A young Palestinian injured in an IDF air strike is transferred to a Kuwait Hospital on 9 Jan 2024 in Rafah, Gaza [Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images]
International lawyer Lara Elborno says statements publicly made by Israeli officials about Palestinians in Gaza are “essential in establishing the element of genocidal intent” in the case before the International Court of Justice.
“When we hear these Israeli leaders refer to Palestinians as human animals, that there are no uninvolved civilians, that the children of Gaza brought this upon themselves, we can understand that this is a technique being used to justify the industrial-scale slaughter of Palestinians,” Elborno told Al Jazeera.
International attorney Ms. Lara Elborno (R) talking with Mr. George Galloway (L). Undated photo.
The Palestinian-American lawyer said regardless of what Israeli officials say, “we already know that this is a genocide”.
“We have seen it play out every single day for the last year,” she said, adding that Palestinians “have been undergoing this process of dehumanization for the last 76 years.”
Meanwhile, the IDF continues pounding Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, killing 77 Palestinians. And Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid pushed for strikes on Iran’s energy facilities. He said the US does not want oil and natural gas prices to rise before the presidential election, so Washington is against an attack on Iran’s oil facilities. Completely insouciant and ignoring the fact that Pres. Biden and the US taxpayer sends billions of dollars to Israel every year, Lapid said:
“But that doesn’t change the fact that Israel has its own interests and perspectives. Immediate retaliation against Iran’s economic infrastructure is crucial after two separate Iranian [counter] attacks.”
Democrats are beginning to vocalize their suspicions that the right-wing Likud regime of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu prefers a right-wing Republican Donald Trump presidencythis November.
A wounded Palestinian child receives treatment at Al-Avde Hospital in Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza [Moiz Salhi/Anadolu]
Once Russia’s Best-Known Activist, Ildar Dadin Killed Fighting for Ukraine
The late Russian opposition activist Ildar Dadin. Ildar Dadin was a “peaceful opposition activist” and used the call sign “Gandhi.” Dadin attended rallies in support of the LGBT community (and he was not LGBT himself) Photo: RFE/RL
Once one of Russia’s most prominent rights activists and a vocal Kremlin critic, Ildar Dadin has been killed in action with Ukrainian forces during a battle in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
The news of Dadin’s death was confirmed by the Freedom of Russia Legion.
Initially, Dadin was reported to be fighting with the Siberian Battalion, which consists of anti-Putin Russians. Dadin transferred to the Free Russia Legion in Dec 2022.
Dadin rose to prominence in Russia as the first person convicted under a law that penalized repeated violations of rally regulations. In March 2016, he was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison on this charge, and the law became widely known as the “Dadin law.”
A year later, Dadin spoke out about the torture he endured while imprisoned in Russia’s northwestern Karelia region. His conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court in Feb 2017, and he was subsequently granted 2.2 million rubles ($23,113) in compensation for illegal prosecution.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in late Feb 2022, Dadin fled Russia for Poland in March of that year, aiming to join Ukraine’s defense. He spent nearly a year in Poland preparing the necessary documents to enlist in a Ukrainian volunteer battalion made up of Russian opposition fighters.
In June 2023, Dadin joined the Siberian Battalion which he viewed as one of the few viable ways for him to fight against Putin on Ukraine’s side.
American Warzone: MAGA Militant Pleads No Contest in Shooting of Native American Activist in New Mexico
Trump supporter Ryan David Martinez firing weapon after his red MAGA hat fell off. He drove 100 miles to this event on Thursday 28 Sep 2023. The man scrambling at lower left was luckily not hit with any rounds. (Photo: Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal via AP)
Ryan David Martinez pleaded no contest Monday to reduced charges of aggravated battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the shooting of a Native American activist during demonstrations about abandoned plans to reinstall a statue of a Spanish conquistador.
Ryan David Martinez scuttled his scheduled trial for attempted murder and concluded a plea arrangement. He accepted a combined 9 1/2-year sentence but ultimately would serve four years in prison with two years’ parole if he complies with terms including restitution. He was would have faced 15 years in prison if convicted.
Mariel Nanasi, a lawyer representing Johns, called the shooting “a racially motivated hate crime by a MAGA-proud gun-toting crazed man who came to a peaceful prayer ceremony with a fully loaded live gun.”
Martinez was at the protest wearing a red cap with the Donald Trump slogan “Make America Great Again.”
Native American climate activist and artist Jacob Johns (R) drums with members of the Santa Clara Pueblo tribe of New Mexico in Santa Fe, 11 Jul 2024. He survived the 26 Sep 2023 assassination attempt. “The lifelong scars and injuries, loss of an internal organ, mental anguish and trauma will be with me forever — and in a couple of years Martinez will live free,” Johns said.
In an average year, 507 people die and 821 are wounded by guns in New Mexico. New Mexico has the 9th-highest rate of gun violence in the US. The Cactus State has the 5th-highest societal cost of gun violence in the US at $3,133 per resident each year. Gun deaths and injuries cost New Mexico $6.6 billion each year, of which $141.8 million is paid by taxpayers.
Father and Son MAGA Militants Found Guilty of Charges for Actions on 6 Jan 2021
You can see the stolen riot shield on the right.
Toney Sheldon Bray (46) and his son Ethan Bray (25), both of Blue Springs, MS, were found guilty of felony and misdemeanor charges for their riotous conduct during the 6 Jan 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Judge Contreras will sentence the two men on 7 Feb 2025.
The father and son team dressed in military-style gear, including tactical helmets, vests, and goggles, and were part of the initial breach of police barricades on 6 Jan 2021. Specifically, Ethan and Tony Bray pushed and climbed over the police barriers. The Brays were among the first to confront law enforcement and wore gas masks. The rioters engaged in a concerted push against police, and were rebuffed when police used OC spray to repel them. Toney Bray stole a captured US Capitol Police riot shield. The FBI arrested the two men on 8 June 2023.
Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
This father and his son threw their lives away in the misguided belief of white supremacy, as well as their idiotic belief in Donald Trump. In the 45 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,532 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 571 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
The Patriot Mail Project considers these 6 Jan insurrectionists as “political prisoners” and fundraises on their behalf. You wonder if Toney Bray will be smirking in prison. The FBI is aware of their activities.
INTERPOL Asks Public to Help Crack Missing Women Cases
INTERPOL has launched a campaign to identify a number of dead women. These victims are “sisters, mothers, aunties. Just because they don’t have names, don’t assume they’re not people,” said a relative.
INTERPOL is trying to solve 46 cold cases aimed at finding the names of unidentified murdered women. Most of the victims are thought to have been aged between 15 and 30.
“We want to identify the deceased women, bring answers to families, and deliver justice to the victims,” said Jürgen Stock, Secretary-General of INTERPOL.
“Whether it is a memory, a tip, or a shared story, the smallest detail could help uncover the truth.”
This phase of the Operation Identify Me campaign includes cases in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and Spain.
Details of each one have been published on Interpol’s website, along with photographs of possible identifying items and facial reconstructions. Most of the victims are thought to have been aged between 15 and 30.
INTERPOL released sketches of women they are hoping to identify as part of the campaign.
Rita Roberts was successfully identified thanks to the campaign last year.
Thailand’s Department of Disease Control (DDC) has alerted the public to be wary of uncooked pork following 12 deaths linked to Streptococcus suis in four provinces in the lower northeastern region.
The DDC reported that 149 cases of hearing loss were caused by the bacterium in four surveillance areas (Nakhon Ratchasima, Buri Ram, Surin, and Chaiyaphum) this year.
89 people were afflicted in Nakhon Ratchaisima, including six deaths, followed by Chaiyaphum with 31 cases and four fatalities, Surin with 16 cases and one death, and Buri Ram with 13 cases and one death. The majority of the reported cases involved elderly individuals aged 65 and older.
Streptococcus suis is a peanut-shaped bacterium that is normally found in the upper respiratory tract, particularly the tonsils and nasal cavity, and the alimentary and genital tracts of swine. Humans can contract the bacterium through the consumption or exposure to raw pork, pigs’ blood and internal organs. It can also enter through an open wound, scratch, or eye conjunctiva.
Normally, infection by the bacteria manifests as a fever with hearing loss following 14 days later. Patients suffer a high fever, severe headache, dizziness, vomiting and neck stiffness, and permanent hearing loss.
The DDC recommends people only buy pork from a reliable source and consume meat, internal organs and blood that has been cooked at 60–70 degrees Celsius for more than 10 minutes, using separate utensils for cooked and raw pork, and not to use bare hands when handling meats.
New Planetary Defense Mission Heads to Double Asteroid System
The European Space Agency’s Hera spacecraft is seen here in this artist’s impression. The Hera spacecraft is roughly 1.6 meters across, with solar arrays that stretch 11.5 meters once they’re fully deployed. Hitching a ride are two CubeSats, small spacecraft used due to their size and low-cost.(ESA-Science Office)
The European Space Agency’s Hera mission is a two-year-long voyage beyond the orbit of Mars. This follows up on NASA’s successful Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, which impacted the asteroid Dimorphos in Sep 2022.
The goal of that mission was to demonstrate the ability to change the orbit of an asteroid. Dimorphos is the smaller of a two-asteroid system, or binary, with Didymos being the largest.
