Sun UK

The “Jacuzzi of Death” is filled with tragic creatures that have been killed in its toxic waters. This horrifying spot in the Gulf of Mexico is known to kill everything that goes inside it.

The dead zone is a 100-foot-wide “bottomless” pocket filled with toxic substances.

This concoction of methane, excessively salty water, and hydrogen sulphide means nearly everything that crosses its path is killed.

The murderous underwater lake sits nearly 3,000 feet below the Gulf of Mexico.

Its briny waters are so dense the death trap has been dragged to the bottom of the gulf and cannot mix with the rest of the ocean.

The “Jacuzzi of Death” is 3,000 ft below the Gulf’s surface.

A crab in the toxic zone.

Nearly all creatures that unknowingly enter the area die.

This death pool is four times saltier than the ocean waters around it, which ensures these bodies never mix.

Images reveal how these toxic waters slowly disintegrate the unfortunate crabs and fish that end up in the death zone.

This dangerous spot was found by scientists ten years ago when they realized creatures would enter never to be seen again. The death zone was dubbed a “jacuzzi” as the temperature of this pool is warmer than the waters around it. Mussels are the only living creature that can survive in these toxic waters. Colonies of bacteria have also been able to survive in this underwater spot.

The unfortunate crab being pickled.

The “Dead Zone” in the Gulf of Mexico has been growing for decades. Pollution, sewage treatment plants, fertilizer chemicals from farm land, beef production, oil toxins, and other sources along the Mississippi River wash into the Gulf of Mexico, causing algae blooms that deplete oxygen from the water, endangering marine life.

Analysis and imagery: NOAA

Oil Toxins Pervasive in Gulf of Mexico

Some analysts assess that we are the last generation to enjoy genuine, safe ocean seafood. Unless marine pollution is stopped, the analysts are correct. President Trump ordered the Gulf of Mexico be renamed the Gulf of America, but the AP style guide continues referring to it by its original name, as will Coriolanus.  

Sources:

Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

https://www.usf.edu/marine-science/news/2020/oil-toxins-pervasive-in-gulf-of-mexico.aspx

Inside the ‘Jacuzzi of Death’ where anything that DARES enter will be killed & left to disintegrate in toxic waters | The US Sun

Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ larger than average, scientists find | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Thieves Use Explosives to Steal Gold Artifacts from Dutch Museum

The Helmet of Cotofenesti, pictured in the Romanian Museum of Antiquities, is strikingly decorated with mythological beasts and a pair of eyes. (Getty Images).

Four ancient gold artifacts were stolen from a Dutch museum in an overnight raid in the early hours of Saturday morning. Thieves used explosives to blast their way into the Drents Museum in Assen, which was hosting an exhibition of priceless Romanian jewellery made from gold and silver. They stole three Dacian spiral bracelets and the exhibit’s central piece – the strikingly decorated Helmet of Cotofenesti, which was crafted almost 2,500 years ago.

All four stolen items are of huge cultural significance to Romania, with the Helmet of Cotofenesti considered a national treasure.

Romania’s ministry of culture has promised to take all possible steps to recover the stolen items, which had been loaned to the Dutch museum from Bucharest.

Police are also investigating a burning vehicle which was found on a nearby road, which they suspect may be linked to the burglary.

No arrests have been made, but authorities suspect multiple individuals were involved. Police have called global policing agency INTERPOL to help with the investigation. Please see next story.

This was a professional operation. These artifacts are valueless to the thieves, so they are either working for an unscrupulous oligarch or they intend to sell them back to Bucharest for millions of dollars. The stolen items could have easily been taken out of the country by boat or ship.   

Source:

Thieves use explosives to steal gold ‘masterpieces’ from Dutch museum

INTERPOL Publishes First Ever Silver Notice Targeting Criminal Assets

Not all Notices are available to the general public, like war criminal Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu or Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Red Notices issued on behalf of the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague.

From INTERPOL:

“INTERPOL has published its first-ever Silver Notice to help trace and recover criminal assets, combat transnational organized crime and enhance international police cooperation.

The Notice, requested by Italy, seeks information on the assets belonging to a senior member of the mafia.

The Silver Notice is the newest addition to the Organization’s suite of color-coded Notices and Diffusions, which enable countries to share alerts and requests for information worldwide. It is being launched as part of a pilot phase involving 52 countries and territories, which will run at least until November 2025.

Through Silver Notices and Diffusions, member countries can request information on assets linked to a person’s criminal activities such as fraud, corruption, drug trafficking, environmental crime, and other serious offenses. It will facilitate locating, identifying, and obtaining information about laundered assets including properties, vehicles, financial accounts and businesses. Countries may subsequently use such information as a basis for bilateral engagement, including bilateral requests for seizure, confiscation or recovery of assets, subject to national laws.

Countries and territories participating in the pilot phase:

Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Burundi, China, Colombia, Congo, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Gabon, Georgia, Gibraltar (UK), Guinea, Hungary, India, Iraq, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Korea (Rep. of), Kuwait, Latvia, Malawi, Malta, Moldova, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Trinidad & Tobago, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe.”

Source:

INTERPOL publishes first Silver Notice targeting criminal assets

Vietnam: 30 Children Poisoned with Pink Colored Rodenticide

Several students of Phu Lam Primary School in northern Vietnam picked up some bottles of pink water solution in a ball bag next to the school gate, then shared and drank it together, poisoning themselves.  

The patients were hospitalized, suffering with symptoms of fatigue, nausea, vomiting yellow fluid, dull abdominal pain around the navel, and some seizures. Doctors determined that the children were poisoned with fluoroacetate rodenticide, based on the results of toxicity tests and clinical diagnosis. The children are being closely monitored and treated while police in Tuyen Quang province investigate the case

Images provided by the family. Photo: BVCC

Last year, twenty Lai Chau children were hospitalized on suspicion of accidentally ingesting rat poison like the one pictured below.

A nefarious actor deliberately left that ball bag with the pink juice near the school. As previously posted on Coriolanus, there is a pattern of food poisoning incidents in Vietnam.

Sources:

Nearly 30 students were poisoned with rodenticides – VnExpress Health Newspaper

20 Lai Chau children hospitalized on suspicion of eating the wrong rat poison – VnExpress Health Newspaper

US/Canada Auto Recall: 80,000 Kia Vehicles for Improper Air Bag Deployment, Improper Wiring

2024 Kia Sorento

Automaker Kia America is recalling more than 80,000 vehicles due to floor wiring beneath the front passenger seat that can become damaged and prevent airbags and seat belts from deploying properly.

Damaged wiring can also cause an unintended side curtain air bag deployment, according to documents filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The recall covers 80,255 2023-2025 Niro EV, Plug-in Hybrid (PHEV), and Hybrid vehicles.

To remedy the situation, dealers will inspect, replace and reroute the floor wiring assembly, as necessary, for free. In addition, dealers will install wiring covers. Owners will be notified by letters mailed in Mar 2025.

The recall follows one in November, when Hyundai and Kia recalled over 208,000 electric vehicles to fix a transistor in a charging control unit that could be damaged and stop charging the 12-volt battery. That in turn could cause loss of drive power, increasing the risk of a crash.

Sources:

Kia recalls more than 80,000 U.S. autos due to improper air bag deployment and improper wiring | AP News

RCLRPT-25V024-8197.PDF

Hyundai, Kia recall EVs to fix problem that can cause power loss | AP News

Transport Canada Recall – 2025011 – KIA – Canada.ca

Maine Coon Cat Becomes Accidental Frequent Flyer After Being Left on Plane by Mistake

Margo Neas holds her cat Mittens at her home in Melbourne, Australia, 22 Jan 2025. (Photo: Rod McGuirk / AP)

A Maine coon cat named Mittens became an accidental jetsetter this month when her cage was overlooked in a plane cargo hold and she made three trips in 24 hours between New Zealand and Australia.

Mittens (8) was booked for one-way travel with her family from Christchurch, New Zealand to their new home in Melbourne, Australia on 13 Jan. But owner Margo Neas said Wednesday that as she waited for Mittens to be unloaded from the plane’s freight area, three hours passed with no sign of the cat.

It was then that ground staff told Neas the plane had returned to New Zealand — with Mittens still on board. The return trip involves about 7.5 hours in the air.

Mittens, not usually an affectionate pet, is “the cuddliest she’s ever been,” said Neas.

Source:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/22/travel/mittens-cat-australia-new-zealand-intl-hnk/index.html

Russian Soldiers Glorify Murdering Unarmed Ukrainian Prisoners

Warning: Some Followers of the Watch may find the photos and video disturbing.

The Russians were eager to have the slaughter recorded. (Credit: East2West)

Russian soldiers filmed themselves shooting dead six Ukrainian prisoners of war in cold blood, audaciously proud of committing war crimes. Kiev has launched a criminal investigation and reported the sickening killings to the UN and Red Cross, insisting Russia cannot be allowed to brazenly flout the laws of war.

The Russian soldiers filmed themselves committing the illegal massacres of unarmed Ukrainians in the occupied Donetsk region. The POWs are seen lying face down on the ground in a wooded area next to a temporary hut. The Russians shoot at a drone flying overhead so it doesn’t film the heinous crimes they are about to commit.

Two Ukrainians kneel just before they are shot in the back. (Credit: East2West)

Three of the other prisoners lay on their fronts in the dirt and watched their friends murdered. (Credit: East2West)

Another soldier is forced to his feet and made to walk away with his hands up before being sprayed with bullets. (Credit: East2West)

Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets sent his findings to the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross:

“The Russian army has never been famous for its dignified treatment of prisoners of war, and here it once again demonstrates its helplessness and criminality. The lack of responsibility has turned the crime into a systematic one. We cannot turn a blind eye to this. Ukraine needs justice and responsibility for those who commit crimes and do not adhere to any norms.”

These are not the first war crimes Russian soldiers and Wagnerites have committed against Ukrainians. The ICC indicted and issued an international arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes, but this is symbolic. Mongolia, an ICC signatory, did not arrest Putin when he visited Ulan Bator in late 2024. Donald Trump has signaled that he will be sanctioning the ICC to pressure them to remove the indictments against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin. After any future ceasefire is reached, there will be a new level of ethnic animus between Russians and Ukrainians following all of this bloodshed thanks to PIFWC Vladimir Putin and his willing accomplices.

Sources:

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3951841-russians-likely-execute-six-other-ukrainian-pows-ombudsman.html

https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-soliders-shot-disarmed-ukrainian-pows-filmed-execution/

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/401849

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

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

Israeli Cabinet Ministers Already Pushing to Continue Waging More War

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu– dubbed “Israel’s curse”– is facing pressure from within his cabinet. Hard-line coalition partners have threatened to topple the government if he does not resume Israel’s war in Gaza when a six-week ceasefire with Hamas expires. That could leave Netanyahu torn between his erstwhile allies at home and Donald Trump who says he wants to end the region’s wars. The “crime minister” is facing a nettlesome corruption trial that ensnared his wife Sara, an international arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the ICC, and a potential 9/11 Commission-style inquiry into his handling of the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack by armed Palestinian groups. Those guerillas seized hostages in order to conduct a prisoner swap which has been taking place since the ceasefire.

Rightwing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said:

“If, God forbid, the war is not resumed, I will bring the government down.”

Mr. Smotrich, when one belligerent doesn’t have F16s, air-defense weapons, tanks, satellites, or world-class hospitals while the other side does, it’s not called war, it’s called ethnic cleansing. So the horrific Nakba wasn’t really about releasing the Israeli hostages, was it?

In addition, Bezalel Smotrich stated that Israel should occupy Gaza and “encourage” half of the Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinians to emigrate within two years. He would like the same in the West Bank.

Along that vein, the IDF has been conducting “counter terrorism operations” and Settlers are going on rampages against Palestinian homeowners and farmers in the West Bank. Israeli forces have killed 34 people, including six children so far this year. This is not new. Abuse against Palestinians in the West Bank has been going on for decades, regardless of whether there was a Democrat or Republican in the White House.

Do you wonder if this poor guy who had the temerity to throw stones at his oppressors is alive today? (Photo: 7 Oct 2015, Ramallah / AFP / ABBAS MOMANI)

So, where should these Palestinians in Gaza or the West Bank go? Will they go to Jordan– which already hosts 2.2 million Palestinian refugees? Islamophobic America? And will they be compensated for their lost, destroyed, or seized homes?

White supremacist Christian Republicans certainly don’t want Muslims in the US and Trump is closing the door on non-white immigration. Would Democrats have accepted them? There are Democrats that blame the tiny 1.34% Muslim-American population for supposedly not supporting Kamala in 2024. (Even though Trump won only 21% of the Arab vote, Kamala 20%, and Stein 59%). Arab-Americans have become convenient scapegoats among some Democrats for Kamala Harris’ loss and what friends do Palestinians have in the Middle East?

Adjusting for inflation, US aid to Israel from 1951 to 2022 totaled $317.9 billion, making it the largest recipient of American foreign aid since World War II.

Hasn’t the hardworking American taxpayer– who doesn’t have universal healthcare like his Israeli counterpart– had enough of this fraud, waste, and abuse from his so-called ally?

Sources:

https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-says-half-of-gazans-can-be-encouraged-to-leave-within-two-years/

https://www.aljazeera.com/

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-trump-ceasefire-gaza-f27c1dbbfba4bf268f5368aaceb47e29

https://www.newarab.com/analysis/how-smotrichs-west-bank-plan-actualises-second-nakba

Mexican Border States Prepare Migrant Shelters as Trump Begins Deportation Campaign

Workers begin the installation of a temporary shelter for possible deportees from the US in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Wednesday, 22 Jan 2025. (AP Photo / Christian Chavez)

Mexico raised sprawling tents on the US border Wednesday as it braced for President Donald Trump to fulfill his pledge to carry out mass deportations. In an empty lot tight against the border with El Paso, Texas, cranes lifted metal frames for tent shelters in Ciudad Juárez.

Enrique Serrano, an official in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad Juárez is located, said the tents erected for Mexican deportees were just the initial phase of a potential larger operation, and something authorities would scale up if the number of migrants gathering on the border continued to mount. He suggested migrants from other countries expelled from the US would be relocated to Mexico City or southern regions of Mexico as they’ve done previously.

Nogales, Mexico — across from Nogales, Arizona — announced that it would build shelters on soccer fields and in a gymnasium. The border cities of Matamoros and Piedras Negras have launched similar efforts.

At a border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday night, one man shouted to journalists that he was being deported in a group that was arrested that morning in farm fields near Denver. Another man said he was in a group that had been brought from Oregon. Everyone carried their belongings in a small orange bag.

As previously posted here on Coriolanus, the Mexican government began a program of intercepting and resettling migrants throughout their country before they could arrive at the US border. These refugees are escaping poverty, misery, violence, and the effects of global climate change.