Before the DART mission, Dimorphos orbited Didymos once every 11 hours and 55 minutes. After the impact, that orbit was shortened by 33 minutes, and a plume of debris spread more than 10,000 km into space, lasting for months.
The NASA spacecraft slammed into Dimorphos two years ago:
NASA’s DART spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos — 11.3 million kms away from Earth — to alter its orbit and test whether objects that threaten Earth can be redirected.
Illustration courtesy of earth.com.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 60 million years ago left behind a crater so massive that it measures over 115 miles in width.
Tiny Kittens Saved from Hurricane Helene Follow Everyone Around, Thinking They are Part Dog
A tuxedo and a tabby ended up at the Humane Society in Tampa, FL desperately needing a foster home. Weighing around 12 ounces, they were starved of both food and love.
Allison, a foster volunteer, offered to help and gave the pair a cozy place to settle in. They were believed to have been “found as orphans and brought in by Good Samaritans as a result of the storm (Helene).”
“The first day, they were really struggling from feeling so hungry. Since then, they have been very brave and friendly.” Our gratitude to Allison for her TLC and the photos.
Hadley (L)and Ernie (R). Note Ernie has six-toes, the type of cat favored by Ernest Hemingway.
The gentle dogs don’t mind the kittens nursing on them despite not having any milk to offer. They happily watch over them, letting them pounce on their tails and wrestle with their floppy ears.
With all of the terrible storms wracking the American south, including the imminent landfall of Milton, there will be more orphaned or separated cats and dogs needing TLC and forever homes.
Displaced Palestinian child sitting in a tent at a camp in the city of Rafah, Gaza, Mar 2023. The NYT reported the IDF onslaught created 19,000 orphans. (Photo: AFP)
One year ago, Israel launched one of the deadliest and most destructive bombing campaigns in modern history in the Gaza Strip.
The reprisals came just hours after armed Palestinian groups carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel. The multipronged attack on Israel from Gaza killed 1,139 people, including 685 Israeli civilians and 71 foreigners. At the time of this surprise attack, the Israeli government was holding 7,000 Palestinian Gazans in “administrative detention” without trial or hearing. As a bargaining chip to free some of the detainees, Palestinian guerillas took 251 Israelis hostages with them. In Nov 2023, the first prisoner exchange took place.
Since then, 117 Israelis have been released, rescued, or freed. 101 hostages are still believed to be in Gaza and 35 are believed to be dead. Some were inadvertently killed in Israeli strikes.
Israel’s goal of destroying resistance in Gaza has taken a huge toll on civilians and infrastructure in the Palestinian enclave, one of most densely populated areas in the world. 24,955 Palestinian adults and 16,500 children were killed; 95,878 wounded, and 10,000 people are missing, presumably still buried under the rubble of residential buildings in Gaza. At least one-quarter of those wounded face life-changing injuries, with many requiring amputations and major rehabilitation, said WHO.
UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said in April that “every 10 minutes, a child is killed or wounded” in Gaza. Children, he said, are “disproportionately paying the ultimate price in this war.”
Israel reports 648 IDF and police personnel were killed and 1,902 injured in the offensive.
Israeli Likud Cabinet Minister Avi Dichter had called for “Nakba 2023” against the Palestinians and the IDF has certainly delivered. And to the east, over 700 Palestinians, including 150 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank; 5,700 have been injured.
Israeli forces have been accused of unlawfully using lethal force against Palestinians, including deliberately executing Palestinians who posed no apparent security threat. Foreign aid workers, UN employees, journalists, and international volunteers have also been killed. According to the UN, more than 250 aid workers lost their lives.
At least 116 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). At least five reporters were directly targeted by Israeli forces in what the NY-based media watchdog classified as “murders”.
Human Rights Watch reported in Dec 2023, Israel has used the starvation of Palestinian civilians as a weapon of warfare in the Gaza Strip, which is a war crime. The UN estimates over 85% of Gazans (+1.9 million people), were internally displaced in the enclave by the end of 2023.
Amnesty International has documented cases of IDF soldiers torturing Palestinian detainees, including “severe beatings” and “humiliation.” The human rights group said that such torture had been occurring “for decades” before the surprise attack on 7 Oct 2023.
The UN reports that Israel has destroyed over half of all the structures in Gaza Strip, another 360,000 residential units have been damaged. Satellite imagery shows that at least 53 schools have been destroyed since Oct 2023, the world body said.
Protesters march towards Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence in Jerusalem to mark one year since the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack by Palestinian armed groups to seize captives for a prisoner swap. (Photo: 7 Oct 2024/ Reuters).
The International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague indicted Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes, but the international arrest warrant has inexplicably not yet been issued. You may read the specific charges at the link below. Now the IDF is conducting a “limited ground offensive” into Lebanon. Russian President Vladimir Putin, similarly indicted for war crimes by the ICC, described the invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation.” Putin’s international arrest warrant has been issued and it is incumbent for any signatory to the ICC treaty to arrest him. Mongolia already ignored their obligation when Putin came and left for a state visit last month.
Chinese hackers accessed the networks of US broadband providers and obtained information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping.
Verizon Communications, AT&T, and Lumen Technologies are among the telecoms companies whose networks were breached by the recently discovered intrusion.
The hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized US requests for communications data. The hackers had also accessed other tranches of internet traffic.
China’s foreign ministry responded that it was not aware of the attack but said the US had “concocted a false narrative” to “frame” China in the past.
Beijing has previously denied claims by the US government and others that it has used hackers to break into foreign computer systems. The attack was carried out by a Chinese hacking group with the aim of collecting intelligence. US investigators have dubbed it “Salt Typhoon.”
Earlier this year, US law enforcement disrupted a major Chinese hacking group nicknamed “Flax Typhoon,” months after confronting Beijing about sweeping cyber espionage under a campaign named “Volt Typhoon.”
China’s foreign ministry that Beijing’s cybersecurity agencies had found and published evidence to show Volt Typhoon was staged by “an international ransomware organization.”
Beijing and its internal proxies will continue their relentless campaign of cyber-espionage, hacking, and intelligence collection against Western targets. China has the budget, resources, will, and manpower for this mission as they wish to replace the US as the number one military and economic superpower in the world. Stealing technology is cheaper than years of research and development (R&D) is one method of catching up with the US and Europe. The “thousand grains of sand” approach allows Beijing’s analysts to construct an intelligence mosaic of the enemy. This particular breach may harm US counterintelligence efforts against China’s spies since Beijing will see who the USG is investigating through the names and telephone numbers associated with the FISA warrants (AKA “wiretaps”).
Canadian World War II Pistols Slated for Destruction Will Be Donated to Ukraine
The Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol has a 13-round magazine capacity and is one of the most widely used military pistols in history. The Hi-Power has armed the militaries or security services of over 50 countries.
Second World War-era handguns that had been earmarked for destruction by the Canadian Armed Forces will instead be sent to Ukraine starting in December. The original plan was to destroy 11,000 of the Browning Hi-Power pistols. But now 10,500 of the 9-mm pistols will be shipped to Ukraine.
Delivery of the handguns is expected to start in December.
The Canadian Forces pulled the Browning Hi-Powers from service after receiving new modern handguns. It was having trouble keeping the Second World War pistols in service because of a lack of parts and concerns they were no longer functioning properly.
Since Feb 2022, Canada has committed more than $19.5 billion in total assistance to Ukraine, including $4.5 billion in military equipment. This includes Leopard II main battle tanks, armored combat support vehicles, anti-tank weapons, small arms, M777 howitzers, and associated ammunition as well as high-resolution drones.
In response to a specific request from Ukraine, Canada was donating decommissioned chassis from 29 M113s and 64 Coyote light armored vehicles. These surplus vehicles will be repurposed or used for spare parts by Ukraine.
Ottawa will also donate and transport 80,840 additional CRV-7 rocket motors and 1,300 warheads to Ukraine. This follows Canada’s initial delivery of 2,160 CRV-7 rocket motors.
Canada donated an unspecified number of Teledyne SkyRanger drones to Ukraine. Canadian military personnel are not involved in that training which is being conducted by Teledyne employees.
The SkyRanger is a next-generation, small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS)
The Browning Hi-Power pistol is a capable weapon that the Ukrainian security services will put to excellent use. The SkyRanger is reported to be a multi-functional, durable drone that Kiev will be able to employ for a myriad of missions from civil defense to sophisticated stealthy offensive operations. The Ukrainian government is no doubt grateful for all of these donations.
TwoIndiana Men Plead Guilty to Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan Attack on Capitol
Donald Lee Moss (62) of Elizabethtown, IN and James Link Behymer (61) of Hope, IN, each pleaded guilty to one count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers during the 6 Jan 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
During the “Stop the Steal” rally on 6 Jan 2021 outside the US Capitol, a group of Metropolitan Police (MPD) officers in riot gear became surrounded by angry and violent rioters who began shouting obscenities and curses at them. Behymer and Moss ignored commands to step back. Shouting “USA! USA! USA!”, “This is our f— house!”, the two defendants assaulted the police officers. When a rioter shouted: “Y’all surrounded,” Behymer grabbed an officer’s baton while the officer attempted to keep Behymer away. Behymer re-engaged with another officer, attempting to steal his baton.