Newly-elected Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum, as a thoughtful, compassionate leader, was prepared for the Fuhrer and his cruelties. She had a plan ready: “México te abraza.”

President Sheinbaum’s “México te abraza,” or “Mexico embraces you” program includes welfare support for deportees, registration with the Mexican Social Security Institute, and transport so that returning migrants “can reach their places of origin.” (Photo: Moisés Pablo / Cuartoscuro)

At Trump’s inaugural convocation on 20 Jan 2025, the Episcopalian Bishop of Washington, the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, issued a scathing sermon about mercy and compassion to the oligarchal Trump Crime Family (TCF). Like hostages with no chance of escape, the TCF was forced to remain in their pews and listen to her, so they sat dumbfounded and squirmed. Look at Trump’s posture and the First Lady’s icy-cold expression. Priceless.

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/mexico-us-trump-border-migrants-f3e5daf10f550e871bfe98b29950bc6a

https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-14/mexico-has-a-plan-sheinbaum-addresses-uncertainty-a-week-before-trump-returns-to-the-white-house.html

Space Chorus Detected from Unexpected Source

“Bursts of electromagnetic radiation that share similarities with birdsong have long been observed close to Earth. A detection farther out in space confirms a key part of the theory of their origin, but also poses questions.“

Chorus waves play a leading role in the formation of aurora borealis. (Photo: OWEN HUMPHERYS – PA IMAGES)

From Nature:

“In the 1960s, scientists at the Halley Research Station in Antarctica began hearing mysterious waves originating over the Earth’s equator. Their radio receivers were picking up intense bursts of electrons shaking the magnetosphere, the layer created by Earth’s magnetic field that protects life from space radiation. When these signals were converted into sound, they produced a whistling sound that could be mistaken for the chirping of birds at dawn.”

Different types of plasma waves triggered by various mechanisms, occupy different regions of space around Earth. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith

“Later, it was discovered that this chorus is also heard on Saturn and Jupiter, and it was thought that it was governed by the magnetic field generated by the planets between their poles. The origin of this spatial trill is usually found close to them, in the case of Earth less than 51,000 kilometers (31,690 miles) above its surface. Now, a team has published a study in the journal Nature, the results of which suggest that it can also be located much further away, in deep space.”

“For more than 70 years, scientists have believed that chorus waves can only be generated in regions close to planets where a dipolar magnetic field is present, which has been proposed as the key factor controlling the generation and propagation of chorus waves,” explains Chengming Liu, a researcher at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Beihang University in Beijing, China, and one of the leaders of the study. “In our paper, we present an unexpected observation of chorus waves far from Earth, where a dipolar magnetic field is absent, and reveal a fundamental mechanism for chorus wave generation, which can operate anywhere in space.”

“The discovery is of scientific interest, but also of practical interest. Chorus waves can cause radiation that is dangerous for astronauts or satellites, and knowing in detail how they are produced would allow us to predict their occurrence and apply protective measures. “Chorus waves are some of the most intense waves in space. They can accelerate electrons to ultra-high energies and therefore cause radiation that affects humans and electromagnetic devices on spacecraft,” explains Liu. “Just as we worry about rain and wind on the Earth’s surface, we should worry about weather in space,” he points out.”

These are Juno Waves recorded from the Planet Jupiter:

Sources:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-04211-6

https//www.nasa.gov

‘Dignity for All’: Idaho Bill Proposes Firing Squad as State’s Primary Execution Method

Firing squad executing a prisoner, circa 1890. (Vintage Images / Getty Images)

Eleven months after Idaho failed to execute a prisoner for the first time ever using lethal injection, Republican lawmakers have their targets set on using a firing squad as the state’s primary execution method. State Rep. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) introduced the bill which would make Idaho the only US state to give preference to a firing squad. Skaug sponsored a bill that became law in 2023 that added back the firing squad as a backup method of execution in the state, but only when lethal injection is not possible because of a lack of execution drugs.

Humanitarian and all-round good guy State Rep. Bruce Skaug (R-Nampa) who heinously introduced the firing squad bill. (Undated photo via the public domain).

The Idaho Department of Correction has since had more consistent access to pentobarbital, the state’s preferred chemical for lethal injections. The state prison system most recently bought a batch of the drugs in Oct 2024, court records showed. But nearly two years later — and after state prison officials failed to find a suitable vein for an IV in the body of 73-year-old death row prisoner Thomas Creech — Skaug now hopes to ensure that prisoners on Idaho’s nine-member death row are shot to death. Lethal injection would become the state’s backup method. In South Carolina any of the 30 death row inmates may request firing squad if lethal injection is unavailable.

Idaho’s death row at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution near Kuna houses male prisoners sentenced to death. Female death row inmates are housed at the Women’s Correctional Center in Pocatello. (Photo: Idaho Department of Correction)

Remarkable, the day after Bishop Mariann Budde chastises President Trump to have more compassion and show mercy, this avuncular-looking miscreant wants to enshrine capital punishment rather than ban it. This Kentucky Fried Chicken Colonel Sanders doppelganger– Bruce Skaug– is my candidate for Worst Person of the World.

What would Kentucky-bred Colonel Sanders say about his evil twin in Idaho?

Sources:

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article298915055.html

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/south-carolina-firing-squad

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

Spain: Increased Cases of Hepatitis A in 2024

Spain is facing a worrying situation: 894 confirmed cases of hepatitis A mark the largest increase in cases in a decade. This unexpected viral outbreak raises questions about current public health measures. The highest number of cases occurred in Andalusia, Madrid, and Catalonia.

Map courtesy of worldatlas.com.

Below are the regions with the highest number of reported cases:

  • Andalusia: 166 cases
  • Madrid: 161 cases
  • Catalonia: 114 cases
  • Balearic Islands: High infection rate
  • Basque Country and Canary Islands: Notable increase

The high rate of infection in these areas underscores the need to strengthen preventive and control measures. The hepatitis A virus is spread mainly by fecal-oral transmission, which highlights the need to maintain high standards of personal and collective hygiene.

How many times have you seen someone exit the water closet without their hands? Coriolanus witnessed this too many times. On one occasion in a large metropolitan shopping mall, your author witnessed one such miscreant walk out of the thunder closet, pull up his pants, and exit the latrine without washing his hands. Coriolanus followed the neanderthal who went behind the counter of a bagel shop to resume work! Your humble author alerted two nearby constables who merely shrugged their shoulders and replied that no crime was committed (other than potentially spreading hepatitis A or other awful diseases to the public). That baker should have been beaten in place, then court-martialed.

Source:

Spain registers a large increase in cases of hepatitis A

Wagner Group Accused of Plotting Attacks on Chevron’s African Pipelines, Cooperating with Al Qaeda

The Kremlin’s new Afrika Korps. Wagnerites have been implicated in committing war crimes in Africa.

The Wagner Group has been accused of plotting attacks against Western infrastructure in Africa, including the US oil company Chevron’s pipelines, according to the leaked correspondence of Prigozhin’s Concord Group obtained by Ukraine’s Channel 24. Another accusation is that Wagner mercenaries have allegedly cooperated with terrorists, including Al Qaeda, in Africa. The obtained emails also shed light on a scandal involving food poisoning allegedly caused by the Concord Group.

The Kyiv Independent could not independently verify the information.

In March 2021, Igor Smirnov wrote an email to Prigozhin’s Concord Group, saying that retired Russian officers were expected to take part in attacks on foreign infrastructure facilities in West Africa.

Smirnov, allegedly a former Russian intelligence officer who allegedly worked for oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was attempting to frame or warn the group. He claimed that “a group of Russians is contacting many armed groups in West Africa, including Ansaru, an Al Qaeda affiliate in Nigeria.”

“In exchange for attacks on Western oil companies, jihadists are helping to arm militants in the Niger Delta under a direct agreement with the Russians,” Smirnov said. “After the first attacks on Western companies, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb will take responsibility for that.”

Apart from military activities, the correspondence covers Concord Group’s food procurement schemes. In 2019, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team exposed Concord Group’s low-quality food deliveries to schools and kindergartens in Moscow and St. Petersburg, which resulted in the poisoning of hundreds of children.

Amid the scandal, many parents sent emails to Concord Group and demanded compensation.

In response to the accusations, in August 2019, Prigozhin accused Navalny and his associate Lyubov Sobol of orchestrating the poisoning, according to the leaked correspondence. He claimed that Navalny and Sobol “extorted 300 million rubles ($3 million) to avoid stirring up a scandal regarding the children.”

These accusations fit the modus operandi of the Kremlin and the Wagner Group. Create chaos, then arrive with a solution (Wagnerites). 127 confirmed cases of food poisoning were blamed on Yevgeny Prigozhin who had to pay compensation and poor Alexei Navalny died later in a Siberian gulag. Prigozhin himself would die in a mysterious aviation disaster after an explosive detonated while his plane was in mid-flight. This coincidence occurred after his failed coup d’etat against Vladimir Putin.

Sources:

https://kyivindependent.com/prigozhins-wagner-group-accused-of-plotting-attacks-on-chevron-cooperating-with-al-qaeda-leaked-emails-show/

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/11/01/putins-chef-ordered-to-pay-for-mass-child-poisonings-a68014

Roadrunner Brings His Rescuer Gifts Every Day

The Fourth Reich Begins in America

(Montage courtesy of James Marshall Crotty, The Huffington Post)

Donald Trump’s second presidency heralded in the new Fourth Reich with a breath-taking malicious maelstrom of white supremacist and authoritarian executive orders and directives. None of this should come as a surprise to Americans or anybody in the world, particularly the people of Germany who issued the US a warning the first time Donald Trumpf ran for President in 2016.

Americans lived through Trump’s first term holding their nostrils in horror and will do so again.

Within two hours of the Fuhrer’s inauguration on Monday, former CJCS General Mark Milley’s portrait was removed from the Pentagon.

Trump had deep resentment toward Milley, and once called him “slow moving and thinking” and a “moron.” Hours earlier, former President Joe Biden had issued a pre-emptive pardon to Milley and others against potential retaliation.

To punctuate the arrival of the Fourth Reich, at Trump’s Inaugural Ball South African-born trillionaire Elon Musk twice rendered the Nazi salute to a delighted and cheering audience.

A PhD scholar on Nazi Germany and the Third Reich commented on social media that Musk’s expert salute was perfect and unmistakable.

Here is a cheat-sheet of the Fuhrer’s agenda:

Within the first 36 hours of his coronation, the Fuhrer began terminating civil servants whom he described as members of the “Deep State” and relieved Admiral Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead the US Coast Guard.

Admiral Linda Fagan speaks at the US Coast Guard change of command ceremony at USCG Headquarters in Washington, 1 Jun 2022. (Photo: AFP)

The tempest of terror continued when Trump replaced the Ukraine team at the Pentagon and ordered a suspension of all US foreign aid (whether this includes Israel is unclear). The Fuhrer pardoned 1,500 6 January insurrectionists, including the leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers (the Proud Boys have been listed as a terrorist organization by Canada). The White House took down its Spanish language version of its website. The Fuhrer also rescinded sanctions against lunatic Israeli Settlers who have been killing Palestinians and seizing their land. See later story.

With avian flu spreading throughout the world, the Fuhrer withdrew the US from the World Health Organization (WHO) and ordered all federal health agencies to stop external communications (warnings, advisories). Trumpf also fired special advisers at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that were investigating nefarious Chinese cyber-hacking groups, like Salt Typhoon.  The Fuhrer will be announcing dates for the start of tariffs against China, Canada, and Mexico.

The Fuhrer also withdrew USSS protection from his former national security advisor John Bolton who has legitimately angered the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Force (IRGC). Mr. Bolton has the funds to pay for his own security detail. His reckless Islamophobia shouldn’t keep costing American taxpayers money to protect him.

Followers of the Watch, Coriolanus will endeavor to keep up as best as possible while the Fuhrer implements his austerity plans to impoverish Americans, destroy affirmative action, alienate allies, threaten neighbors, deport people of color, and dismantle the US from within on behalf of the Kremlin.

Oxfam: “Takers, Not Makers: Billionaires Added Two Trillion Dollars to Their Pockets in 2024”

Oxfam informs:

“Most billionaire wealth is taken, not earned The idea that extreme wealth is a reward for
extreme talent is pervasive and strongly reinforced in our media and popular culture.
But this perception is not rooted in reality. This report makes the case that the extreme wealth of today’s billionaire class is largely unearned, where inheritance, cronyism and monopoly power generate extreme wealth. Unchecked, we are about to see the biggest transfer of the largest generational wealth in human history handed over – hardly earned, hardly taxed.”

The wealth of each of the richest ten men has grown by almost US$100 million a day in 2024 on average. Even if you saved US$1,000 daily since the first humans 315,000 years ago, you still would not have as much money as one of the richest ten billionaires. If any of the richest ten billionaires lost 99% of their wealth, they’d still be a billionaire.

Obviously this will get worse for Americans as the largest wealth-extraction scheme run by a cabal of greedy billionaire oligarchs takes over the US government and economy.

Source:

Click to access English%20-%20Davos%20Executive%20Summary%202025.pdf

Russian Drones Hunting Ukrainian Civilians in Kherson Like a “Safari”

From the Economist:

“For six months Russian drones have been attacking civilians daily, chasing cars and pedestrians through the streets of Kherson in what locals call a “safari”.

“There have been more than 1,000 drone strikes since last summer, injuring over 500 people and killing 36, according to municipal authorities. Surveillance drones patrol high up; smaller attack drones (known as FPVs, or first-person-view drones), with a flying time of 20-40 minutes, sit on rooftops to conserve battery power. The munitions dropped are often makeshift: mortar shells, grenades, canisters containing shrapnel or darts, or bottles of petrol that ignite.”

Russian First Person View (FPV) kamikaze drone with a MON-50 mine containing lethal and maiming shrapnel. (Open source photo)

“Shops, schools, clinics, private houses, delivery vans, buses, firetrucks and other first responders are routinely targeted. Several administrative officials have been wounded. In one case, says Roman Mrochko, the head of the military authority in Kherson, a minibus “was almost completely destroyed, but the driver heroically saved the injured people by driving, you could say on scrap metal, to the hospital.” In the riverside neighborhoods where the attacks are concentrated, designated “red zones” by Russians on Telegram channels, life has been throttled. There is no gas, water, electricity or municipal heat. Public transport is suspended. Ambulances wait outside the area for police in armored cars to ferry the wounded to them.”

Russian forces have been accused of committing war crimes in Kherson. Investigators uncover three victims. (Photo: Govt of Ukraine)

There is no military value in hunting and killing civilians like this for sport. This is purely sadism and terrorism. The ICC indicted and issued an international arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, but there is reporting that Donald Trumpf will be sanctioning the ICC to remove warrants against him and fellow PIFWC Benjamin Netanyahu. See next story.

Source:

https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/01/18/russian-pilots-appear-to-be-hunting-ukrainian-civilians

Of course. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is After Putin and Netanyahu, So Trump is Going After the ICC

The man who handed Donald Trump the White House by sabotaging the Democratic Party in 2024 in a previous meeting with the Fuhrer.

KGB veteran Vladimir Putin met with his protege in Finland, 16 Jul 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

The ICC indicted and issued international arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin (17 Mar 2023) and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (21 Nov 2024) for alleged war crimes against the people of Ukraine and Gaza.

Israel National News reports:

“US President Donald Trump plans to introduce sweeping sanctions against the International Criminal Court (ICC).”

“The sanctions will target both ICC personnel, including judges and prosecutors, and the institution itself. The administration intends to classify the ICC as a threat to US national interests, utilizing designation procedures akin to those employed by the State Department for global terrorist organizations. This designation will impose strict penalties on anyone associated with the court’s operations.”

“Global financial institutions will be compelled to sever ties with ICC personnel or face sanctions from the US. Similar to measures imposed on sanctioned Israeli citizens by the outgoing administration, ICC staff will be unable to carry out routine banking activities, such as accessing credit cards or conducting financial transactions. Their assets will effectively be frozen, with exceptions allowed only for basic necessities like food purchases. Additionally, all US-based assets belonging to ICC employees and the institution itself will be frozen.”

“Beyond these unilateral measures, the incoming administration aims to rally US allies to reject cooperation with ICC arrest warrants targeting Israeli officials.”

On the strength of the ICC Rome Statute, Ukraine requested that Mexico arrest Putin if he attended Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidential inauguration on 1 Oct 2024. Mexico demurred and Putin sent a deputy anyway.

If signatory countries like Poland or France seek exceptions for Netanyahu, or Mongolia and Mexico for Putin, the ICC is only good for picking low-lying fruit like warlords from the Balkans or Africa. In essence, the ICC has the same enforcement mechanisms as the Vatican.

Official ICC Portrait of Jack Smith. Many Americans pinned their hopes on his success against Donald Trump when he was Special Counsel. (Credit: Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office)

Both indictments are merely allegations and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Sources:

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/401849

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

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

Former CIA Analyst Pleads Guilty to Leaking Israeli Attack Plans on Social Platform

Asif William Rahman was arrested in Cambodia. (Photo: Guam Department of Corrections)

Asif William Rahman (34) of Vienna, VA, pleaded guilty to retaining and transmitting Top Secret National Defense Information to people who were not entitled to receive it. This information was publicly posted on a social media platform in October 2024.

Rahman was an analyst at CIA since 2016. On 17 Oct 2024, Rahman accessed and printed two Top Secret documents containing National Defense Information regarding a US foreign ally and its planned actions against a foreign adversary. Rahman removed the documents, photographed them, and transmitted them to individuals he knew were not entitled to receive them. By 18 Oct 2024, the documents appeared publicly on multiple social media platforms, complete with the classification markings.

Beginning in the spring of 2024 and continuing through Nov 2024, Rahman repeatedly accessed and printed classified National Defense Information and transmitted to multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive it.

Rahman pleaded guilty to two counts of willful retention and transmission of classified information related to the national defense. He is scheduled to be sentenced on 15 May 2025. He faces a maximum penalty of ten years in prison for both counts in the plea agreement.

Asif William Rahman was the individual who leaked IDF attack plans on social media in an effort to prevent Israel from attacking Iran last year. Rahman is reportedly a Yale University graduate. The poor guy tried to prevent Israel from plunging the world into further war and now pays the price of his espionage. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions as Mr. Rahman has found out.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-cia-analyst-pleads-guilty-transmitting-top-secret-national-defense-information

https://ifpnews.com/us-cia-official-document-israeli-attack-iran/

The Philippines: Clade II Mpox Virus Case Reported in Baguio City

Mpox symptoms. (Photo: AFP)

Residents of Baguio are urged to stay alert after the first case of mpox was reported in the city. The Baguio City Health Services Office confirmed that the patient is a 28-year-old male. His infection was caused by the less severe Clade II mpox virus, not the more deadly Clade I.

The patient completed isolation and was cured on 17 Jan 2025.

The Baguio City Mayor reassured the public, stating that there is no cause for panic or a lockdown. He strongly advised the public to follow health protocols, including wearing face masks, practicing physical distancing, maintaining hand and personal hygiene, and ensuring proper ventilation.

The Department of Health (DOH) noted that the mpox virus can be transmitted through “direct contact with skin or mucosal lesions” during activities such as talking, breathing, kissing, touching, hugging, sexual intercourse, or through respiratory secretions. It can also be contracted indirectly through contaminated bedding, clothing, linens, or other objects.

Symptoms of mpox include skin rash or mucosal lesions, fever, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat, muscle aches, back pain, headache, and low energy.

Authorities urged the public to observe health protocols to avoid infection, such as covering the mouth when coughing or sneezing, avoiding skin-to-skin contact, staying out of crowded areas, frequent handwashing, and maintaining good airflow. Those with symptoms are advised to seek medical consultation immediately.

The WHO informs:

In 2022–2023 a global outbreak of mpox was caused by the clade IIb strain. Mpox continues to be a threat today, and an upsurge of cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other countries caused by clades Ia and Ib has raised concern. There are vaccines for mpox. Vaccination should be considered along with other public health interventions.

Sources:

https://tribune.net.ph/2025/01/19/baguio-reports-first-case-of-monkeypox

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mpox

Nakba Continues in West Bank: IDF Kills Ten and Wounds 40 Palestinians in Jenin

Indicted war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation aimed to “defeat terrorism” in Jenin. (Photo Reuters).

No sooner than the guns go silent in Gaza, the “Crime Minister” of Israel launches an “extensive and significant” operation to “defeat terrorism” in Jenin, long seen as a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups. Ten Palestinians were killed, 40 wounded; three doctors and two nurses were among those wounded by Israeli gunfire. A medical worker told the British charity Medical Aid for Palestinians:

“I was called in [on Tuesday] due to the surge of injuries, and the moment I stepped out of the car making my way to the emergency entrance a sniper shot me below the knee. Another doctor was shot in the same spot,” he added. “The Israeli army is shooting non-stop.”

In another barbaric development in the West Bank, dozens of masked Israeli extremists attacked Palestinians in two villages east of Qalqilya, Jinsafut and al-Funduq, setting fire to Palestinian homes and cars and smashing property. At least 21 Palestinians were injured, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Two Israelis were also shot, apparently when an Israeli police officer opened fire while responding to the violence.

A Palestinian shop in the village of Jinsafut was set on fire overnight, when suspected Israeli settlers went on the rampage. (Photo: AFP)

The far-right, pro-settler Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, welcomed the US removing sanctions from Settlers. In a post on X, Smotrich praised Trump’s “unwavering and uncompromising support for the state of Israel.”

According to the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, in 2024 settlers also established 59 new outposts, without authorization from the Israeli government. That was more than double the number from the previous year – which was also a record year for settlement outpost establishment.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war. The settlements are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this – as did the previous Trump administration.

There is no reporting of IDF attempts to arrest the Palestinians suspected of being terrorists nor any reports of Israeli police attempting to stop the Settlers from attacking Palestinians, their homes, cars, or businesses.

The hard-working American taxpayer dollar continues to fund ethnic cleansing in Israel, as well as their world-class universal healthcare system.

Source:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg750yzdr8o

Four Types of Tigers in One Photo

From left to right, the Golden Tiger, Snow White Tiger, Bengal Tiger and White Tiger. There are nine subspecies of tigers. How the photographer got them to pose like this is uncanny. This was originally posted on Reddit. There was no information as to which sanctuary these tigers are living in. (Photo courtesy of Nature is Amazing.)

Israel Conducted the Worst Bombardment of the 21st Century

Palestinians mourn relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in front of the morgue in Deir al Balah on 31 Oct 2024. (Photo: Fatima Shbair / AP)

In intensity and concentration of violence in the 25-mile-long Gaza Strip, the Nakba may have been the most destructive aerial and artillery bombardment of the 21st century. This takes into account the nearly three-year Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The level of physical destruction has been compared to the firebombing of Hamburg in the Second World War.

Rubble after the Allied bombing of Hamburg in July 1943.

Rubble after Israeli bombing of Gaza. (Photo: Ashraf Amra / Anadolu / Getty Images)

The Palestinian death toll, which the official Hamas-run health ministry puts at 46,600, is more than ten times its count in all previous Gaza conflicts since 2008 combined. 110,265 Palestinians have been injured. The IDF maintains 17,000 of the dead were militants. So, who were the 29,600 non-combatant casualties?

Just over half of the dead are women, children, or the elderly. Israel says the figures are suspect because of Hamas’s control of the ministry in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has not released figures for its losses.

UN experts estimate that at least 19,000 children have been orphaned in Gaza, but the true figure is probably higher. Those other wars did not involve this much bombing and this much displacement in such a small and crowded place, with a population that includes such a high proportion of children, said Jonathan Crickx, a spokesman for UNICEF.

In any war, the dead are often the lucky ones: the numbers of the maimed and crippled often dwarfs those of the dead.

According to Save the Children, on average the Israeli bombardment in Gaza maimed 15 children a day (475 per month), leaving them with lifelong disabilities.

UNICEF reports there are over 1,000 child amputees in Gaza like this girl pictured above.

Another nightmare for Muslims in the Middle East is coming…

Islamophobe Sebastian Gorka. Said his PhD adviser: ‘I would not call him an expert in terrorism.’ (Undated screengrab)

Soon the notorious virulent rightwing anti-Iranian Sebastian Gorka will be assuming a prominent national security role in the upcoming Trumpf administration. Americans will begin to hear anti-Iranian rhetoric from Fox News and other right-wing media outlets. With a Republican soon to be in the White House and a Likudnik in charge of Israel, the potential for conflict with Iran will greatly increase. Locations of American servicemembers stationed in the Middle East can be seen in the map below.

President Biden ended the “forever wars” because Americans were getting tired of this:

Remains of a fallen US Soldier coming home. (Photo: US Army)

Sources:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/worst-bombardment-21st-century-reshaped-081258905.html

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/explosive-weapons-left-15-children-a-day-in-gaza-with-potentiall

https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/press-release/2024/04/six-months-into-the-war-on-gaza-over-10000-women-have-been-killed

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/nov/16/sebastian-gorka/fact-check-former-white-house-aide-says-iran-every/

https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/politics/gorka-credentials/index.html

https://www.unicef.org/sop/stories/facing-life-gaza-strip-new-disability

Letter from President Joe Biden to the American People

Four years ago, we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities. We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in a century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. But we came together as Americans, and we braved through it. We emerged stronger, more prosperous, and more secure.

Today, we have the strongest economy in the world and have created a record 16.6 million new jobs. Wages are up. Inflation continues to come down. The racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We’re rebuilding our entire nation—urban, suburban, rural, and Tribal communities. Manufacturing is coming back to America. We’re leading the world again in science and innovation, including the semiconductor industry. And we finally beat Big Pharma to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. More people have health insurance today in America than ever before. I signed one of the most significant laws helping millions of veterans who were exposed to toxic materials and their families, as well as the most significant climate law ever and the first major gun safety law in nearly 30 years. Today, the violent crime rate is at a 50-year low.

I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. And, that’s still the case. America is an idea stronger than any army and larger than any ocean. It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we are all created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We’ve never fully lived up to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.

Vice President Harris and I asked our staff to prepare a detailed summary of the progress we’ve made together throughout the last four years. Below, I’m sharing our record with you. I hope you’ll do your part to build on the progress we’ve made.

It has been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years. Nowhere else on Earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office as President of the United States. I have given my heart and my soul to our nation. And I have been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people.

History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. We just have to keep the faith and remember who we are. We are the United States of America, and there is simply nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.

Thank you.

Joseph R. Biden, Jr.

Sources:


https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2025/01/15/the-biden-harris-administration-record/

The above link will take you to FACT SHEET: The Biden-Harris Administration Record, as well as the transcript of his televised Oval Office farewell to the American people.

The 2024 Democratic Party suffered the same stinging loss like in 1968. Antiwar Democrats opposed to supporting the brutal South Vietnamese regime and the wasteful war were shut out of the DNC convention in Chicago. Rather than vote for Republican Richard Nixon or Segregationist George Wallace, the pacifists abstained. In parallel fashion, antiwar Democrats opposed to US support of the brutal Jerusalem regime were shut out of the DNC convention in Chicago. Rather than vote for Republican Donald Trump or Green Party Jill Stein, the pacifists abstained. This accounted for the depressed turnout for Democrats in both 1968 and 2024, despite their domestic policy achievements. Both incumbent Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Joe Biden watched their VPOTUS crash and burn by not heeding to the antiwar bloc of their party, letting the Vietnam War and Gaza Nakba tarnish their images.

Why Do Ukrainians Oppose Lowering The Conscription Age?

Soldiers carry a coffin of Ukrainian soldier Andriy Kuzmenko, who was killed in the Russia-Ukraine war, during a farewell ceremony at the St. Michael’s Monastery in Kyiv on 10 Jan. (Photo: AP)

The US, Kyiv’s main military backer, has called on Ukraine to lower the conscription age from 25 to 18 as the country struggles to fend off advancing Russian forces amid a shortage of new recruits. In April, Ukraine reduced the mobilization age from 27 to 25. But in Nov 2024, the Biden administration pushed Ukraine to lower the draft age again to 18. On 12 Jan, President-elect Donald Trump’s designated national-security adviser Mike Waltz repeated the message.

That has led some Ukrainian families to send their sons overseas to avoid conscription.

Svitlana Pokalchuk has sent her two teenage sons abroad for their safety. (Photo: RFE/RL)

The Issue:

The 18-25 age group is the weakest of Ukraine’s working age demographics. A dramatic fall in the birth rate in the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, continued into the 2000s amid ongoing economic hardship.

“Our lowest birth rate in history was in 2001,” says Oleksandr Hladun, deputy director at the Ukrainian Academy of Science’s Demography Institute. “This contingent is currently the smallest. And this means that in 25-30 years even fewer children will be born.”

Economic problems and the war took another toll on the Ukrainian population as thousands emigrated. Today 25% of Ukrainian high school students wish to continue their studies abroad.

This is why Ukraine is facing manpower shortages and its people are reluctant to lower the draft age. The leadership of much larger Russia doesn’t care about how many of their young men die as you have previously read on Coriolanus.

Ukrainian police conducted hundreds of raids nationwide to shut down routes used by military-aged men to flee the country to avoid military service. (Photo: dpsu.gov.ua)

As the US Navy once used press gangs to obtain sailors, Kyiv has been employing the same tactic searching for and detaining draft evaders of military age.

ICC-indicted war criminal Vladimir Putin depicted by a street artist in Sweden.