After the assault, Behymer and Moss entered the US Capitol building and encouraged other members of the mob to enter. He is seen leading rioters in the top photo. The FBI arrested the two miscreants on 6 Mar 2024.
The Honorable Judge Tanya S. Chutkan will sentence these two morons on 13 Feb 2025. Of the approximately 30 defendants who have come before her, she has sentenced every one of them to at least some prison time. Judge Chutkan is overseeing Donald Trump’s election conspiracy trial.
No doubt the Honorable Judge Chutkan will recommend FCI Terre Haute, IN for their incarceration.
In the 44 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,504 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 560 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
This is a fine time for two men in their early sixties to get “jammed up” by Federal agents for believing Donald Trump’s idiotic lies about a stolen election. Their white supremacist attitudes have undone them. At least they will most likely be incarcerated close to their families in Indiana.
FDA Recalls Eggs That ‘Will Cause Serious Adverse Health Consequences or Death’
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled eggs that it said “will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.” These products, sold in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois, have been linked to a salmonella outbreak.
The FDA told people not to eat, sell or serve recalled chicken eggs from Milo’s Poultry Farms and Tony’s Fresh Market.
The FDA issued the first recall on 6 Sep but has upgraded the recall to Class I, a product that “will cause serious adverse health consequences or death.”
The recall covers all expiration dates for the following eggs:
All carton sizes and all egg types labeled with “Milo’s Poultry Farms”andall carton sizes of “Tony’s Fresh Market” branded eggs.
Across nine states, 65 people were sickened from the same strain of Salmonella, 24 people were hospitalized and no deaths have been reported.
“This outbreak may be difficult to treat with some commonly recommended antibiotics and may require a different antibiotic choice for people who need them,” said the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
FDA said symptoms could occur 12 to 72 hours after eating food that is contaminated with Salmonella, and the symptoms usually last four to seven days. Symptoms could include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps.
Over 180 People on Royal Caribbean Cruise Sick After Salmonella Outbreak
The Radiance of the Seas is manned by 894 crewmembers.
Over 180 passengers aboard a Royal Caribbean Cruise got sick after a salmonella outbreak. The cruise ship was traveling from Vancouver to Alaska between 20 Sep and 27 Sep.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that 180 of the 2,172 passengers and three of the 894 crew members on the cruise ship, Radiance of the Seas, were affected by the illness.
Passengers and crew members symptoms included diarrhea, abdominal cramps, headache, and muscle aches.
CDC reported the Royal Caribbean Cruise ship took these actions:
Made announcements to notify onboard passengers and crew of the outbreak, encouraged case reporting, and encouraged good hand hygiene.
Collected stool specimens from gastrointestinal illness cases for testing.
Increased cleaning and disinfection procedures according to their outbreak prevention and response plan.
New Zealand Navy Ship Manawanui Sinks Off Coast of Samoa
HMNZS Manawanui, which sunk after becoming grounded on a reef in Samoa (Photo Christopher Weissenborn / AP)
A Royal New Zealand Navy vessel has run aground and sunk off Samoa – the first time the navy has lost a ship since the second world war.
Manawanui, the navy’s specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, ran aground near the southern coast of Upolu as it was conducting a reef survey last Saturday. All 75 crew and passengers were safe.
An oil spill was “highly probable” as a result of the sinking. Several vessels responded and assisted in rescuing the crew and passengers who had left the ship in lifeboats. The cause of the grounding was unknown and under investigation.
Video and photos published on local media showed the Manawanui, which cost the New Zealand government NZ$103m in 2018, listing heavily and with plumes of thick grey smoke rising after it ran aground. The vessel later capsized and was below the surface by 9am local time.
The Manawanui was used to conduct a range of specialist diving, salvage, and survey tasks around New Zealand and across the south-west Pacific.New Zealand’s navy is already working at reduced capacity with three of its nine ships idle due to personnel shortages.
This is a quadruple blow as cases like this are career-ending in most naval services. This incident also caused an oil spill, further threatening the coral reefs the ship was sent to survey. Besides costing the New Zealand taxpayer $NZ103 million dollars, this accident also further reduces their naval readiness.
North Korean Defector Crashes Stolen Bus in Failed Bid to Return Home
Military sentry posts of North Korea, rear, and South Korea, front, are seen in Paju, near the border with North Korea. Photograph: Ahn Young-joon/AP
A North Korean defector living in South Korea has been detained after ramming a stolen bus into a barricade on a bridge near the heavily militarized border, in a failed attempt to return to his isolated homeland.
The man – who fled to the South in 2011 – ignored warnings from soldiers to stop while attempting on Tuesday to drive through the Tongil Bridge in Paju, just south of the heavily fortified demilitarized zone (DMZ).
“He lives under difficult economic conditions as a construction worker and misses his family still in the North,” an investigator told Agence France-Presse, explaining the man’s reasons for the attempted crossing. The police are considering charging the suspect, who is in his 30s, with theft and violating national security laws.
More than 34,000 North Koreans have defected to the South since the 1950-53 Korean war, mostly after arduous, sometimes life-threatening journeys, usually via China, to escape poverty and oppression at home. But this defector didn’t realize that he would have been severely punished by the Kim Jong-Un regime for defecting in the first place. He would have made a public apology and announcement about how terrible life is in South Korea before being whisked away by security personnel.
Tiny Kitten Seen on the Road Begging to Be Rescued Ends Up Having All Her Wishes Come True
A few months ago, a Good Samaritan spotted a tiny kitten crawling on the side of the road and stopped. The kitten cried out and inched towards the person. “She was lucky someone saw her and jumped to save her,” said Ellen Carozza LVT, VTS (CP-Feline). “Right from the beginning, she was the sweetest kitten who wanted to be rescued.”
A local animal rescue, To The ResQ, took her in and gave her immediate medical care but realized the kitten would need additional help. They contacted Ellen, whose Chris Griffey Memorial Feline Foundation (CGMFF) is dedicated to saving the most critical kittens.
Poppy was found on the side of the road emaciated, covered in ticks, and suffering with broken legs. Photo: Ellen Carozza
Poppy was given a thorough bath and fresh splints for her front legs. Photo: Ellen Carozza
Healing well, Poppy (R) enjoyed playtime with another kitten. Photo: Ellen Carozza
Fast forward to today. Poppy was adopted by a loving family and has a new home: A dream come true.
Gaza’s Government Media Office accused Israeli forces of committing “two brutal massacres” overnight by bombing a mosque and a school-turned-shelter and killing at least 24 Palestinians. Some 93 others were wounded in the attacks in central Gaza.
The targeted buildings were identified as the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Ibn Rushd School. Both were housing hundreds of displaced people.
The bombings followed 27 Israeli attacks on 27 homes and displacement centres across the Gaza Strip in the past 48 hours.
Almost 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the war. Half of the dead are women and children. Almost 90% of Gaza’s residents are now displaced, amid widespread destruction.
This weekend tens of thousands of people all over the world protested against the Likud-run government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague for war crimes. Time and space permits only a sampling of the outrage. The Israeli government and its supporters will disparage these thousands and thousands of demonstrators as “Hamas lovers,” “antisemites,” “useful idiots of Iran,” “terrorism supporters,” et cetera et cetera, but rational people know the reality, despite the unfounded accusations, aspersions, rhetoric, and hate speech emanating from Jerusalem and the repetitive, nauseating, droning talking points we’re forced to hear or read in the West.
Police put out a fire after a self-proclaimed journalist self immolated during a pro-Palestinian rally outside the White House in Washington on 5 Oct [Seth Herald / Reuters]
Protesters march during a pro-Palestine rally in Melbourne, Australia on Sunday 6 Oct. (Photo: AAP)
Berlin, Germany [Christian Mang/ Reuters]
Madrid, Spain [Ana Beltran / Reuters]
Copenhagen, Denmark [Ritzau Scanpix / Thomas Traasdahl via Reuters]
Jakarta, Indonesia [Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana/ Reuters]
Copyright Michel Euler/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.
A protester waves a flag reading ‘Death to NATO fascists!’ during a pro-Palestinian gathering in Belgrade, 5 Oct 2024 Darko Vojinovic/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.
President Biden has only a few months left in the White House while his legacy is being effectively corroded by war-monger Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, despite President Biden’s brilliant handling of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Biden Administration deployed a stellar cast in Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director William Burns to negotiate for a ceasefire and release the hostages, but they were thwarted by Netanyahu. Many Democrats openly suspect that Netanyahu is interfering with the US election by refusing to “seal a deal” or reach a ceasefire to make President Biden look ineffective and thereby help Donald Trump against Kamala Harris this November. Many Arab-Americans have already decided to support Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein, which could siphon off Democratic votes in Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Israeli Settlers Seizing Occupied West Bank Land Under Cover of War; 623 Palestinians Killed Over Past Two Years
Palestinian Alice Kisiya (R), whose family land was taken over by armed Israeli settlers, confronts a settler in the area of al-Makhrour in the occupied West Bank, near Beit Jala, on 22 Aug 2024 (AFP/Hazem Bader)
Over the past year, while much of the world’s attention has been focused on the war on Gaza, several residents of Umm Safa – a picturesque village just 12km north of Ramallah – have been driven from their homes by armed settlers, often aided by the Israeli army.