Sources:

https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-russia-war-conscription/33275293.html

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/30122

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/45211

WHO: Suspected Outbreak of Marburg Disease Kills Eight in Tanzania

(Image: CDC)

WHO received reliable reports from in-country sources regarding suspected cases of MVD in the Kagera region of the United Republic of Tanzania. Six people were reported to have been affected, five of whom had died. The cases presented with similar symptoms of headache, high fever, back pain, diarrhoea, haematemesis (vomiting with blood), malaise (body weakness) and, at a later stage of disease, external hemorrhage (bleeding from orifices).

Nine suspected cases were reported including eight deaths (case fatality ratio (CFR) of 89%) across two districts – Biharamulo and Muleba– in the NW corner of Tanzania.

The regional risk is considered HIGH due to Kagera region’s strategic location as a transit hub, with significant cross-border movement of the population to Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Republic of Rwanda has confirmed more than 60 cases of Marburg virus disease primarily associated with hospitals in Kigali, including some deaths. This is the country’s first Marburg outbreak.

Like Ebola, the Marburg virus originates in fruit bats and spreads between people through close contact with the bodily fluids of infected individuals or with surfaces, such as contaminated bed sheets.

The global risk is currently assessed as LOW.

The suspected culprit, the Egyptian rousette fruit bat. (Photo: Kim Taylor)

Sources:

https://www.who.int/emergencies/disease-outbreak-news/item/2025-DON552

https://www.cdc.gov/marburg/situation-summary/index.html

Lunatic From India Sentenced for Attempted Attack on White House With Truck

(Photo: Rockwood School District)

Sai Varshith Kandula (20) of St. Louis, MO was sentenced in US District Court to 96 months in federal prison for an attempted attack on the White House with a rented truck on 22 May 2023 in an attack that aimed to overthrow the democratically elected government of the United States in order to replace it with a dictatorship fueled by Nazi ideology.

Kandula pleaded guilty on 13 May 2024, to a charge of willful injury or depredation of property of the US before US District Court Judge Dabney L. Friedrich. Kandula is an Indian national who was born in Chandanagar, India. At the time of the incident, he was a lawful permanent resident of the US with a green card. In addition to the prison term, Judge Friedrich ordered Kandula to serve three years of supervised release.

Kandula admitted to investigators that he would have arranged for the killing of the US President and others if necessary to achieve his objective. His actions were calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion. The maniac was armed with a Nazi Swastika banner and no firearm. Kandula’s idiotic attack caused $4,322 in damage to the National Park Service.

Kandula clearly needs mental hygiene assistance which hopefully the BOP can provide. After his eight-year sentence ends, he will be deported forthwith back to India.

Source:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/attempted-attack-white-house-rented-box-truck-results-8-year-sentence-missouri-man

Bootleg Alcohol in Istanbul Kills 23 People in 48 Hours

The Arnavutköy district has become one of Istanbul’s most famous nightlife locations.

Twenty-three people in Istanbul have died in 48 hours after drinking tainted alcohol.

At least 43 others were hospitalized — 32 of them in intensive care — Turkish officials said. Since the start of the new year, they said a total of 34 people have died from the effects of bootleg alcohol. Alcohol tainted with methanol is suspected to be the cause.

Methanol is a substance that’s often added to alcohol to increase its potency. It’s often used in illegally produced products instead of ethanol because it’s cheaper, according to a study which looked at illegally produced alcohol in southern Turkiye, and it can cause blindness, liver damage and death.

Turkiye suffered previous incidents of methanol poisoning. Tainted alcohol sickened 110 victims in 2024, killing 48 of them, after the government raised taxes on alcohol.

This may affect tourism to Turkiye. At its height in 2019, Turkiye attracted approximately 51 million foreign tourists which contributed towards its GDP. In 2023, tourism revenue reached $54.3 billion USD. Last year, several tourists from Australia, the UK, and the US died from methanol poisoning in Laos.

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/istanbul-tainted-alcohol-people-dead/

https://travelwiththegreens.com/what-percentage-of-turkey-s-gdp-is-contributed-by-tourism.html

Besides You, Loyal Followers of the Watch, Who Else is Skipping Donald Trump’s Coronation?

Napoleon crowns himself then Josephine while an angry pontiff watches on. Pope Francis won’t be attending the inauguration. Artist: Jacques-Louis David

The Leader of the Pack, former First Lady Michelle Obama.

House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith.

NYS Attorney General Letitia James.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau.

Former Director CIA, General Michael Hayden.

The leader of the second largest economy and probably third most powerful militar in the world, Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to News18, Vice President Han Zheng or Foreign Minister Wang Yi might represent China on 20 Jan.

Mexico’s newly-elected President Claudia Sheinbaum.

Pope Francis selected ardent anti-Trump Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy (70) to be the Archbishop for the Washington DC diocese. (AP Photo 27 Aug 2022 / Andrew Medichini, File)

The “Maybes”

Matt Gaetz doppelganger Jair Bolsonaro, depending on whether the Brazilian Supreme Court releases his seized passport.

ICC-indicted war criminal Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Is there anybody on the planet that does NOT think Benjamin Netanyahu and his unrelenting US-funded Nakba didn’t cost the Democrats the White House in November 2024?

Trump churlishly demanded that US flags fly full mast for his coronation, disrespecting the late President Jimmy Carter for whom President Biden ordered a month of official mourning. But in essence, these are the flags that Trump really represents:

President Trump’s Official Portrait Resembles Georgia Arrest Mugshot

The photo on the right is Donald Trump’s mugshot, taken when he was arrested on 24 Aug 2023 in Fulton County, GA after being indicted on racketeering charges. The photo on the left is the official portrait which will hang in every federal facility in the US and abroad on 20 Jan 2025. This is simply breathtaking that this convicted felon would replicate that image.

This portrait of President-elect Trump and VP-elect JD Vance soon circulated on social media:

Coriolanus prefers this to be the official portrait of President-elect Trump, which was taken at Mar-A-Lago, Florida:

German Shepherd Meets Kitten for First Time

Germany: Thousands Protest Rightwing AfD Congress

Police officers clash with protesters during a demonstration near the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party congress in Riesa, Germany, on 11 Jan 2025. Note that polizei officers can be identified with their numbers if they are abusive. Anyone arrested in Germany must be seen by a judge within 24 hours or they must be released. (Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / Reuters)

Thousands of protesters shouting “No to Nazis” gathered in the German town of Riesa, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party held a key convention approving co-leader Alice Weidel as candidate for chancellor in next month’s snap election.

The meeting, which brought 600-odd delegates together on Saturday, eventually got under way two hours behind schedule after police cleared thousands of protesters mounting blockades in the AfD stronghold town, located in the eastern state of Saxony.

Saxon left-wing politician Nam Duy Nguyen was beaten by a police officer during the protests and was temporarily unconscious. A companion of the state parliament member was also hit in the face and injured. The police seemed to efficiently clear the path of protestors for the AfD.

Neo-Nazi Alice Weidel, co-leader of the AfD party, gestures after she was elected as top candidate for chancellor in the upcoming general elections at the party congress in Riesa, Germany, on 11 Jan 2025. Ms.Weidel apparently has an unpleasant voice, reminding listeners of nails scratching against a blackboard. (Photo: Thilo Schmuelgen / Reuters)

Alice Weidel’s grandfather, Hans Weidel, was a prominent Nazi judge. Appointed directly by Adolf Hitler, he was responsible for sentencing opponents of the Third Reich.

So much for the American taxpayer-funded De-Nazification and Marshall Programs following the Second World War.

Sources:

https://www.politico.eu/article/hidden-nazi-heritage-germany-far-right-leader-afd-alice-weidel-hans-weidel-warsaw/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/11/german-protesters-attempt-to-block-far-right-afd-congress

France Hands Over Last Army Base in Chad Ahead of 31 Jan Deadline

French soldiers in the Sahel. The last of them left the Abéché military base in Chad on 11 Jan 2025 as part of a withdrawal agreement.

In late Nov 2024, Chad abruptly ended military cooperation with its former colonial ruler, and French troops began leaving the country in late Dec 2024. Chad was the last Sahel country hosting French soldiers with approximately 1,000 personnel. French soldiers and fighter aircraft have been stationed in Chad almost continuously since the country’s independence in 1960, helping to train the Chadian military.

Per CIA, the Chad population is approximately 19,000,000 and GDP per capita is $1,800.

Anti-French sentiments have swept Chad, with thousands of people protesting for French military departure after Boko Haram insurgents killed 40 Chadian soldiers in the Lake Chad region in Oct 2024. The Chadian government accused France of failing to provide support or intelligence, leading to demands for French troops to withdraw and the termination of the defense pact.

Chadians waving Russian flags. (Photo: Denis Sassou Gueipeur / AFP)

Chad is rich in natural resources: petroleum, uranium, natron, kaolin, fish (Lake Chad), gold, limestone, sand and gravel, and salt. The Russian Wagner Group has been increasing its presence in other Sahel countries protecting mining operations that funnel resources back to Moscow to finance Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the Central African Republic (CAR), where Wagner is ubiquitous, mercenaries have killed or driven out artisanal miners and taken over processing operations across the northern and eastern regions. In Sudan, Wagner has smuggled millions of dollars in gold from the country.

Undated photo of Wagner mercenaries, a new “Afrika Korps” for the Kremlin. Human Rights Watch (HRW) accuses Wagnerites of committing war crimes in Africa and the US designated them a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).


The French geo-political and military footprint in Africa continues to shrink while the Kremlin (and Beijing) increase their influence operations on the Dark Continent.

Sources:

https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20250111-france-hands-over-second-army-base-in-chad-ahead-of-31-january-deadline

https://www.dw.com/en/why-chad-ended-its-military-deal-with-france/a-71173204

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdx6462wl07o

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/12/mali-atrocities-army-and-wagner-group

https://adf-magazine.com/2023/03/wagner-group-targets-chad-for-sahel-expansion/

https://ascir.org/2021/11/18/why-china-is-building-africas-railways/

North Korea Intensifies Surveillance of Chinese Phone Users Along Border

North Korea has intensified its crackdown on Chinese mobile phones along its 840-mile border with China as part of efforts to tighten internal controls by limiting communication with the outside world. The border has been previously described as “porous” and there are 25 official border crossings between North Korea and China.

Authorities recently caught a Musan resident attempting to make a call to China. “The state security department’s radar bureau detected and arrested them within one minute of placing the call. They remain in state security detention,” a source reported.

Along the border, Ministry of State Security radar units use specialized equipment to track specific frequencies and signals, enabling real-time detection of calls to China. When agents detect Chinese telecommunications frequencies in residential areas, they immediately raid the suspected location.

The bridge over Tumen River in Yanbian, Jilin Province, connects China to North Korea. (Photo: IC)

In Yanbian, China, an ethnically Korean region on the border with North Korea, many people have relatives on the other side of the river. But these relationships are frequently kept secret. Ethnic North Koreans on the Chinese side of the border have difficulties finding spouses.

A view from the Chinese side of the bridge. A portrait of Kim Il-sung hangs on the North Korean side. (Photo taken in 2014: IC)

The Friendship Bridge over the Tumen River is for railway use only and connects North Korea to Russia. They share a ten-mile terrestrial border and a 12-mile maritime border.

Kim Jong-un wants to limit outside information from entering North Korea, a practice that has gone on for decades. There is nothing to suggest that this is affecting smuggling across the border. Moreover, there is no information that North Koreans calling migrants and relatives in the Russia Far East Oblast have been geo-located and arrested like the poor victims cited in the article. So this crackdown may also be tied with Pyongyang’s recent tilt towards Moscow, away from Beijing.

The North Korean supremo enjoying a cigarette with light refreshment while his people starve and his soldiers get slaughtered in Russia. (Photo: Reuters)

Sources:

https://www.dailynk.com/english/n-korea-intensifies-surveillance-of-chinese-phone-users-along-border/

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/887269.shtml

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/north-korean-migrants-vladivostok-12172018161113.html

Flight Crew ‘Astonished’ to See Glowing Objects ‘Zig-Zagging’ at 45,000 Feet Over the Bahamas

(Photo: NBC News Miami)

A Florida-bound flight crew witnessed strange orbs glowing and darting around in the night sky while flying over the Bahamas at high altitude.

“All of a sudden I heard traffic control say, we have a foreign object, can you please identify,” Flight Attendant Cassandra Martin recounted.

The flight attendant with Surjet, a private carrier, claimed that she and two pilots saw objects that left them awestruck and searching for answers as they returned to Fort Lauderdale in an empty plane. Good thing her Smartphone was handy.

(Photo: NBC News Miami)

“It started as white and then it just got green and almost like an electric some type of energy around it.”

Cassandra Martin described the objects as changing in color and exhibiting “daunting” flying capabilities while returning on a flight from the Bahamas. (Photo: NBC News Miami)

One explanation rendered for the Bahamian incident is a phenomenon called “ball lightning.” Below are some photographs for comparison.

Former NASA astronaut Dr. Leroy Chiao nearly collided with a pair of metallic orbs while flying his Grumman AA5BTiger in Texas last summer. He said the orbs showed “no visible means of propulsion” when they whizzed by within 20 feet of his plane.

Astronaut Dr. Leroy Chiao gives a thumb up shortly after landing aboard the Soyuz-TMA-5 spacecraft in Kazakhstan in April 2005. (Photo: AFP via Getty Images)

“They came right at me,” said Dr. Leroy Chiao, who was the commander of Expedition 10. He said the spheres were “perfectly smooth” and emphasized he witnessed the orbs on a sunny, cloudless day with good visibility.

The DOD investigates sightings and imagery of unidentified aerial phenomenon (UAP) and you can read about their findings here: https://www.aaro.mil/

Sources:

https://nypost.com/2025/01/04/us-news/ex-nasa-astronaut-dr-leroy-chiao-says-metallic-orbs-he-saw-had-no-visible-means-of-propulsion/

https://nypost.com/2025/01/11/us-news/florida-flight-crew-astonished-to-see-glowing-objects-zig-zagging-at-45k-feet-over-the-bahamas/

China Suddenly Building Fleet of Special Barges Suitable for Taiwan Landings

Artist’s impression of the special barge being used as a pier to land tanks and troops across an otherwise unsuitable beach. The tanks are transported by civilian roll-on roll-off (RORO) ferries. (Image: navalnews.com)

From navalnews.com:

“China is building at least five new special purpose barges which appear tailor made for amphibious assault. The barges may provide the PRC (People’s Republic of China) with a unique way to offload large numbers of tanks directly onto Taiwanese roads.

A number of special and unusual barges, at least three but likely five or more, have been observed in Guangzhou Shipyard in southern China. These have unusually long road bridges extending from their bows. This configuration makes them particularly relevant to any future landing of PRC forces on Taiwanese islands.

Each barge has a very long road span which is extended out from the front. At over 120 meters (393 ft) this can be used to reach a coastal road or hard surface beyond a beach. The barges are reminiscent of the Mulberry Harbors built for the allied invasion of Normandy during World War Two.”

The Global Firepower Index (GFI) ranks China’s military third out of 145 countries; Taiwan is ranked 22nd. Besides an outright D-Day style invasion of Taiwan, Beijing can blockade the island republic with its much larger navy, cut its underseas cables with anchors as the Russians have been doing in the Baltic Sea, and quarantine Taipei into eventual submission.

As previously reported here on Coriolanus, half of the US Navy’s amphibious ships are in dire condition. The USN 7th Fleet is headquartered at Yokosuka, Japan.

“Zero Day” is an upcoming Taiwanese TV series about a fictional invasion of their island which may be a way to psychologically ready their population for the realities of a potential war with Beijing. In 2022, there were at least ten Taiwanese soldiers serving in the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. Said one of the soldiers: ‘There’s a big chance that this will happen to Taiwan.’

Sources:

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2025/01/china-suddenly-building-fleet-of-special-barges-suitable-for-taiwan-landings/

https://www.globalfirepower.com/

https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/4563961

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Day_(Taiwanese_TV_series)

Farmer Uncovers Large Rare Ancient Hunt Mosaic in Turkiye

This mosaic spans 84 square meters (Image Copyright Elazığ Museum)

A farmer planting an orchard in eastern Türkiye has uncovered a rare, largely intact mosaic dating back to the late Roman period, offering a glimpse into ancient hunting practices.

The mosaic includes dramatic depictions of animals such as a rare Anatolian leopard, may be the largest of its kind ever discovered in the country.

A team of conservators has been working to protect the mosaic. (Photo: Elazığ Museum)

The mosaic “is the first of its kind to have survived to the present day as a whole and in its portrayal of animals, all of which were once found here. There may be larger mosaics elsewhere in Türkiye, but those consist of geometric patterns or mythological subjects.”

One researcher speculated that the mosaic may have been part of a Roman official’s residence: “an expression of power.”

The mosaic survived empire changes and wars over the mileenia.

Turkiye is choc-a-bloc with antiquities and historical relics. Below is the fabled city of Cappadocia:

Underground city in Cappadocia, Turkiye.

Hotel carved from stone in Cappadocia, Turkiye.

Source:

https://www.euronews.com/culture/2025/01/07/turkish-farmer-uncovers-rare-ancient-hunt-mosaic-likely-the-largest-of-its-kind-in-turkiye

Food Poisoning Cluster on Cathay Pacific Flights Inbound From Nepal to Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Center of Health Protection (CHP) announced a food poisoning cluster of passenger groups on Cathay Pacific flight CX640 from Nepal to Hong Kong. This is the second cluster discovered in two days with the same airline flying from the same region. The cause of the food poisoning cluster is still under investigation.

The first cluster involves 16 individuals from an inbound flight from Kathmandu to Hong Kong. The second cluster on flight CX640 involves 20 individuals from distinct family groups.

All involved passengers reported symptoms like vomiting, nausea, and fever shortly after their arrival in Hong Kong.

Per CIA, Nepal has a population of 31,122,387 and per capita GDP is $4,000.

After monsoon season in 2023, Nepal recorded several cases of water- and food-borne illnesses, including a massive cholera outbreak.

Sources:

http://www.travelradar.aero

https://kathmandupost.com/health/2023/07/26/food-poisoning-water-and-vector-borne-diseases-on-the-rise

Gorilla Infant Rescued From Airplane Cargo Hold Recovers at Istanbul Zoo

Zeytin, a 5-month-old male gorilla infant who was rescued at Istanbul Airport, drinks milk in a specially created section of a zoo, in Istanbul, Turkiye, 12 Jan 2025. (Photo: Khalil Hamra / AP)

The 5-month-old endangered gorilla was discovered in a box on a Turkish Airlines flight from Nigeria to Thailand and named Zeytin, which means olive.

Shy, Zeytin plays in a specially created section of a zoo, in Istanbul, Turkey, 12 Jan 2025. (Photo: Khalil Hamra / AP)

As a major international hub, Turkish customs officers have intercepted other illegally traded wildlife, including Nile crocodiles and monitor lizards. Wildlife officials are considering returning the endangered primate back to his original habitat.

Poor Zeytin was separated from his mother and should be fostered within a troop of gorillas so he could be properly socialized. (Photo: Khalil Hamra / AP)

Sources:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gorilla-airplane-cargo-istanbul-zoo-turkish-airlines/

https://www.iucnredlist.org/search?query=gorilla&searchType=species

Wagner Mercenary With Drone Arrested at US-Mexican Border

Wagnerite Timur Praliev receiving an award from the Bashkortostan branch of the Defenders Of the Fatherland Foundation on 12 Dec 2024. (Photo: Social media)

US Border Patrol agents detained Timur Praliev (31) on 4 Jan near the border town of Roma, TX, after crossing the Rio Grande River into the US. He told agents he was a citizen of Kazakhstan. Praliev was charged with illegally entering the US, a federal misdemeanor.

Praliev was carrying two passports and $4,000 along with 60,000 Mexican pesos ($2,895.11) in cash and a drone in his backpack. His activities with the Wagner group are not known nor are his reasons for crossing into the US with a drone. Praliev pleaded guilty and the prosecuting attorney (AUSA) requested a 15-day sentence.

Drones are inexpensive sabotage weapons that can cause costly damage. One drone temporarily disabled an aircraft fighting the California wildfires.

A few years ago in Canada, a drone struck this Cessna airplane.

The State Dept designated the Wagner Group a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and their fighters have been accused of committing war crimes in Ukraine. The FBI will be de-briefing Timur Praliev to re-trace his steps, locate his contact in the US, and ascertain his mission. The USIC considers Mexico a “soft spot” as Russian operatives are not under strict surveillance like in the US or Canada. NATO and the US elevated their CI/OPSEC posture in 2024 because of the threat of Russian sabotage.

The late leader of the terrorist Wagner Group Yevgeny Prigozhin with his murderous mercenaries in Bakhmut. (AFP)

In Jan 2023, Andrey Medvedev crossed into Norway from Russia’s far north and is believed to be the first member of the Wagner Group to defect to the West.

Andrey Medvedev in uniform before defecting from Wagner. (Photo: Gulagu)

Medvedev took a circuitous route to escape Russia, avoiding the 830-mile Finnish border. His attorney says he wants to testify against his former comrades who committed war crimes, including seeing “deserters being executed” by the Wagner Group’s internal security service while fighting in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

As Andrey Medvedev dashed towards the remote Russia-Norway border, he claims he could hear the sound of attack dogs snarling behind him. The Norwegian police have detained him.

Sources:

https://www.valleycentral.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2025/01/Timur-Praliev-Criminal-Complaint.pdf

https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-wagner-fighter-illegal-entry-us-mexico-timur-praliev/33271493.html

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy1220

https://www.state.gov/countering-the-wagner-group-and-degrading-russias-war-efforts-in-ukraine/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64374948

https://yle.fi/a/74-20043336

Syrian Intelligence Agency Thwarted Planned Islamic State Attack on Shiite Shrine

Lebanon’s Najib Mikati (L) shaking hands with Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus. (Photo SANA via AFP)

Intelligence officials in Syria’s new de facto government thwarted a plan by the Islamic State group to set off a bomb at a Shiite shrine in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab.

The intelligence service is “putting all its capabilities to stand in the face of all attempts to target the Syrian people in all their spectrums.”

Sayyida Zeinab has been the site of past attacks on Shiite pilgrims by ISIS.

Per CIA, Syria has a population of nearly 24 million people: Arab ~50%, Alawite ~15%, Kurd ~10%, Levantine ~10%, other ~15% (includes Druze, Ismaili, Imami, Nusairi, Assyrian, Turkoman, Armenian)

The new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa seems pragmatic and if the governments of Turkiye, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Jordan cooperate, Syria won’t become a failed state. Approximately 2,000 US soldiers are operating in Syria, even though US Central Command have consistently reported having only 900 troops there.

Islamic State (IS) terrorists grew out of the remnants of Al Qaida in Iraq (AI). These Salafists consider Shiites heretical.

Sources:

https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5100156-syrian-intelligence-says-it-foiled-isis-attempt-target-damascus-shrine

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/11/lebanons-pm-meets-syrias-de-facto-leader-in-damascus

North Korea Includes Russian Language in Official Postal Stamp Description for First Time

North Korea has included Russian in the description of its new postal stamps set to be issued in the new year, reflecting the country’s growing alignment with Russia.

A stamp release notice uploaded on the Korea Stamp Corp.’s website included images and descriptions of four postal stamps scheduled for issuance on 20 Jan in four languages — Korean, English, Chinese, and Russian — along with an order form.

It is believed to be the first time that North Korea’s stamp release notice has included Russian.

The Russian language was not even included in the notice for the North’s stamp issuance celebrating the special year of friendship between Pyongyang and Moscow in 2015.

Vladimir Putin has been assisting Kim Jong-un with his WMD program, a troubling issue for Beijing, in return for the 12,000 North Korean soldiers sent to die fighting in Ukraine. Pyongyang is appearing to prioritize its ties to Moscow over Beijing. Similar stamps issued in 2023 placed China-related stamps ahead of Russia-related ones. Pyongyang is also opening a beach resort for use by Russian tourists in May 2025. An old expression is regaining currency on the Korean peninsula: “Japan was our enemy for 100 years, China has been our enemy for 1,000 years.”

North Korea recently test-fired a hypersonic missile as USSECSTATE Antony Blinken arrived in Seoul, South Korea. Thanks to the Kremlin, the new hypersonic missile supposedly flew 12 times the speed of sound for about 1,500 km. (Photo: Reuters)

Sources:

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2025/01/103_390102.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-missile-test-1.7424588

https://www.upu.int/en/home

European Space Agency (ESA) Releases Up-Close Photos of Mercury

Mercury’s dark craters may contain frozen water which BepiColombo will investigate once it is in orbit around the planet.

Source:

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/BepiColombo/Top_three_images_from_BepiColombo_s_sixth_Mercury_flyby

China Reports First Cases of Monkeypox (Clade 1b mpox)

The China Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) announced the country’s first confirmed clade 1b mpox cases, which involve a foreigner who had lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and four close contacts.

China is the twelfth country outside of Africa to detect clade 1 mpox, which is different from the clade 2 mpox virus spreading globally. The novel clade 1b virus is thought to spread more easily among contacts, including in households. Most cases have been linked to travel to affected African countries.

Outside of Africa, limited secondary transmission has now been reported in the UK, Germany, and China.

China CDC quickly launched investigations in Zhejiang, Guangdong, Beijing, and Tianjin.

Beijing gained experience in dealing with infectious diseases thanks to the COVID pandemic, but they have yet to provide the World Health Organization (WHO) with full details about the 2019 outbreak. China’s population density makes it susceptible to fast-moving diseases like the coronavirus. Human rights groups may be concerned that Beijing could use mpox as an excuse to quarantining (detaining) Uighurs in Zhejiang province or other minorities such as Tibetans.

Sources:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/mpox/china-reports-mpox-clade-1b-cluster

https://www.chinacdc.cn/jksj/jksj01/202501/t20250109_303772.html

Chinese Jet Maker Increases Efforts to Take Airbus and Boeing Share of Aviation Market

The COMAC C919 is a narrow-body single aisle passenger jet being used for key routes, but is awaiting certain certifications which will allow it to fly internationally.

China is the second largest civil aviation market in the world after the US and has embarked on a course of expansion aimed at rapidly increasing its aircraft market share, through Comac, the country’s first domestic state-owned aerospace manufacturer.

Some of China’s largest airlines, China Eastern Airlines, Air China and China Southern Airlines are already using Comac’s flagship aircraft, the C919, on domestic routes.

Beijing’s aim to be less reliant on foreign aircraft manufacturers. This is in line with China’s plans to advance its technological power over the next few years.

Both short-haul and long-haul air travel has surged post-pandemic, boosted by cheaper fares and more deals on popular destinations. Mordor Intelligence expects the aviation market to expand from $343.54bn to $395.76bn by the end of the decade.

Comac is manufacturing one C919 aircraft per month. IBA, an aviation consulting company, estimates that this figure can potentially go up to 11 monthly by 2040.

In contrast, Boeing currently produces 38 737 MAX aircraft monthly, with plans to triple this number by 2027. Airbus has also announced that it expects the A320 aircraft production to hit about 75 units per month in 2027.

Boeing is experiencing production and delivery issues, but their recent horrific crashes have also hit investor and consumer sentiment. Passengers now enquire whether their flight will be on a Boeing 737 MAX.

Airbus is facing production supply chain issues, but is manufacturing a new eco-friendly fuel-efficient aircraft, the A220-300, which is also one of the quietest civilian airplanes in the world.

Air Canada’s total firm orders for the A220-300 stands at 65 aircraft.

Last year US Senators grilled outgoing Boeing CEO David Calhoun on Capitol Hill: ‘Why haven’t you resigned?’ The disgraced oligarch began his testimony by standing and facing relatives of Boeing plane crash victims: “I apologize for the grief that we have caused.” Shareholders shamelessly approved an obscene $33m pay package for Calhoun. (Photo: Samuel Corum / Bloomberg / Getty Images: 17 May 2024)

Aerial view of Beijing’s Daxing International Airport, one of the largest and busiest of the world.

Sources:

https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/01/03/chinese-jet-maker-ramps-up-efforts-to-push-airbus-and-boeing-out

https://www.btimesonline.com/articles/171983/20241231/how-many-boeing-plane-crashes-have-occurred-in-2024-and-what-we-know-about-the-737-800-model.htm

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/06/18/boeing-calhoun-senate-hearing-00163929

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/investing/boeing-shareholders-vote-to-approve-usd33-million-ceo-pay-package/index.html

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/boeing-charged-737-max-fraud-conspiracy-and-agrees-pay-over-25-billion

USIC Finds No ‘Havana Syndrome’ Link to Foreign Powers, But Two Agencies Say It’s Possible

US intelligence has found no evidence linking a foreign power to the mysterious “Havana syndrome” injuries reported by some US diplomats and other government personnel, though two agencies now say it’s possible a foreign adversary may have developed or even deployed a weapon responsible for the injuries, called Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI).

In the new assessment released by US intelligence, five of the seven agencies concluded that it is very unlikely that a foreign adversary was behind the injuries.

Two of the agencies, however, reached a different conclusion, determining that there is a possibility that a foreign power may have developed or even used a weapon capable of causing the reported injuries. Such a device would presumably rely on acoustic energy, microwaves or anther kind of directed energy.

One of the most capable men in Joe Biden’s cabinet is D/CIA William Burns. During a mission to Moscow in 2021, Burns delivered a secret warning to Russian intelligence services that they will face “consequences” if they are responsible for the mysterious health incidents known as “Havana Syndrome.”