Settler violence is not a new phenomenon in the occupied West Bank, where large swathes of territory are under Israeli civil and military control. But since the war on Gaza erupted, land seizures and violent attacks aimed at forcing Palestinians to abandon their homes have spiked. The attacks have coincided with sweeping movement restrictions that have seen Palestinians denied access to cities, towns, and villages.
Omar Hamed (17, L) and Jihad Abu Alia (25, R) were killed by Israeli settlers. (Source: BBC News)
In recent months, the settlers – emboldened by the election of far-right leaders of the settlement movement – began levelling the al-Shami and Ras mountains near Umm Safa, with the aim of turning the area into a settlement outpost.
Residents said that when they approached Israeli authorities for help, they were rebuffed and told to return with documents proving their legal ownership of the lands.
After an extensive search, they presented documents dating back hundreds of years to the Ottoman era, showing that they were, in fact, the legal owners.
Hussein Khasib lives in constant fear, knowing he and his family could be next.
“We went to the Israeli civil administration, hoping it would prevent the settlers from seizing our lands. In the end, they [the Israeli officials] told us that the lands were state property and we couldn’t use them,” Khasib reported.
‘The terrorism carried out by settler militias is why many Bedouin communities left,’ said Hassan Malihat, Director of the al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights
You can easily see the difference from this dated map comparing the West Bank population in 1967 to 2017. The situation for Palestinians have since worsened.
In 1995, the Oslo Agreement divided the West Bank into three zones known as Areas A, B, and C.
Area C, which comprises around 60 percent of the West Bank, was meant to be “gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction”. But after a failed peace process in which Israel refused to end its occupation and withdraw militarily, the area remains under full Israeli military and civil control.
Khasib said that the lands currently being levelled were just 15m away from his home. Since the settlers started their construction works, he and his brothers received notices ordering them to demolish their homes.
“Every day, we live in hell,” a distraught Khasib said.
“We don’t sleep at night because they aren’t content with just bulldozing [the land] but also attacking our homes. They want us to leave so they can take over the entire mountain.”
According to the village council in Umm Safa, Israeli settlers have sought to connect the settlements of Halamish (Neve Tzuf) and Ateret, which were established after hundreds of Palestinians were evicted from their ancestral lands. Around 600 dunams (60 hectares) of village land were also confiscated in the 1990s to build the main road leading to the settlements.
There are only 720 Palestinians left in Umm Safa, many of whom lack the land to build new homes. Meanwhile, Israel has closed the village’s eastern and western entrances, severely restricting civilian and commercial movement. The situation in Umm Safa is not new and is part of a broader push by settlers and the Israeli government to take advantage of the war in Gaza to increase pressure on Palestinian communities to flee.
Earlier this year, Israeli authorities approved the seizure of 12.7 sq km of land in the Jordan Valley, indicating it was the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Israeli settlers gather in the West Bank village of Umm Safa on 26 Sep 2024, as construction begins to level Palestinian land (Fayha Shalash / MEE)
As reported here on Coriolanus, the Biden Administration sanctioned a handful of these extremist terrorist Settlers, but clearly this minor gesture has been ineffective.
Israel Expands Bombardment of Lebanon; Thousands Flee Widening War
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched what the IDF called a “limited ground operation” into southern Lebanon. Russian President Vladimir Putin called his invasion of Ukraine a “special military operation.”
88 Countries of La Francophonie called for an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon.
People inspect the rubble of buildings levelled by Israeli strikes, which killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of Beirut’s southern suburbs, on 29 Sep 2024 (AFP). Who is going to pay to reconstruct Lebanon and its infrastructure after this carnage?
Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both alleged Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.
Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.
At least 1,400 Lebanese, including civilians, medics and Hezbollah fighters, have been killed and 1.2 million driven from their homes in less than two weeks. Israel says it aims to drive the militant group away from shared borders so displaced Israelis can return to their homes.
The fighting is the worst since Israel and Hezbollah fought a brief war in 2006. Nine Israeli soldiers have been killed in the ground clashes that Israel says have killed 440 Hezbollah fighters.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Damascus that “we are trying to reach a cease-fire in Gaza and in Lebanon.” The minister did not name the countries putting forward initiatives, saying they include regional states and some outside the Middle East.
At least six people in Lebanon were killed in more than a dozen Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday. Nearly 375,000 people have fled from Lebanon into Syria in less than two weeks.
People carry luggage as they cross into Syria by foot through a crater caused by Israeli airstrikes aiming to block Beirut-Damascus highway at the Masnaa Border Crossing, in the eastern Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, 5 Oct 2024. Hundreds continued to cross the border on foot.
“We were on the road for two days,” said Issa Hilal, one of many Syrian refugees in Lebanon who are now heading back. “The roads were very crowded … it was very difficult. We almost died getting here.”
Other displaced families now shelter alongside Beirut’s famous seaside Corniche, their wind-flapped tents just steps from luxury homes. “We don’t care if we die, but we don’t want to die at the hands of Netanyahu,” said Om Ali Mcheik.
Three hospitals in south Lebanon were forced to close after Israeli bombings struck two and the other ran out of supplies, displacing a number of doctors from the area and creating concerns around the state of the Lebanese health sector.
Marjayoun governmental hospital and the Salah Ghandour hospital in Bint Jbeil, large healthcare centres along the eastern and western sections of the Lebanese borders, announced their closure after their premises were struck, killing seven and wounding 14 healthcare workers.
“The main hospital of the entrance was targeted as paramedics were approaching. Seven were killed, five were wounded. We considered this a message, so we decided to close,” said Dr Mones Kalakish, the director of Marjayoun governmental hospital. He added that because of the frequent targeting of paramedics in south Lebanon, wounded people had not been able to reach the hospital for the past three days.
“There was no warning to the hospital before they struck. The warning didn’t come over the telephone, it came via bombing,” Kalakish said.
Mays al-Jabal governmental hospital, 700 meters from the Israel-Lebanon border, said hospital staff could no longer perform their role due to a cutoff of supplies.
“Medical supplies, diesel, electricity, none of it was available. Unifil was bringing us water, and now they are unable to move. How can a hospital operate without water?” said Dr Halim Saad, the director of Mays al-Jabal hospital’s medical services.
More than 50 healthcare workers have been killed since 23 Sep, when Israel started an intense aerial campaign in south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley. Paramedics all over the country have been killed and injured by Israeli airstrikes, including in a medical centre in central Beirut, where nine were killed in a strike on Thursday.
97 paramedics had been killed since fighting between Hezbollah and Israel started last year – a number which has grown over the past two days.
The displacement of medical workers due to Israeli bombing has created problems across the country at a time when the number of people wounded by Israeli strikes regularly exceeds 100 a day. The health system in Lebanon, and particularly in the south, is fragile after five years of economic crisis and almost a year of war.
At Rafik Hariri University Hospital in Beirut, the largest public hospital in Lebanon, officials said Israeli bombing of nearby Dahiyeh, a southern suburb, had displaced some of its staff, leaving some unable to come to work. The hospital has opened a dorm on its campus to accommodate some of its more vital staff and tried to find housing in safe areas for others.
There is a concern among hospital staff that work conditions in the Beirut hospital could become dangerous, as news of hospitals and paramedics being bombed spreads.
“A person who does not have big responsibilities, they might think to leave. I can’t blame them, they have their own security, own family, own life,” Dr Jihad Saade, the chief executive of Rafik Hariri University Hospital, said. Until now, the hospital has been operating normally.
Displacement of medical staff has primarily affected south Lebanon, where Israeli bombing is more frequent. It is unclear how many people still remain in the south, after Israel ordered people in about 70 villages to evacuate.
More than 2,000 people have been killed and more than 9,535 wounded since fighting started in Lebanon, most of them since 23 Sep.
Kiev: Russia Has Executed 93 Ukrainian POWs Since Start of Invasion
A Russia-backed rebel sniper wears a mask in Debaltseve, Ukraine. Photo: Vadim Ghirda / AP
Ukraine has documented evidence related to the execution of 93 Ukrainian prisoners of war related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
80 percent of the executions occurred this year.
On 1 Oct, the Prosecutor-General’s Office announced it had opened an investigation into what it described as the “largest mass execution” of Ukrainian prisoners of war by Russian troops since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in Feb 2022.
According to an official statement published on the office’s Telegram channel, Russian forces recently killed 16 Ukrainian “prisoners of war” near the villages of Mykolayivka and Sukhiy Yar in the Pokrovsk district of the Donetsk region.
Videos circulated on various Telegram channels appear to show Ukrainian soldiers, freshly captured by Russian troops, emerging from a forested area.
After the prisoners were lined up, Russian soldiers appear to open fire. The videos then appear to show Russian soldiers approaching those who were only wounded and shooting them again at close range with machine guns.
Under international humanitarian law, executing soldiers who have surrendered is considered a war crime.