Director Burns told the Russian spies that harming US personnel and their families would break the unwritten rules of acceptable behavior for professional intelligence services. If it was determined that the Kremlin was responsible, there would be repercussions.

If no attacks occurred after this warning, perhaps the Russians were responsible and got the message. As an old Cold Warrior, Coriolanus remains suspicious and vigilant about Putin as the Russians spend time and resources on DEW.

Other theories about the causes of “Havana syndrome” offer plausible explanations.

1) Powerfully chirping crickets found in Cuba, like this one below. Since US personnel were away so long from Havana, perhaps the racket that these voluble crickets make were long forgotten or these crickets migrated to Cuba after the 1960s.

The Indies short-tailed cricket Anurogryllus celerinictus chirping mimics “in duration, pulse repetition rate, power spectrum, pulse rate stability, and oscillations per pulse” to the symptoms described by victims of the AHIs.

2) Overexposure to pesticides. Cuba uses Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHP). US facilities may have been over-fumigated before American personnel arrived, which eventually sickened them.

3)  A researcher at realclearscience.com states that the symptoms of “Havana syndrome” are basically the “power of suggestion” and “self-validation.” A “psychogenic” mass psychology effect on US personnel may have played a role.

Without any smoking sun or access to the raw data, Coriolanus can only investigate and analyze the Havana syndrome puzzle from afar. But this detective below would have certainly solved the mystery for us once and for all.

“Ah, just one more thing, Ma’am!”

Sources:

Click to access NIC-Unclassified-ICA-Updated-Assessment-AHI-December2024.pdf

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/cia-director-warns-russians-consequences-source-havana-syndrome-rcna6684

https://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2024/07/01/havana_syndrome_finally_putting_the_myth_to_rest_1040905.html

https://ipen.org/sites/default/files/documents/hhps_cuba_executive_summary_cuba_april_2021.pdf

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/havana-syndrome-jason-crickets

Two Lynx Cats Spotted in Scotland After Two Others Captured

Eurasian lynx, the largest species of lynx, were once native to Scotland, but died out 500 to 1,000 years ago. They are still found elsewhere in Europe, Asia and Russia. Sadly, one of the four lynx died soon after capture from stress.

Sources:

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2025/01/10/scotland-lynx-cats-loose-Cairgorms-National-Park/9881736531206/

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jan/11/one-four-lynx-captured-scottish-highlands-dies-wit/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

Who Are The Terrorists: Israelis or Palestinians?

A mourner sits near the bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at al-Ahli Arab Hospital, known as the Baptist Hospital, in Gaza City on 8 Jan 2025 (Photo: Dawoud Abu Alkas / Reuters)

Since 1 Jan 2025, the IDF has killed at least 332 Palestinians in Gaza, including women and children, while continuing to impede the entry of humanitarian aid into the enclave.

None of these Palestinians in the Gaza Strip voted in the US election on 5 Nov 2024.

Israeli forces have killed at least 50 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, as authorities warned that the Al Aqsa, Nasser and European hospitals in the enclave face imminent closure over dire fuel shortages.

The UN human rights office (OHCHR) reiterated its call for global action, saying the continued violation of international law in the occupied Palestinian territory must not be allowed to continue for another year.

Mourners react during the funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, 8 Jan 2025 (Photo: Mohammed Salem / Reuters)

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warns that the lives of 15 newborns on incubators are at risk because of fuel shortages. None of the infants in the incubators are holding any Israeli hostages.

A Palestinian nurse attends to a newborn in an incubator at a hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, 10 Sep 2024 (Photo: Ramadan Abed / Reuters)

Mourners react as they carry the body of a Palestinian child killed in an Israeli strike in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, 8 Jan 2025 (Photo: Mohammed Salem / Reuters)

The West Bank is not immune to the IDF or their proxies. Israeli forces killed nine Palestinians in their daily raids in the West Bank, including two boys, while Israeli settlers burned Palestinian several homes and vehicles.

The IDF have killed at least 45,936 Palestinian civilians and combatants while wounding or maiming 109,274 since 7 Oct 2023. The Israeli High Command asserts that 17,000 of the dead were militants. There are no judicial transcripts of the hearings for these accused militants. At least 1,139 Israelis were killed and more than 200 were taken captive on 7 Oct 2023 for a future prisoner swap.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, 11 Nov 2024. (Photo: Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)

Likud Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says half of Gazans can be ‘encouraged’ to leave within two years. By the Likud Party’s own admission, straight from the jackass’ mouth, we witness their strategy of Nakba 2023-2024, all paid for by the hardworking American taxpayer.

Israel will celebrate its 100th Centennial in 23 years. Does anybody on the planet think we’ll see a Two-State Solution in 2048?

Photographed below are Holocaust survivors and their descendants who in April 2024 recognized that the Nakba in Gaza was a genocide. Yet in 2025 there are people who claim that the wanton killing of Palestinians is Israel’s right to self-defense, denying IDF atrocities that are making the Gaza Strip completely inhospitable.

Holocaust survivor Stephen Kapos (C) and descendants of Holocaust survivors take part in an 13 Apr 2024 London protest against the Nakba in Gaza. (Photo: @Aliwala786110/X)

The fires in southern California forced President Joe Biden to cancel his Jan 2025 trip to Rome where he was to meet the Italian Prime Minister, President, and Pope Francis, in what would have been his final official overseas trip as POTUS. President Biden’s Oct 2021 meeting with the first-ever Jesuit Pope was quite warm and they shared some laughs. Whether the Pope received Confession from Joe Biden is not known.

US President Joe Biden, left, meets with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday, 29 Oct 2021. (Photo:  Vatican Media / AP)

But this time Pope Francis might have had an earful for President Biden about the “serious and shameful” situation in the Gaza Strip, something the US allowed to happen by contiuning to arm and assist Israel. The Pontiff recently stated “We cannot in any way accept the bombing of civilians. We cannot accept that children are freezing to death because hospitals have been destroyed or a country’s energy network has been hit.”

This sounds like Pope Francis described terrorism.

The United Nations General Assembly defines terrorism in GA Resolution 49/60:

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.

According to the US (6 USCS § 101), the term terrorism is “any activity that–

(A) involves an act that–

(i) is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources; and

(ii) is a violation of the criminal laws of the US or of any State or other subdivision of the US; and

(B) appears to be intended–

(i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”

So, who are the terrorists: Israelis or Palestinians?

Sources:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/israel

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/1/9/live-israel-kills-50-people-in-gaza-recovers-body-of-captive-from-rafah

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


https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ramping-criticism-israel-pope-francis-calls-situation-gaza-shameful-rcna186939

Costly Russian Casualties in Ukraine Setting off Demographic Timebomb for Kremlin

December 2024 was likely the most costly month for Russia since President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of neighboring Ukraine almost three years ago.

At least 48,000 troops were killed or wounded last month, the sixth straight month that Russian forces suffered an increase in monthly losses on the battlefield, British defense intelligence officials reported. Russia sustained at least 2,200 casualties on 19 Dec, the highest record of combat losses on a single day.

Russian casualties offloaded from truck or train car. (Undated photo: AP)

Moscow sustained 429,660 casualties in its war in 2024, a dramatic increase from the 252,940 battlefield losses in 2023. Since the start of the war, more than 790,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, British officials said.

For comparison, the UK suffered 750,000 military casualties during the six years it fought the Second World War in Europe, Asia, and Africa.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repotted 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers KIA and 370,000 WIA since the start of Russia’s invasion.

Crosses marked only with numbers stand on the graves of unknown pro-Russian separatists at a cemetery in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk. (Photo: AFP)

Russian losses in Ukraine are helping fuel a demographic timebomb that could see the country’s population reduced by half by the end of the century.

“The impact on Russian society is devastating,” said Harley Balzer, emeritus professor of government and international affairs at Georgetown University.

“From Russia’s perspective, (winning the war in Ukraine) is the smaller problem. The bigger issue is, is it going to be a viable country afterward regardless?”

“Life expectancy for young men is on par with a fourth-world country. Life expectancy at age 15 for a Russian man right before the (COVID-19) pandemic was about the same as his counterpart in Haiti.”

A large study into why Russian males had such short life expectancies published in 2014 concluded one of the main factors in early deaths was excessive alcohol consumption.
Other factors cited in a more recent investigation last year by the independent Russian media outlet Cherta, included high rates of murder, suicide, car crashes, and other fatal accidents.

The appalling number of Russian casualties was the major reason the Kremlin press-ganged ethnic minorities and recruited North Korean soldiers for human wave attacks. Vladimir Putin’s anxiety of the billion plus Chinese population on his eastern border was part of his reasoning in re-establishing an All-Slavic Union with the Kremlin at the head, a neo-USSR with the power and glory it once held. But his brutal invasion backfired and he has cost Russia (and Ukraine) generations of Slavic people never to be born.

Sources:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jan/8/russian-casualties-ukraine-war-reportedly-set-mont/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS

https://kyivindependent.com/russian-losses-in-ukraine-fuelling-devastating-demographic-timebomb-experts-say/

Mexico’s New President Taking Charge

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum pointing at a map from 1607 showing an early portrayal of North America. (Photo: AFP)

Newly elected Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum has suggested North America including the United States could be renamed “Mexican America” – a historic name used on an early map of the region in response to US President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”

“Mexican America, that sounds nice,” Sheinbaum joked, pointing at the map from 1607 showing an early portrayal of North America.

The president, who has jousted with Trump in recent weeks, used her daily press conference to give a history lesson, flanked by old maps and former culture minister Jose Alfonso Suarez del Real. In another response to the blathering President-elect, President Sheinbaum is taking pro-active steps to stem the number of migrants appearing at the US-Mexican border.

So-called migrant caravan advances to the US through Huehuetan, southern Mexico (Getty Images).

Two weeks ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Mexico continues dissolving attention-grabbing migrant caravans and dispersing migrants throughout the country to keep them far from the US border, while simultaneously limiting how many accumulate in any one place.

The policy of “dispersion and exhaustion” has become the center of the Mexican government’s immigration policy in recent years and last year succeeded in significantly reducing the number of migrants reaching the US border, said Tonatiuh Guillén, former chief of Mexico’s immigration agency.

Per CIA in 2022: Mexico’s export partners were the US at 77%, Canada 4%, China 2%, Taiwan 1%, South Korea 1%; import partners were the at US 56%, China 17%, Germany 3%, South Korea 3%, Japan 2%.

Mexico’s current administration hopes that the lower numbers will give them some defense after Trump threatened to impose tariffs over migration during his first presidency.

Acapulco would seem to be a strange destination for migrants. Once a crown jewel of Mexico’s tourism industry, the city now suffers under the thumb of organized crime and is still struggling to climb back after taking a direct hit from devastating Hurricane Otis in 2023.

Claudia Sheinbaum is Mexico’s first woman to be elected President and capable of standing up to Trump who has problems with charismatic women.

Just as Canada recently appropriated $1.3 bn in funds for their border ahead of Trumpf’s ascendancy, the new Mexican president is trying to soften any blows from the incoming administration by lowering the number of migrants at the US-Mexican border. Whether this plan works or not remains to be seen, especially if these migrants were trying to re-unite with family members already in the US. There is no information suggesting that Pres. Sheinbaum intends to visit Mar-a-Lago or Wash DC any time soon.

Sources:

https://www.trtworld.com/us-and-canada/mexican-america-mexico-rebukes-trump-suggests-renaming-north-america-18251753

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexico-drops-migrants-troubled-resort-disperses-us-border-117406521

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89v4w51dzyo

North Korea: Giant Tourist Beach Resort to Open June 2025

A photo of a general aerial view of the “Kalma Coast Tourism Area” in the North Korean city of Wonsan, released on 31 Dec 2024. (KCNA via AFP)

North Korea’s long-stalled Kalma beach resort will finally open in June 2025. North Korean supremo Kim Jong Un said the project is the “first big step” in advancing the country’s tourism. Media reports suggest that the tourist resort is aimed at Russian visitors.

Per CIA: population 26,298,666; GDP per capita: $1,700.

Launched in 2014, the project was scheduled to open by April 2019. However, it encountered numerous setbacks, including design modifications, material shortages caused by international sanctions, and disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un (L) and his daughter Ju Ae walking on the beach during a visit to the “Kalma Coast Tourism Area” in the North Korean city of Wonsan. (Photo: KCNA via AFP)

In July 2024, South Korea’s spy agency the NIS said that Kim was preparing Ju Ae to succeed him, though the selection was not final.

This is unimaginable that a country with endemic food insecurity would conceive of opening a tourist location. Giving the Russian oligarchs a safe haven to enjoy the beaches makes sense as their summer resort areas in Crimea are in flux because of the war. Manning this resort will be a security challenge for Pyongyang as food supplies will most likely be pilfered or siphoned off by hungry workers.

The children of North Korea are starving while Kim Jong-un test-fired a hypersonic missile just as USSECSTATE Antony Blinken arrived in Seoul, South Korea.

If the North Korean supremo isn’t seen in public pointing at something, he is seen enjoying his cigarettes. But smoking is not going to kill Kim Jong-un; he may end up hanging by his ankles like Benito Mussolini one day for starving his people and sending thousands to die in Russia while he takes each of his soldier’s $2,200 monthly stipend.

Source:

North Korea says giant tourist beach resort to open in June 2025 – Radio Free Asia

Health News: Noise Pollution More Than Nuisance, But Proven Health Risk

From Harvard Medical School:

“For half a century, US agencies such as the EPA have deemed noise pollution “a growing danger to the health and welfare of the Nation’s population.” The European Environmental Agency reports that noise ranks second only to air pollution as the environmental exposure most harmful to public health.

Recently, the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that people exposed to high aircraft noise levels could be at greater risk of poor heart function, increasing their risk of heart attack, stroke, and irregular heartbeat.

Residents living near noisy airports had 10% to 20% worse heart structure and function, compared to people who moved to get away from the aircraft noise.

Cardiologists reported people’s heart muscles had grown stiffer and thicker over time, making the organ less efficient at pumping blood, quadrupling a person’s risk of heart attack or stroke.

Environmental factors such as air pollution or noise have already been linked to adverse health effects such as cardiovascular diseases and general well-being.

In 2023, the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) found that the risk to commit suicide increases for people exposed to high levels of transportation noise. Noise is a constant stressor affecting sleep, levels of stress hormones, changes in brain function, or a sense of loss of control.

The study found that exposure to transportation noise at home was linked to a higher risk of death by suicide. With every 10 dB increase of average road traffic noise at home, risk for suicides rises by 4%. An association with railway noise was also observed, although less pronounced.

Mental health disorders affect nearly one billion people worldwide and are a leading cause of suicide. Noise abatement programs, adding greenery to the urban sprawl, flying less noisier aircraft like the new Airbus A220, relocating away from airports, and reducing automobile traffic can lower people’s exposure to excess noise, lowering their health risks.

Sources:

https://www.jacc.org/doi/10.1016/j.jacc.2024.09.1217

https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/noise-and-health

https://www.swisstph.ch/en/news/news-detail/news/transportation-noise-increases-risk-for-suicides

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Nuclear Engineer, Humanitarian: President Jimmy Carter

(1 Oct 1924 – 29 Dec 2024)

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, US President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, celebrate after signing the Camp David Peace Accords in 1978. (Photo: Universal History Archive / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

US President Jimmy Carter and Panama’s General Omar Torrijos shake hands after signing the Panama Canal Torrijos-Carter Treaties on 7 Sep 1977. 

President Jimmy Carter, in his first full day in office, fulfilled a campaign promise by granting unconditional pardons to hundreds of thousands of men who had evaded the draft during the Vietnam War by fleeing the country or by failing to register with their Selective Service boards. He also ordered a review of military desertion cases.

After retiring, President Carter established the Carter Center for Peace and volunteered to build homes with Habitats for Humanity.

Jimmy Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, and his mother, Lillian, pin ensign bars on his epaulets after his graduation from the US Naval Academy in 1946. He would learn to fly sea-planes and nuclear engineering for submarines. (Photo US Navy)

The US Navy’s work in developing the first nuclear submarine, the USS Nautilus, meant that Admiral Hyman Rickover and Lieutenant James Carter had access to the latest and greatest in top-secret nuclear energy technology. So when Canada’s Chalk River nuclear research facility experienced a power surge that damaged its reactor, the US sent Carter and his team. He was one of a few people in the world who could do it and he averted a nuclear disaster.

The Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada, were opened in 1944. In Sep 1945, the facility put the first nuclear reactor outside of the US into operation.

President Jimmy Carter who brought peace to Israel and Egypt, returned the Panama Canal to its rightful owners, and gave amnesty to Vietnam War draft evaders, was most proud of the fact that not one bullet was fired under his administration. No other American President can say that.

At President Carter’s funeral, former President George W. Bush walked past a sitting Donald Trump who did not stand to greet him. Obama stood up and was greeted with a friendly poke in the stomach by “W.” Seeing that he might be miffed, the ever diplomatic Obama chatted a witticism to Trump that only a lip-reader would understand. With Donald Trump being sentenced the next day in New York for 34 felony counts of business fraud, someone did figure out what Obama joked about with Trump:

The Carter Center released this photograph of the funeral:

Notably absent from the photo because of the camera angle, are Russian President Vladimir Putin’s protege, Donald Trump and his tackily dressed wife Melania. They will all be re-uniting in ten days for Trump’s inauguration, keeping the USSS super busy.

Most Online Pharmacies Illegally Operated and Possibly Selling Dangerous or Ineffective Drugs

Most of the 35,000 online pharmacies around the world are operating illegally and could be selling dangerous or ineffective drugs, according to the US Trade Representative’s annual “notorious markets” report.

Ninety-six percent of online pharmacies were found to be in violation of the law, meaning they were operating without a license and selling medications without prescriptions. An estimated 20 new illegal pharmacy websites are created every day around the world.

“The health and safety concerns posed by counterfeit medicines are particularly troubling,” Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement.

Over 30 online retailers were identified in the report identified as engaged in selling counterfeit products. The websites often mimic legitimate e-commerce platforms, with false claims that they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The report compiled also singled out 19 countries over concerns about counterfeit or pirated products.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 1 in 10 medicines in low- and middle-income countries are substandard or falsified. Countries spend an estimated $30.5 billion per year on substandard and falsified medical products. You can find the suspected counterfeit drugs in the links below.

Sources:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/substandard-and-falsified-medical-products

https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning-letters/anumed-international-llc-674310-08202024

https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2025/january/ustr-releases-2024-review-notorious-markets-counterfeiting-and-piracy

Dog With A Broken Jaw Found In The Road Finds Happiness

Donald Trump Resurrecting Another 19th-Century America White Supremacist Ideology

Flag of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC)

The 19th-century nativist “Know Nothing Party” members were rabid anti-Catholic Protestant whites and would greet each other touching their eye, nose, and then making a zero with their fingers (“Eye Nose Nothing”).

Convicted scapegrace Republican George Santos and US Senator Marco Rubio doppelganger secretly rendering the “I Know Nothing” shibboleth during his short, foul tenure in the revered chambers of the US Congress. (Photo: Public domain).

For a decade, Donald Trumpf has been subtly (and brazenly) flashing these ancient shibboleths for a decade, letting his white supremacist followers know that he is “one of them.” This coded greeting evolved to three fingers representing “W” for white and the thumb and index finger making a “P” for power. Rightwing white Catholics were no longer excluded from the club.

Trumpf’s calls for invading Panama and Greenland is a resurrection of another 19th-century white supremacist ideology that incubated with the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC). This occult movement of Southerners (Northerners were called “Copperheads” during the Civil War) wanted to expand American hegemony and slavery into Mexico, the Caribbean, and South America.

The Knights of the Golden Circle was reportedly organized in Lexington, KY, on 4 Jul 1854, by Virginia-born Gen. George W. L. Bickley (1819–1867).

Sketch of a Knights of a Golden Circle meeting. One KGC leader claimed they had 65,000 oath-bound members.

In “The Idea of a Southern Nation” (1979), historian John McCardell called the Knights of the Golden Circle “that most bizarre offshoot of Southern expansionism.“

With Cuba and Mexico now off limits, vulnerable Panama because of its economic and national security relevancy is now an expansionist target, as well as mineral-rich Greenland. Global warming is making Greenland’s under-tundra resources more accessible, something that Tesla, Apple, and other hi-tech companies would like easy, inexpensive access to. Knowingly or unknowingly, Trumpf is tapping into a 19th-century expansionist cult whose ideas somehow still resonates with some white Republicans.

Had the Confederacy won the American Civil War. (Map courtesy of imaginarymaps.com)

In response to Trumpf’s idiotic blathering, the King of Denmark, Head-of-State of a loyal NATO ally and important intelligence partner, changed the 500-year-old royal Court of Arms to prominently include Greenland and the Faroe Islands:

Whether this helps the situation for Greenland and Denmark remains to be seen. Donald Trumpf Jr. just visited Greenland on Tuesday in what he called a “personal day trip.” He then posted a photo with a group of locals in a bar wearing pro-Trump caps, delivering them a message on behalf of the paterfamilias: ‘We’re going to treat you well.’

(Photo: Reuters)

Nota Bene: Danes are the only other people in the world that celebrates America’s Independence Day:

Rebild National Park Society is the first Danish-American friendship association and has existed for more than 100 years. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin is savoring every second of this.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Know-Nothing-party

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

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/06/danish-king-changes-coat-of-arms-in-apparent-rebuke-to-donald-trump

Ukraine: Two Russian High Value Targets (HVTs) Eliminated in Storm Shadow Missile Attack

The moment two Russian HVTs joined the Choir Invisible from their command post in Lgov, Kursk (Credit: East2West)

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is reaching its third terrible year, the Ukrainian military is stubbornly and successfully fighting off Vladimir Putin’s hegemonic designs on its Slavic neighbor. Kiev recently unleashed a (UK-manufactured) Storm Shadow missile attack targeting Russian HVTs hiding in a bunker in Kursk on 30 Dec 2024. At least 30 Russians were WIA.

Among those rendered ineffective were Russian Lieutenant Colonel Valery Tereshchenko, chief of communications of the 76th Pskov Airborne Division, and Colonel Pavel Maletsky, commander of 656th separate engineer-sapper battalion.

The late Russian Colonel Pavel Maletsky. (Credit: East2West)

The late Lt-Col Valery Tereshchenko. (Credit: East2West)

The UK, like the US, has done yeoman’s work helping the Ukrainians against Russia. But only the UK and NATO will continue assisting Kiev after the Trumpf/Putin/Musk cabal assumes power in two weeks. Expect the Ukrainian military to exert maximum force against the Russian invaders until the last possible minute. Because of the quickly compressing timetable, the Ukrainian sabotage network inside Russia may accelerate plans to assassinate HVTs before any ceasefire. Last year, the Ukrainian GUR may have done the US a tremendous service by neutralizing Lt-General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s CBRN defense unit who was also under investigation for alleged war crimes by the Kiev government.

Sources:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/two-high-ranking-russian-officials-killed-in-missile-attack-as-ukraine-fires-at/

https://www.thesun.co.uk

https://apnews.com/article/russia-explosion-head-of-nuclear-defense-forces-killed-9656bce946a9f552454df9debe5fbd18

IDF Soldier Flees Brazil Amid Gaza War Crimes Investigation

An Israeli soldier accused of committing war crimes in Gaza has fled Brazil where he was vacationing when the case was brought against him in the South American country.

The unidentified soldier is accused of participating in the mass demolition of civilian homes in Gaza amid Israel’s war against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave.

An Israeli border police officer stands guard as municipality workers demolish a Palestinian house. (Image by Sebastian Scheiner / AP Photo.)

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid lambasted the need for a soldier to flee a country where they were vacationing in the dark of night to evade investigation as “a huge political failure.”

“How did we get to the point where the Palestinians are better than the Israeli government in the international arena?” Yair Lapid asked on X.

Palestinians mourning over the body of a relative killed in an Israeli attack in Gaza, 6 Jan 2025. (Photo: Dawoud Abu Alkas / Reuters)

Gaza’s Health Ministry reports that a total of 45,854 combatants and civilians have been killed and 109,139 wounded, injured, or maimed in Israel’s Nakba against the Palestinians following the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack which resulted in 1,269 Israelis deaths and 250 captives taken for a prisoner swap.

On 21 Nov 2024, the ICC at the Hague issued an international arrest warrant for Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes. Similarly, on 17 Mar 2023 the ICC had issued a warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

These indictments are merely allegations. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Sources:

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/01/06/soldier-flees-Brazil/8791736147621/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/1/6/live-israel-pounds-gaza-as-ceasefire-talks-with-hamas-gains-momentum?update=3425712

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

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

US Sanctions Alleged War Criminals in Sudan

The US Treasury Dept sanctioned the leader of Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Gen. Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousafor for committing genocide in the Northeast African nation’s nearly two-year-old civil war.

USSECSTATE Antony Blinken announced the largely symbolic genocide determination. The US has repeatedly declared that war crimes have been committed by both warring parties in Sudan’s civil war, but Blinken alleged that the RSF’s systematic murder and sexual violence targeting individuals based on their ethnicity now meets the high threshold of genocide.

US Treasury sanction targets include the paramilitary weapons supplier Abu Dharr Abdul Nabi Habiballa Ahmmed and seven related companies.

Alleged war criminal RSF commander Gen. Mohammad Hamdan Daglo Mousa.

This is an ethnic civil war between “riverine Arabs” from the former ruling class in Khartoum and “Darfur Arabs.” These “Darfur Arabs” were considered backwards and “Africanized” by the former rulers. But “Darfur Arabs” comprise the RSF base and in turn dislike the former Khartoum ruling class. An estimated 61,000-150,000 have been killed, creating 2,170,592 refugees, while internally displacing 7,720,119 people. Russia is duplicitously supplying both sides of the conflict.

Rapid Support Forces (RSF)

Sources:

https://www.state.gov/genocide-determination-in-sudan-and-imposing-accountability-measures/

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2772

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/russia-sudan-war-saf-rsf-hedges-bets-both-sides-support

Filipino Fishermen Capture Suspected Chinese Underwater Spy Drone

Soldiers gather around the Chinese-made submersible drone recovered near San Pascual, Masbate on 30 Dec 2024. (Photo: PNP-Bicol)

Local fishermen hauled in a six-foot-long yellow underwater drone off the coast in the Philippines that police believe may have come from a Chinese submarine.

Three fishermen found the bright yellow drone about six miles off the coast of San Pascual in Masbate province, police said in a release posted on Facebook.

The sea drone carried the markings – “HY-119” – referring to “underwater navigation and communication system,” police said.

According to manufacturer sources, the Sea Wing can carry Conductivity, Temperature, Depth (CTD) sensors, as well as turbulence meter, Turbidimeter, chlorophyll sensor, dissolved oxygen sensor, nitrate and other biochemical sensors. It can also carry Acoustic sensors such as ADCP (acoustic Doppler current profile), underwater acoustic communication and hydrophones, as well as naval and military relevance.

USIC and naval personnel will have an opportunity to exploit this drone. Besides the Defense Attache office in Manila, US experts are in nearby Japan and South Korea.

Sources:

https://www.ibtimes.com/china-spy-drone-captured-phillippines-3757793

http://www.hisutton.com/Chinese-Sea-Wing-Submarine-Drone.html

Canada: The CBSA Announces First-Ever Canadian Land Pre-Clearance Operation in US

From the Government of Canada:

“The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) announced its intention to launch its first preclearance operation in 2025. Preclearance supports the national security and economic prosperity of both Canada and the US by facilitating the secure and efficient movement of people and goods across the border.

The initiative will have Canadian border services officers working at a shared facility at the Cannon Corners port of entry in New York (adjacent to the Covey Hill, QC port of entry). For the two-year duration of the operation, travelers entering Canada will go through Cannon Corners instead of the Covey Hill port of entry, which will be closed to travelers during that time.”

(Map: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/)

“At the preclearance site, Canadian officers will examine travelers and goods to decide whether they are admissible into Canada, as they currently do at ports of entry in Canada. This includes screening for dangerous goods, such as firearms and drugs, before they leave the US. While officers will be able to conduct most types of immigration processing at this site, claims for refugee protection cannot be processed at preclearance. Travelers seeking refugee protection in Canada will need to use a Canadian port of entry.”

Cannon Corners, NY is west of the major Champlain POE (US I-87/ Canada I-15).

“Updates on the initiative and launch date will be shared on the CBSA’s website and social media platforms.

Quote from The Honorable David J. McGuinty, Minister of Public Safety:

“Today’s announcement demonstrates our shared commitment with the United States to bolster border security and streamline the flow of legitimate trade and travel between our two countries. Preclearance is yet another example of how Canada and the United States work together every day to intercept security threats early, while delivering large-scale economic benefits for Canadians and Americans.”

Quick facts:

The Preclearance in the US Regulations provide CBSA officers with the necessary authorities to carry out immigration services at preclearance sites in the US.

The US currently has preclearance operations at eight Canadian airports.

Canada is investing $1.3 billion to bolster security at the border and strengthen the immigration system, all while keeping Canadians safe.

Remarkable that the Canadian government is spending so many resources to placate the childish and boorish Donald Trumpf. Creating discord within NATO allies and Western countries is exactly what Russian President Vladimir Putin wants and Trumpf is following his instructions perfectly. The present discourse in some American circles that somehow Trumpf is responsible for PM Justin Trudeau’s resignation as head of the Liberal Party are inaccurate. The PM was dealing with domestic issues such as housing, immigration, and strengthening Canada’s national healthcare system long before Trumpf’s horrific electoral win this past Nov 2024.