Kiev alerted the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross over the deaths, citing violations of the Geneva Conventions, which govern the treatment of prisoners of war.
In March, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine published a report that recorded the execution of at least 32 Ukrainian prisoners of war in 12 separate cases from Dec 2023 to Feb 2024.
Vietnam-era Veterans Exposed to Nerve Agents and Hallucinogens in Secret Military Tests Seek Years of Back Benefits
Test subjects in an undated photo enter a chamber where they were exposed to chemical agents as part of military experiments at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland. (US Army photo)
Vietnam-era veterans exposed to nerve agents and hallucinogenic drugs in a classified military research program more than 50 years ago are appealing for retroactive disability benefits after a federal court ruling found their constitutional rights were violated.
Now in their 70s and early 80s, the veterans were sworn to silence and restricted from reporting the debilitating health effects from the program, which included paralysis, cancer, depression, and psychosis. They were also restricted from obtaining disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“I never knew what I was given in those tests,” said Frank Rochelle (76) of North Carolina, a former Army corporal whose service from 1968-1970 included a tour in Vietnam. “When I went to file a VA claim, I was told that the tests I took part in had never happened. The records were sealed. I had no way to prove my case.”
But a 2023 court ruling is enabling Rochelle and other service members for the first time to obtain VA disability compensation retroactive to their date of discharge. An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 veterans who participated as human test subjects in classified studies that the US Army Chemical Corps conducted at Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland are believed to be alive today.
The facility was established in 1948 primarily as a center for researching chemical warfare agents, but military equipment, protective clothing and pharmaceuticals also were tested at the facility. The Vietnam-era veterans were considered volunteers in classified studies that began in 1956. They signed consent agreements prior to participating in experiments but said later they were not informed of the risks.
About 7,000 military personnel participated in the tests until the Army disbanded the program in 1975, according to the DoD. Edgewood Arsenal now functions as the Army’s center for research, tests and development in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear defense.
The court found the secrecy agreements that the participants signed, which carried the threat of criminal penalty if violated, effectively denied them due process and disability compensation to which they were entitled.
“This decision importantly opens a pathway for all veterans who are under a secrecy agreement to pursue their claims, whether they are Edgewood Arsenal vets or not,” he said.
Rochelle’s case is pending a higher review in the U.S. Veterans Court of Appeals, which has already ordered retroactive compensation this year in three other cases involving Edgewood veterans.
Jones said though the VA states it now has a process in place for Edgewood Arsenal veterans to file to receive benefits, the agency continues to delay decisions and deny their claims.
The VA does not have figures on how many Vietnam-era veterans have submitted claims for retroactive payments related to illnesses and injuries from serving as test subjects at the Edgewood Arsenal.
In 2023, Army veteran Bob Taylor of Idaho was the first veteran to receive disability compensation retroactive to his military discharge for illnesses and injuries that he suffered after participating in the classified research project.
Taylor’s attorneys first argued in US Court of Appeals for Veterans that he was entitled to compensation back to his discharge date of 1971. Taylor, who served from 1969-1971, has been diagnosed with multiple cancers, depression, insomnia, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
He and other Edgewood veterans said they thought they had volunteered to test military equipment in the 1960s and 1970s but were directed instead to military research labs for human trials using chemical substances they received in gas chambers, by injection and other means.
Taylor was exposed to at least three highly poisonous chemical agents during the Edgewood experiments. Some of the agents were known only by numbered references with the prefix “EA” for Edgewood Arsenal.
They were EA-3580, a form of sarin gas; EA-3547, a derivative of tear gas, and scopolamine, a highly toxic chemical test as a “truth serum” but that can cause psychosis.
The service-connected illnesses and injuries of Taylor and other veterans from the experiments were not recognized by the VA until the secrecy agreements were partially lifted by the DoD in 2006.
“We were lied to about our reasons for going to Edgewood. We thought that the Army was testing equipment to better the forces,” said Rochelle, whose medical problems from his experiences at Edgewood made him “unemployable,” according to VA records. “This has been ignored for 30 to 50 years.”
An attack by the notorious Gran Grif gang in the town of Pont Sondé, Haiti, left at least 70 people dead on Thursday, after gunmen armed with automatic rifles opened fire. Among the victims were ten women and three infants.
“As the attacks unfolded, gang members reportedly set fire to at least 45 houses and 34 vehicles, forcing a number of residents to flee,” said a UN official.
The attack comes in the wider context of indiscriminate gang violence across Haiti, leading to an alarming escalation of human rights violations and large-scale internal displacement.
Over 700,000 people have been forced to flee their homes, making Haiti the country with the largest number of displacements globally due to crime-related violence. Mass displacement has led to widespread insecurity in the nation, with almost half of Haiti’s 11.9 million civilians in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The gang violence against the Haitian population has spread from the capital, Port-au-Prince, to isolated rural areas. The pervasive assaults include sexual violence, kidnapping, looting, roadblocks to intimidate and rob civilians and forced recruitment by armed gangs.
Jimmy “Barbeque” Cherizier (C) is a powerful criminal leader who leads an alliance of gangs in Port-au-Prince. A former police officer, he is openly defiant and does not wear a mask like thousands of gang members in Haiti.
Despite the growing urgency of the crisis, funding for Haiti’s humanitarian response remains critically low and the 2024 Humanitarian Response Plan asking for $674 million is currently only 39 per cent funded.
Kenyan police officer who is part of a UN-backed multinational force takes a selfie after landing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 16 July 2024. Another 200 police officers from Kenya arrived for a UN-backed mission led by the East African country to battle violent gangs that have taken over parts of the Caribbean country. (AP Photo/Odelyn Joseph)
Donald Trump Says He’d Change Name of Fort Liberty, NC Back to Fort Bragg if Elected
Fort Liberty, NC sign greets visitors to the base. This is the home of the 82nd Airborne Division (Corey Dickstein/Stars and Stripes)
Former President Donald Trump said he would change the name of Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg if he’s elected. Trump made the remarks on Friday night during a town hall in Fayetteville, NC, which is near the military installation.
“I walked in — the first question that I asked — should we change the name from Fort Liberty back to Fort Bragg? First question,” he said as the crowd cheered. “Right, so here’s what we do — we get elected, I’m doing it. I’m doing it.”
The renaming of Fort Bragg was part of a controversial three-year process to strip the names of Confederate leaders who took up arms against the US in the Civil War from Army installations. It was part of an effort initiated by top Pentagon officials in 2020.
Congress mandated the Naming Commission in a 2021 annual Pentagon policy bill, giving it the task of identifying items in the Defense Department inventory associated with the Confederacy. Among the items that the commission studied were the names of nine Army installations honoring Confederate generals, including Fort Bragg.
Then-President Trump vetoed the bill, disapproving of the effort to remove Confederate names from the military. Congress overrode the veto, making the changes law. Fort Bragg was renamed Fort Liberty in 2023. Changing the name of Fort Liberty would require congressional approval.
Instead of providing his supporters with a plan or policy on how to deal with global climate change and the hurricanes that have damaged the Carolinas, the ex-President is concerned about changing the name of a US Army base back to honor a traitorous Confederate Army General. You wonder if this brontosaurus knows the Civil War ended in 1865, the racist, slave-owning Confederacy lost, and that Americans have more pressing needs like universal health insurance, flood re-insurance programs, or logical gun control measures?
This incredible statue in Sendai, Japan, represents a bodhisattva, a person who is on the path towards bodhi (‘awakening’) or Buddhahood. At the time of its completion in 1991, it was the tallest statue in the world.
With all of the war criminals running amok creating death, destruction, and misery, some world leaders could use a bit of enlightenment or a “bodhi”.
Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) posted a video of the explosion.
Ukrainian Military Intelligence (GUR) assassinated the head of security at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant in Ukraine with a car bomb on 4 Oct. Andrei Korotky died after a homemade explosive device planted under his car detonated. Korotky was also the former head of the Moscow-installed local council of deputies in the city of Enerhodar, where the blast occurred. Ukrainian intelligence accused him of war crimes and organizing pro-Russian events during the occupation, basically a “quisling.” Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a probe into the deadly bombing.
As posted previously on Coriolanus, high-value Russian targets have been killed by IEDs hidden in their cars, most likely by Ukrainian espionage and sabotage agents.
Two Seditionists Sentenced for 6 Jan 2021 Attack on US Capitol
Allan Jennings used medical scissors to shatter glass on a Capitol door. (Photo: FBI)
Allan Jennings (57) of Hillsboro, TN, was sentenced to 12 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $3,825 in restitution and fines by the Honorable US District Judge Reggie B. Walton. Jennings previously pleaded guilty to a felony offense of civil disorder and a misdemeanor offense of destruction of government property during the 6 Jan 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
The “Stop the Steal” mob’s initial attack against law enforcement officers caused the police to withdraw. Jennings was among the first few rioters to pursue retreating police officers into the Tunnel. The police had closed the doors to keep the mob from further advance. Jennings then deployed a pair of medical scissors and shattered the door’s glass, costing $825 to repair. Jennings made his way toward the front of the advancing mob, where he put his hands on a police officer’s shield, before returning to the middle of the mob and escaping. The FBI arrested Jennings on 12 Sep 2023 in Tennessee.
Chemical irritant didn’t dissuade James Weeks from continuing his rampage outside the Tunnel. (Photo: FBI)
James Weeks (55) of Sodus, NY, was sentenced to 27 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay $2,774.00 in restitution and a $5,000 fine by the Honorable US District Judge Beryl A. Howell. Weeks previously pleaded guilty to a single felony offense of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers.
On 6 Jan, Weeks and the “Stop the Steal” mob entered the Tunnel and violently fought the police. Weeks attempted to grab a police officer, yelling “Shove it up your a—! You fat f—! I’m gonna shove that up your a—!” and “We’re gonna f— you up!” The defendant then struck an MPD officer using his hands and body. Shortly after, another rioter sprayed chemical irritant in the Tunnel, causing Weeks to exit.
Outside Weeks cheered on rioters who were vandalizing the US Capitol building. He then approached a window, waved a black can of OC spray through one of the broken panes of glass, then broke the window with a wooden stick.
The FBI arrested James Weeks on 1 Feb 2024, in Albany, NY.
In the 44 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,504 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 560 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
These two middle-aged lunatics represent America’s Fedayeen Saddam, dead-enders that think their white privilege is coming to an end and that minorities and Democrats unfairly stole the 2020 Presidential election. They heeded Donald Trump’s idiotic call to arms and are now paying the price.
Bird Flu Outbreak Kills Dozens of Tigers in Vietnam Zoos
Forty-seven tigers, three lions and a panther have died in zoos in south Vietnam due to the H5N1 bird flu virus. Photograph: Pardofelis / Alamy
Forty-seven tigers, three lions and a panther have died in zoos in south Vietnam due to the H5N1 type A bird flu virus. The deaths occurred this summer at the private My Quynh safari park in Long An province and the Vuon Xoai zoo in Dong Nai, near Ho Chi Minh City.
No zoo staff members in close contact with the animals had experienced respiratory symptoms.
A total of 385 tigers live in captivity in Vietnam. About 310 are kept at 16 privately owned farms and zoos, while the rest are in state-owned facilities.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says that since 2022, there have been increasing reports of deadly outbreaks among mammals caused by influenza viruses, including H5N1. These infections can range from mild to severe in humans, and in some cases can even be fatal. Vietnam notified the WHO about a human fatality from the virus in March.
In 2004, dozens of tigers died from bird flu or were culled at the world’s largest breeding farm in Thailand.
Tigers are on the brink of extinction. Global populations have plummeted alarmingly by 96%, for all six-remaining subspecies. Three are now extinct. A combination of poaching, illegal captivity, and habitat destruction have contributed to their dwindling numbers, and it shows no signs of slowing down. WHO, the government of Vietnam, NGOS, and all of us, must do more to save these magnificent felines.
Former UK PM Boris Johnson: “Netanyahu Bugged My Bathroom”
The pair met in 2017 when Boris Johnson was Britain’s foreign secretary. | Pool photo by Darren Staples/WPA/Getty Images
Boris Johnson claimed he found a listening device in his personal bathroom at the British Foreign Office after Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu used it.
The former prime minister alleged that his security team found bugging devices in the toilets after Netanyahu had used the facilities. The pair met in 2017 when Johnson was Britain’s foreign secretary.
The claim comes in Johnson’s memoir “Unleashed” which is released on 10 Oct. Extracts were shared with the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
“Thither Bibi repaired for a while, and it may or may not be a coincidence but I am told that later, when they were doing a regular sweep for bugs, they found a listening device in the thunderbox,” Johnson writes as he recalls a meeting.
The Telegraph pressed the ex-PM on whether he could disclose more details about what happened, although Johnson told them: “I think everything you need to know about that episode is in the book.”
POLITICO reported in 2019 that the US government believed Israel was responsible for planting cellphone surveillance devices near the White House and other sensitive locations around Washington, D.C. The devices were designed to fool cellphones into giving them their locations and identity information.
Johnson’s memoir has raised eyebrows in London even before its release.
Years ago, Lebanese Army G-2 found and dismantled an Israeli spying device disguised as a rock in southern Lebanon which took and transmitted photographs.
CIA considers Israel its No. 1 counterintelligence threat in the agency’s Near East Division, the group that oversees spying across the Middle East, according to current and former officials. Counterintelligence is the art of protecting national secrets from spies. This means the CIA believes that US national secrets are safer from other Middle Eastern governments than from Israel.
With six 900MW reactors, the Gravelines nuclear power plant on the English Channel coast is already the most powerful in Western Europe. EDF’s proposal to build two additional new generation pressurised water reactors (EPR2) of 1600 MW each is part of President Emmanuel Macron’s nuclear revival programme.
The new reactors are currently the subject of public debate. If they pass safety criteria laid down by France’s nuclear safety authority (ASN), construction would begin in 2031 and they could be on stream by 2040. While they would be built on a 11-metre-high platform, Greenpeace claims there is a significant safety risk.
“The entire power plant site could find itself – during high tides and when there is a 100-year surge – below sea level” by 2100, it warned in a report published Thursday. EDF refutes their calculations.
“The height of the platform chosen for the EPR2 reactors at Gravelines provides protection against “extreme” flooding, taking into account the effects of IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] scenarios, which are among the most penalising with regard to sea-level rise”, EDF replied.
Greenpeace argues that EDF’s calculations are outdated and do not fully account for the realities of global warming. The NGO based its projection on the IPCC’s most pessimistic scenario, which assumes that no action will be taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2100.
Nuclear power accounts for most of France’s electricity, and the Nuclear Energy Society (Sfen) defends it as a low-carbon energy source.
While Greenpeace’s report centers on Gravelines, climate change threatens other nuclear plants, with risks tied to rising temperatures and extreme weather events like storms. Also, potential conflicts could arise over access to river water needed to cool reactors. Russia is occupying the Ukrainian nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhya.
The French nuclear industry has an atrocious reputation. Leaked documents reveal that their companies maintain discreet links to Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear power corporation, despite Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. French commercial uranium mining despoiled water and vegetation in Pan-Sahel Africa, creating “grievance guerillas” amongst the Tuaregs and other angry disenfranchised locals, some who join “Al Qaida in the Maghreb” (AQIM). One company (Orano) left 20 million tons of radioactive waste in Niger.Strong desert winds carry its radon and radioactive dust which is inhaled by the surrounding population. The soil and underground water have also been contaminated. The 100,000 people living in the area have no alternative but to keep on drinking that water.
Ireland: Beef to China and South Korea Stopped After Atypical BSE Case
This poor cow is suffering from BSE. (Undated public domain image)
Ireland temporarily halted shipments of beef products to China and South Korea after an atypical case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was discovered in a cow. After a fallen animal was tested in mid-September, authorities in China and South Korea were informed and exports of beef halted, in line with the agreements in place with both countries. The animal did not enter the food or feed chain and there were no public health risks associated with this occurrence.
Atypical BSE is a rare spontaneous event which may occur in any bovine population and not related to feed contamination. Coincidentally at the same time, a delegation of veterinary officials from the Irish Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine was travelling to China, and used that opportunity to reassure authorities there of Ireland’s control measures for BSE.
Atypical BSE occurs sporadically in all cattle populations at a very low rate and is not considered a public health risk, unlike classical BSE, or mad-cow disease, which arises from contaminated animal feed.
Most recently, exports of beef products to China were halted between Nov 2023 and Jan 2024 for this reason. Prior to that, exports to China were also halted for a particularly extended period of time, from May 2020 to Jan 2023, almost three years.
In 2019 – the only full year in which Ireland had uninterrupted access to the Chines market for frozen boneless beef – Irish processors sent around €40 million worth of exports to the Asian country.
Market access for Irish beef to South Korea was secured in May 2024.
Five Chinese Nationals Charged with Covering Up Midnight Visit to Michigan Military Site
The FBI has charged five Chinese nationals who studied at the University of Michigan with espionage related charges. The five individuals are accused of taking photos of military equipment at Camp Grayling, MI in Aug 2023. While the students were taking photos, the Michigan Army National Guard was hosting training for the Taiwanese military.
The FBI noted that there have been other instances of college students from China taking photos of vital defense sites in the US. The FBI said all five men graduated last spring from the University of Michigan. They were part of a joint program between the university and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China. The five remain at large.
In 2020, two Chinese nationals who were pursuing master’s degrees at the University of Michigan were sentenced to prison for illegally photographing sites at a naval air station in Key West, FL.
China and Russia remain serious foreign intelligence threats to the US, and as noted above, Israel poses the greatest counterintelligence threat to the USIC. The five students here are part of the “thousand grains of sand” strategy, where every little bit of data is obtained for thousands of analysts in China to create an intelligence mosaic. Chinese intelligence, the MSS, has the manpower and budget for this type of collection.
Aerial view of Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center in Grayling, MI, 19 July 2014. (AP Photo/John L. Russell)
Kitten Turns Corner Just 24 Hours After Moving from Shelter into Comfy Home
Watch this orphan kitten evolve from frightened, scrawny rescue animal to “I’m-the-queen-of-the-castle,” thanks to Best Friends Animal Society in Los Angeles, CA. All photos of Apple taken by Frankie.