Sources:

https://www.canada.ca/en/border-services-agency/news/2025/01/the-cbsa-announces-first-canadian-land-preclearance-operation-in-the-us.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4306292/The-border-town-immigrants-creeping-Canada.html

China: HMPV Virus Outbreak

Masked people walk through a station in Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: 3 February 3, 2020, with an image of a virus inset by LewisTse Pui Lung / Rost-9D/iStock / Getty Images Plus / Canva)

News reports and social media posts are warning of a new outbreak of a little-known virus called human metapneumovirus (HMPV) in China, but officials are yet to confirm this.

Instead, official reports from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that rates of multiple flu-like illnesses are on the rise in China.

Human metapneumovirus (HMPV) is a virus that can cause flu-like illness in people of all ages, although some people are more at risk, including young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems.

The virus was only discovered as recently as 2001, but it is in the same family as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV): another flu-like virus.

https://twitter.com/COVID19_disease/status/1874481684122607783

There is not enough information from reliable sources on the extent and severity of a possible HMPV outbreak in China to accurately predict the risk of a pandemic.

However, this is a virus that already circulates among populations in China, the US and elsewhere, so there is more herd immunity against it than there would be against a novel virus, such as COVID-19 at the beginning of the pandemic.

(Photo: Getty Images)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has repeatedly called on Beijing to share more information on the 2019 COVID outbreak which they have yet to do. Worldwide, there have been 777,074,803 confirmed cases of the disease, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and more than seven million deaths. Information sharing and cooperation will save lives for any epidemic, but Beijing is not known for its transparency so rumors will continue to circulate that SARS-CoV-2 was a leaked Chinese biological weapon.

Sources:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/12/1158676

https://www.newsweek.com/human-metapneumovirus-hmpv-china-outbreak-explainer-2009126

Cat Jumps in Every Shower Her Mom Takes Shower

Staggering Toll of US Failure in Afghanistan on Taxpayers is Laid Bare by Government Auditor

Map: USCENTCOM

Excerpt:

“The US failure in Afghanistan was caused by a system that rewarded generals, diplomats, contractors, and policymakers who reported successes on the ground, rather than the grim reality of a bloody insurgency.

The result, said one US military adviser, was that the system “became a self-licking ice cream” as more money was committed to justify the billions already spent.”

Soldiers bear the remains of US Army SPC Michael A. Dahl, Jr., of Moreno Valley, CA from a transport plane at Dover Air Base, DE, 19 Oct 2009. (Photo: Cliff Owen / AP)

The SIGAR report which will be released imminently will reveal that experts and government officials now believe decisions made as early as 2002 meant the war was doomed to failure.

The analysis will highlight how American ignorance of Afghan culture, the impact of local corruption, and weak cooperation among US agencies have all contributed to a war effort that has returned the country to the Taliban, at the cost of more than 2,400 American lives and two trillion dollars.

The 1971 Pentagon Papers (linked below) regarding US involvement in Vietnam is quite similar in analysis. US leadership realized the Vietnam War was unwinnable, no matter the number of Soldiers sent or bombs dropped, as the French realized in 1954.

US servicemembers coming home from Vietnam in 1965. (Photo: Harry Groom / Newsweek)

The beneficiaries of all these wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were the military-industrial complex and reconstruction contractors which made Mammon-like fortunes, as well as generals getting opportunities to add stars, medals, and ribbons to their uniforms.

Below is the commander of an army that hasn’t been to war in centuries.

Head of Switzerland’s army: Corps Commander Thomas Süssli — © DDPS/DDPS

Sources:

https://www.sigar.mil/

https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers

https://www.archives.gov/research/pentagon-papers

Apple Computers Facing “Blood Minerals” Lawsuit in Africa So CEO Tim Cook Personally Donates One Million Dollars to Trump Inaugural Fund

The DRC has a population of 115,403,027; 75% of them live under the poverty line.

Global tech companies have been exploiting miners in Africa for decades. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), various armed groups – including both Congolese army and rival armed rebel groups, among them the M23 – occupy mines and trading routes, forcing miners to work for free. These resources have been called “conflict” or “blood minerals.”


Minerals from these mines, including tungsten, tin and tantalum (often referred to as the 3Ts), have been illegally smuggled through Rwanda for several years, and eventually exported to tech companies such as Apple, Tesla, and Samsung.

Slave labor miners being exploited by armed gangs in the DRC. (Photo: Mark Craemer)

The DRC filed criminal charges against Apple Computers over the use of conflict minerals. A criminal complaint was filed in Dec 2024 against Apple’s subsidiaries in France and Belgium, where the Congolese government alleges Apple uses conflict minerals laundered through international supply chains – which the American tech giant denies.

So, what does Apple CEO Tim Cook do? He “personally” makes a one million dollar donation to Trump’s inaugural committee. Cook recently visited Mar-a-Lago in Florida for a meeting with Trump. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was also spotted at the dinner table with Trump and Cook. Both Tesla and Apple require those “blood minerals” from Africa. There is no coincidence that Trump has designs on Greenland with its vast treasure of minerals and resources under the tundra ready for excavation.   

Two oligarchs sharing a laugh. According to Forbes, Tim Cook is worth $2.3B; $1M seems cheap for him. Photo: Reuters

Apple CEO Tim Cook has joined a chorus of Big Tech executives making sizeable donations to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg visited Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump, as did Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Trump has also met with Jeff Bezos and many other high-profile executives in the Big Tech industry.

Meta, Amazon, and Uber have donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. OpenAI’s Sam Altman also made a $1 million donation. Outside of Silicon Valley, companies including Ford, Toyota, GM, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Coinbase, and more have donated millions to the Trump inauguration fund.

The era of oligarchal kakistocracy is settling in comfortably before the peaceful transition of power takes place on 20 Jan 2025. Expect the Trump administration to pay back all of these donors in the transactional manner he is known for. Worse, the wealth disparity between America’s oligarchs and the hoi polloi will be the greatest after the next four torturous years.

Sources:

https://www.rfi.fr/en/africa/20250103-drc-case-against-apple-brings-new-hope-in-conflict-minerals-crisis

https://www.globalwitness.org/en/reports/tackling-conflict-minerals/

Apple CEO Tim Cook donates $1M to Trump’s inauguration fund – 9to5Mac

The Dutch Set Up “Government-in-Exile” When Third Reich Invaded 10 May 1940. Too Bad US Won’t Do Same With Trump-Putin-Musk Cabal

The Netherlands hadn’t seen war in 125 years when the Third Reich brutally invaded and occupied the country on 10 May 1940. Queen Wilhelmina fled to the UK and established a “Government-in-Exile” until normalcy could be restored to her beleaguered nation.

Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy, Prime Minister of the exiled Dutch government about to speak on the BBC, 23 Sep 1941.

If a Vladimir Putin puppet made it back to the White House a second time, the Quisling known as Donald Trump, then the US truly lost the Cold War. And the American people are not used to losing wars.

A hand-colored woodcut illustration of British soldiers after setting fire to the White House during the War of 1812, the last time America lost a war on its homeland until Nov 2024. (Image: AP)

For half of America the next four years will feel like an occupation force under the Trump administration. Vulnerable darker-skinned migrants will be herded up for deportation and a brain drain will emaciate the resistance. After 20 Jan 2025, there may also be a mass exodus of national security veterans and Assistant US Attorneys (AUSAs) who opposed Trump, like Jack Smith, as well as progressive media luminaries. 

Former D/CIA Michael Hayden led the charge of 130 former Republican national security officials denouncing Donald Trump in 2020.

Too bad the US can’t set up a government-in-exile in Canada or the UK like the Dutch did in 1940, so our allies could continue dealing with trustworthy counterparts. Until these Quislings are defeated in the ballot box (mid-terms for Congress in 2026 and 2028 for President), Americans may feel like the Dutch or French did from 1940 to 1945 and our allies will be circumspect in sharing their intelligence with us.

Texas Encourages Monitoring and Reporting of Animals Affected by New World Screwworm

From the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife (TPWD):

TPWD is asking hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts in South Texas to be on the lookout for animals affected by the New World screwworm (NWS) after a recent detection in Mexico.

This detection, found in a cow at an inspection checkpoint in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas near the Guatemalan border, follows the progressive northward movement of the NWS through South and Central America.

New World screwworm favorability analysis. (image: casasglobal.org)

As a protective measure, animal health officials are asking those along the southern border of Texas to monitor wildlife, livestock and pets for clinical signs of NWS and immediately report possible cases.

New World screwworms are larvae or worms of the NWS fly (Cochliomyia hominivorax), which cause a painful condition known as NWS myiasis. NWS flies lay eggs in open wounds or living tissue holes such as nostrils, eyes, or mouth. These eggs hatch into dangerous parasitic larvae, and the worms burrow or curl into the flesh with sharp mouth hooks. Wounds can become enlarged, and an infestation can often cause serious and fatal damage or death to the infected animal.

Screwworms infestations have been confirmed in Florida. (Image: USDA APHIS)

NWS primarily infests livestock, but it can also affect humans and wildlife, including deer (deer) and birds.

The parasite was last eradicated from the US in 1966, with costly efforts by federal and state animal health officials, livestock producers, and veterinarians. Eradication efforts have continued in Central America, but the pest is considered widespread in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and countries in South America.

NWS infestations begin when a female NWS fly is attracted to the smell of a natural wound or opening on a live, warm-blooded animal, where she lays her eggs. These openings can include wounds as small as a tick bite, nasal or eye openings, a newborn’s belly button, or genitals.

A female NWS fly can lay up to 300 eggs at a time and can lay up to 3,000 eggs during her lifetime. The eggs hatch into larvae (worms) that burrow into an opening to feed. After feeding, the larvae fall to the ground, burrow into the ground, and emerge as adult NWS flies. Adult NWS flies can fly long distances, and the movement of infested cattle or wildlife can increase the rate of spread.

Sources:

https://tpwd.texas.gov/newsmedia/releases/?req=20241230a

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/cattle/ticks/screwworm

Montenegro Cracks Down On Firearms After New Year’s Massacre

The Montenegrin government has announced a raft of new gun-control measures, following a mass shooting that killed 12 people, including two children.

Relatives mourn during a commemoration service for victims of New Year’s Day mass shooting in Cetinje, Montenegro. (Photo: 4 Jan 2025, Reuters)

The proposed law will mandate the reverification of existing weapons licenses and impose severe penalties for those who fail to surrender illegal weapons within a two-month period. Hunting clubs would be verified and the authorities would establish an anonymous tip line where citizens can report illegal weapons possession for a reward.

Montenegro has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe. In the country of just over 620,000 people, there are about 245,000 firearms in use. Other estimates suggest the figure is lower. According to 2022 police data provided to RFE/RL’s Balkan Service, there are over 100,000 legally owned weapons in Montenegro, while illegal firearms are estimated to number between 40,000 and 80,000.

With one police officer per 141 inhabitants, Montenegro remarkably has the second highest number of police officers per capita in Europe (after Monaco) yet has a large organized crime presence.

Despite the large constabulary, Cetinje (the site of the massacre) had only a minimal police presence despite being home to 120 known organized crime members and having experienced a similar massacre in August 2022. Then, an attacker killed ten people and wounded six before being killed by a passerby.

Restricting firearms will not be an easy task for Podgorica with its long tradition of gun ownership. Moreover, Montenegro is ranked fifth in Europe for organized criminality by the Global Organized Crime Index.

Source:

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-new-gun-control-measures-cetinje-shooting-response/33263200.html

Pennsylvania US Army Veteran Charged With Attempting to Join Lebanese Hezbollah

Undated photo of Jack Danaher Molloy courtesy of the FBI.

Jack Danaher Molloy (24) has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Pittsburgh on charges of attempting to support the foreign terrorist organization (FTO) Lebanese Hezbollah and making false statements to an agency of the US. As alleged, Molloy —a dual citizen of the US and Ireland, who previously served on active-duty status in the US Army—traveled to Lebanon in Aug 2024 and attempted to join Hezbollah, an organization formed in the wake of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and has conducted numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli and Western targets. While in Lebanon, Molloy was told by multiple individuals that the time was not right, and that he needed to take other steps before he could join LH. Molloy then traveled from Lebanon to Syria in Oct 2024 in an effort to fight for Hezbollah in Syria. When that failed, he returned home. Met by FBI agents at the airport, Molloy lied to them about his attempts to join an FTO (18 USC 1001 violations).

The maximum sentence for the material support offense is a term of imprisonment of 20 years, a fine of $250,000, or both. Each of the false statement charges carries a maximum sentence of eight years in prison, a $250,000 fine, or both.

Jack Molloy is missing some marbles if he thought he could walk into a Lebanese Hezbollah (LH) recruitment office in the middle of a war with Israel and just sign up. After LH dismissed this “mejnun,” they probably tipped off Lebanese Army G-2 who then tipped off the LEGATT, RSO, or CIA CoS in Beirut. His Irish passport probably saved him from an “OBE” award (one behind the ear) from suspicious actors in Lebanon or Syria. FBI intervention most likely prevented an attack against Jewish or Israeli targets in the US.

Instead of getting desperately needed psychiatric care, Molloy will languish in a BOP facility for 28 to 36 years. He will probably be close to 60 when he is finally released and will not have contributed towards his social security retirement during his lengthy incarceration. He would be better off making his way to Ireland after his release, as their social safety net is superior to America’s.

An indictment and a criminal complaint are accusations. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Sources:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/pr/upper-st-clair-man-who-traveled-lebanon-and-syria-goal-joining-hizballah-indicted

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/media/1379546/dl?inline

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdpa/media/1382696/dl?inline

Russia-Appointed Officials in Crimea Declare Emergency as Oil Spill Reaches Sevastopol

(Map courtesy of Global News)

More than 86,000 tons of contaminated sand and soil have been removed along the region’s shoreline since the original spill. Up to 200,000 tons in total may have been contaminated with mazut, a heavy, low-quality oil product.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the oil spill an “ecological disaster.”

Rescuers and volunteers work to clean up tons of fuel oil that spilled out of two storm-stricken tankers more than two weeks ago in the Kerch Strait, in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. (Photo: Russian Emergency Ministry Press Service via AP)

Water pollution, the war, and fishing have been killing dolphins in the Black Sea for some time now and this spill won’t help these poor sea mammals that some ethicists correctly assert should be treated with the same rights as human beings.

Sources:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap-russia-oil-spill-88871-jpg/

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221222-how-the-war-in-ukraine-is-killing-marine-mammals

https://inf.news/en/animal/6848e299d25bc0eedde64f94646465aa.html

Rescue Dog’s Heartwarming Response to Deaf Cat