Nervous, Apple had flea dirt on her which was gently brushed off.
After being cleaned up, Apple wrapped up in a blanket and finally purred.
After eating and resting peacefully, Apple woke up refreshed with renewed energy.
Now when Apple gets tired from eating, playing, and romping, she purrs herself to sleep.
The Ukrainian military has confirmed that it is pulling out of the strategic city of Vuhledar as Moscow continues its grinding offensive. Vuhledar, a deserted former mining town with a prewar population of some 14,000, has been at the center of ferocious battles since the start of Russia’s unprovoked invasion in Feb 2022. Russian Telegram channels posted videos of troops waving the Russian flag over shattered buildings.
Russian forces used repeated attacks on the flanks of Vuhledar to exhaust the Ukrainian defenses, threatening to surround the hilltop city. Although razed, this location is strategically important for Russia to protect its supply routes. Vuhledar could also act as a springboard toward Pokrovsk, a communications hub some 80 km to the north that Moscow has been eying for months.
Moscow’s troops, overwhelmingly superior in numbers and equipment, have been slowly advancing in eastern Ukraine despite huge losses, as Ukraine has been desperately appealing to its Western allies to provide it with more advanced weapons and give it permission to strike military objectives deeper inside Russia.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s critically important Danube port of Izmayil was again targeted by waves of Russian drone strikes that raised the alarm in neighboring NATO member Romania. Izmayil, on the border with Romania, is Kiev’s only gateway to exporting its grain and other produce. Two people, including a Turkish citizen, were wounded in the attack.
Vladimir Putin is waging war against grain and global food security to disrupt the Western and Ukrainian economies. As previously reported on Coriolanus, the Kremlin recently ordered jets to attack a cargo ship carrying Ukrainian grain in the Black Sea to Egypt.
Azerbaijani Opposition Figure Brutally Murdered in France
Vidadi Isgandarli (undated web screenshot).
Vidadi Isgandarli, an Azerbaijani opposition figure in exile well-known for his fierce criticism of the government, has died in France after being brutally beaten and stabbed in an attack at his apartment that his family says was politically motivated.
The deadly attack on Isgandarli follows a similar pattern of violence against Azerbaijani opposition figures in exile; in 2021, another politician in exile, Mohammad Mirzali, survived being stabbed.
“My brother had no idea who the attackers were or what motivated the assault…. They did not speak, and they wore masks, making it impossible to identify them,” said Oktay Isgandarl.
“I have no doubt this is a politically motivated assassination. My brother survived a previous attack by approximately 15 assailants in 2022 here in France.”
Oktay Isgandarli said he received a desperate video call from his brother early on 29 Sep as he clutched a pillow to his abdomen to try and staunch the bleeding after being attacked by three masked men who had broken into his apartment in Mulhouse in eastern France.
Vidadi Isgandarli was stabbed at least 21 times in the abdomen as well as blows to the body and head.
Medics managed to resuscitate him, but he never regained consciousness and succumbed to his injuries on 1 Oct.
Vidadi Isgandarli was known as a vocal critic of the Azerbaijani government and President Ilham Aliyev, who has maintained a tight grip on power since 2003. Azerbaijani Supremo Ilham Aliyev gestures as he addresses the nation in Baku, Azerbaijan, 20 Oct 2020. Israel supplied Azerbaijan with nearly 70% of its arsenal between 2016 and 2020 — giving Azerbaijan an edge against Armenia and boosting Israel’s large defense industry.Aliev has also been deepening ties with Vladimir Putin.(AP Photo)
In 2010, Vidadi Isgandarli participated in parliamentary elections, which he denounced as fraudulent after opposition candidates failed to get elected. He then helped organize protests against the official election results.
Arrested in 2011 and charged with various offenses, including assault and interference with election officials, Vidadi denied the allegations, claiming they were politically motivated.
He was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison but was released early in Dec 2012 in a presidential amnesty. Fearing further persecution, Vidadi, his brother, and their families emigrated to France in 2015.
With Azerbaijan set to host the climate conference COP29 in November, right groups have said it is imperative that the event is used also to shine a spotlight on the country and the deteriorating human rights situation there.
Amnesty International and other human rights groups had documented the “widespread abuse” by the Azerbaijani authorities of the criminal justice system to crack down on human rights including the right to freedom of expression, often “detaining and falsely charging their critics with economic crimes.”
Editorial cartoon on the 2015 Baku European Games from Meydan TV (Image: Meydan TV)
These cowardly murderers took advantage of world attention being focused on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and Russia’s campaign against Ukraine to eliminate this political opponent of the Aliev regime which has been in power for 21 years. The Amnesty International report contains several instances of political opponents being bullied or imprisoned on fabricated charges. The Aliev regime has the wealth and security apparatus, the DTX, to maintain power and target opponents at home and abroad. The petroleum industry in Azerbaijan produces about 873,260 barrels (138,837 m3) of oil per day and 29 billion cubic meters of gas per year as of 2013.[1]Azerbaijan is one of the birthplaces of the oil industry. This attack is reminiscent of the brutal 2018 murder and butchery of political dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul, which was directly linked to Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman.
CIA Makes It Easier for Potential Informants to Share Tips
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wants to make it easier — and safer — for people in Iran, China, and North Korea to share information with America’s premier spy agency.
CIA posted online instructions in Korean, Mandarin, and Farsi detailing steps that potential informants can take to contact US intelligence officials without putting themselves in danger.
The instructions include ways to reach the CIA on its public website or on the darknet, a part of the internet that can only be accessed using special tools designed to hide the user’s identity. The CIA posted similar instructions in Russian two years ago following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“People are trying to reach out to us from around the world and we are offering them instructions for how to do that safely,” the agency said in a statement. “Our efforts on this front have been successful in Russia, and we want to make sure individuals in other authoritarian regimes know that we’re open for business.”
The tips, presented in text-only videos and infographics, include using a virtual private network, or VPN, to circumvent internet restrictions and surveillance, and the use of a device that can’t easily be traced back to the user. The CIA also urged any potential informants to use private web browsers and to delete their internet history to cover their tracks.
The messages in the three languages were posted on Telegram, YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Several of those platforms are blocked in China, Iran, and Russia but can still be accessed using a VPN.
Authoritarian leaders around the world have used the internet as a tool of mass surveillance and as a way to deliver propaganda and disinformation while blocking sites and views deemed unfavorable to the government.
China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran all block access to American platforms like Facebook, for example, and use web access to control which sources of information users can access.
VPNs and other tools offer ways around this censorship and surveillance, but that ability has made them a target. In its instructions to potential sources, the CIA warned its audience to be selective, as their well-being could depend on choosing the right program.
“Use a VPN provider not headquartered in Russia, Iran, or China, or any other country that is considered unfriendly to the US,” CIA wrote in its instructions for Mandarin users.
This system apparently worked with informants operating in Russia. For the technologically savvy who are confident of remaining undetected, this method may provide the USIC with useful information from Iran, China, and North Korea. Of course, the information would be evaluated for quality and access. For years Wikileaks has used a system to allow people to anonymously download information without detection.
Denmark: Three Arrested Following Explosions Near Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen
Security personnel inspect the site of two explosions near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, on Wednesday. Police are conducting initial investigations at the scene of two blasts for a possible connection to the Israeli embassy located in the area, Copenhagen police said on social media platform. No injuries were reported in the incident, the police added. Photo by Emil Helms/EPA-EFE.
Police in Denmark arrested three people Wednesday following a pair of explosions overnight near the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen, probably two hand grenades. There were no injuries or damage to the Israeli facility.
The first suspect was arrested within the Danish capital before two others were taken into police custody on a train at Copenhagen Central Station. The three suspects are Swedish males between the ages of 15 and 20 years old. The pair of explosions occurred at around 3:20 AM at the intersection of Strandagervej and Lundevangsvej near the Israeli embassy in Hellerup, north of Copenhagen. Police said they had launched an investigation to see if the explosions were in relation to the Israeli embassy.
Israel’s offensive against the Palestinians and Lebanon with the increasing death toll has resulted in growing criticism and anger directed toward the Middle Eastern country. Last month, German police shot and killed an armed man near Munich’s Israeli embassy after he opened fire on security forces. In June, a man with a crossbow attacked police outside the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, Serbia.
Meanwhile, Israel continues pounding Lebanon. At least six people have been killed and eight wounded in Israeli air strikes targeting central Beirut overnight. A further 46 people were killed and 85 injured in IDF attacks across Lebanon in the previous 24 hours. More than 1,900 people have been killed and about 9,000 wounded in Lebanon in almost a year of cross-border fighting, with most of the deaths occurring in the past two weeks.
Destruction at the site of an overnight Israeli air raid on the Bir el-Abed neighbourhood in Beirut’s southern suburbs on 1 Oct 2024 [Anwar Amro/AFP]
As written here on Coriolanus, Israel and the West will be dealing with asymmetric reprisals, ranging from rank amateurish like this hand grenade episode to highly professional attacks, because of the Likud government’s brutal campaign against the Palestinians and its offensive against Lebanon. Innocent Jews and Israelis, who may be Labor Party members or peace activists like the young woman on the left seated next to Greta Thunberg below, are vulnerable worldwide thanks to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. The right-wing in Israel and the West will denounce attacks like this hand grenade folly with the standard lines that it’s “antisemitism,” when it’s really an anti-Likud gesture and an expression of anger and frustration that people of a darker color and a different religion should be killed so easily in the name of “self-defense.”
Israel Bars UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from Country
Israel Wednesday banned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from entering the country because in Israel’s opinion he was not sufficiently unequivocal about condemning Iran’s missile attack on Israel. After Iran’s attack Tuesday Guterres condemned the escalation of violence in the Middle East and called for it to stop. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
Israel Wednesday banned UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from entering the country, citing his comments immediately following Iran’s attack on Tel Aviv..
“I decided today to declare UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres an undesirable personality in Israel and to ban his entry into Israel,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X. “Anyone who is unable to unequivocally condemn Iran’s criminal attack on Israel, as almost all the countries of the world have done, does not deserve to set foot on Israel’s soil.”
Tuesday Guterres said in a statement after Iran’s ballistic missile attack on Israel, “I condemn the broadening of the Middle East conflict, with escalation after escalation. This must stop. We absolutely need a cease-fire.”
Guterres added, “An all-out war must be avoided in Lebanon at all costs, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Lebanon must be respected.”
Katz alleged that Guterres “has not yet denounced the massacre and sexual crimes committed by the murderers of Hamas on 7 Oct, and has not led to decisions to declare them a terrorist organization.”
In Oct 2023 in remarks at the UN Security Council, Guterres said, “I have condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 Oct acts of terror by Hamas in Israel.”
“Nothing can justify the deliberate killing, injuring and kidnapping of civilians – or the launching of rockets against civilian targets,” he said at the time.
In his Oct 2023 remarks, Guterres cited Israeli occupation in the West Bank:
“It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” he said. “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”
In remarks before the UN Security Council on Wednesday, Guterres said the “deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop.”
“The events of the past week, the past month and indeed nearly the past year make it clear: It is high time for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, with the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages, the effective delivery of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza and irreversible progress to a two-state solution,” Guterres said. “It is high time for a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon, real action towards full implementation of Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1701, paving the way for diplomatic efforts for sustainable peace.”
“It is high time to stop the sickening cycle of escalation after escalation that is leading the people of the Middle East straight over the cliff. Each escalation has served as a pretext for the next.”
Guterres told Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that the entire UN system in Lebanon is mobilized to assist all those in need in the country as Israel continued it military attacks on Hezbollah.
As it attacked Hezbollah, Israel has also killed civilians with its attacks and has forced dislocation of civilian residents in the country. Guterres said the UN will continue efforts to de-escalate the situation.
Katz said in his statement Wednesday that the global terrorism of Iran will be remembered as a “forever blot in the history of the UN.”
Guterres maintains that the UN must demand that all parties uphold and respect obligations under international law, including how warfare and occupation are conducted.
Katz’ X statement Wednesday said, “Israel will continue to protect its citizens and maintain its position and national honor with or without Antonio Guterres.”
Israel and the UN have clashed over the role of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian humanitarian relief. Israel accused several of the agency’s staff of being involved in the 7 Oct 2023 attack on Israel.
That surprise attack killed hundreds of Israelis, including civilians as well as military personnel, when armed Palestinians gunmen crossed into Israel from Gaza. These gunmen kidnapped hostages in order to conduct a prisoner swap with Israel as over 7,000 Palestinians have been held in military detention without trial or hearing. Israel massively attacked Gaza in response to the 7 Oct attacks.
Guterres has not yet publicly responded to being banned from Israel nor should he dignify this childish edict.
The Israeli government has a long, rich tradition of ignoring UNSC Resolutions. Former Israeli PM Ariel Sharon is depicted above bullying UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. This cartoonist caricaturized Ariel Sharon as a pig with hooves and a tail.Note the bottom of Ariel Sharon’s hoof is (regrettably) an American flag. Since 2023, over 300 aid workers have been killed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
This diplomatic blunder by Israel should not surprise anyone. Bullies and authoritarian regimes exercise censorship tactics to prevent a counter-narrative inimical to their position. Mr. Guterres will probably not personally respond to this idiotic measure taken by the Israeli Foreign Minister. A member of the Likud Cabinet had previously called for another “nakba” against the Palestinians and another lunatic minister advocated the use of a nuclear device against the Gazans. The Likud government was more upset of a leaked video showing IDF soldiers gang-raping a Palestinian man, not at the unforgivable crime of rape perpetrated by those Israeli miscreants. That grim episode was posted here on Coriolanus. Both the Israeli Prime and Defense Ministers have been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague for war crimes.
68 Dangerous California White Supremacists from “SFV Peckerwoods” Gang Indicted
The letters SFV for the Peckerwoods gang signify “San Fernando Valley” and the acronym of “Searching for Victims.”
A massive law enforcement sweep targeting the SFV Peckerwoods, what federal prosecutors call a San Fernando Valley based white supremacist street gang has led to the arrests of 42 members of the racist criminal organization.
A total of 68 alleged members of the SFV Peckerwoods were named in a 76-count federal grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday that details a litany of crimes related to what prosecutors call a “years-long pattern of racketeering activity that included trafficking of drugs — including fentanyl — illegal firearms possession, and COVID-19 benefits and loan fraud.”
A massive cache of guns and drugs was seized by the Joint Terrorist Task Force in sweeps targeting the SFV Peckerwoods, a violent white supremacist street gang. Photo: Department of Justice
Of those caught up in a series of federal and local law enforcement sweeps, twelve alleged Peckerwood members were hit with federal racketeering charges, while another 56 defendants were charged with conspiring to distribute drugs. Another 13 defendants were already behind bars.
The Peckerwoods use Nazi tattoos, graffiti, and iconography to indicate their violent white supremacy extremist ideology. Among the monikers its members use include nicknames like “Bezerker,” “Rascal,” “Monster,” and “Meat,” while inked with “tattoos and iconography” that “include swastikas, the symbol “88”, used by violent white supremacy extremists as code for “Heil Hitler”, and images of Nazi aircraft.”
The gang has a large number of females, who call themselves “Featherwoods,” including “SFV Mama,” whose real name is Claire Patricia Haviland, who was among those arrested Wednesday.
During the investigation, law enforcement seized large quantities of illegal firearms, and dozens of pounds of fentanyl, methamphetamine, and heroin, according to the indictment. The AUSA aid “the Peckerwoods’ violent white-supremacist ideology and wide-ranging criminal activity pose a grave menace to our community. By allegedly engaging in everything from drug-trafficking to firearms offenses to identity theft to COVID fraud, and through their alliance with a neo-Nazi prison gang, the Peckerwoods are a destructive force. In prosecuting the members of the Peckerwoods criminal organization, our office is carrying out its mission to protect the public from the most dangerous threats.”
When these dangerous maniacs are convicted, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) will no doubt incarcerate them at separate maximum security facilities throughout the US to prevent them from re-organizing behind prison walls. But these miscreants will join the Aryan Brotherhood, Proud Boys, or other neo-Nazi white supremacist gangs in federal prison.
An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
A salmonella outbreak linked to reptiles has left one person dead and three others hospitalized in Canada. The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) said at least 25 people have been infected across seven provinces in this outbreak, which is the second one linked to geckos in 2024.
Cases have been reported in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
“Many of the individuals who became sick reported having direct or indirect contact with geckos, or the environments where these pets are kept, before their illnesses occurred,” the PHAC announced.
“Some people who became sick did not touch or handle the geckos themselves, but lived in the same house where they were kept.”
The illnesses occurred between Aug 2020 and Sep 2024. Most of the people infected were females (64 per cent) and in the age range 1 to 103.An investigation into the outbreak is ongoing and PHAC said that the number of cases is likely higher than what has been reported so far.
Salmonella is a bacterial infection commonly transmitted through contaminated food and water and it poses a significant health threat, especially to children and older adults, as it can lead to severe gastrointestinal symptoms, dehydration, and, in extreme cases, death.
People can also get sick with salmonella infection by directly touching reptiles or their environments, as well as through indirect contact by touching contaminated surfaces where these animals are kept.
always wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water immediately after touching a reptile or rodent, and anything they eat, or after being in the area where they live, play or touch
if visiting an exhibit or event with reptiles, wash your hands when you leave animal areas, even if you do not touch the animals directly
clean any surfaces or objects your reptile or rodent touches with soapy water followed by a household sanitizer
never kiss a pet reptile
always supervise children when they touch or play with reptiles
keep reptiles and rodents and all their food, containers, enclosures, and any objects that have been in their enclosures, such as plants or enrichment items, away from the kitchen and other places where food is made or eaten
clean or bathe reptiles in a dedicated plastic bin, not in the kitchen or bathroom sink
Symptoms of salmonella infection typically start between six and 72 hours after exposure and can last anywhere from four to seven days. They may include fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, or abdominal cramps.
If you suspect you have salmonella, PHAC recommends seeing a health-care provider. Most people recover on their own after a few days without any medical treatment.
At least 36 people got sick with salmonella infection between March 2020 and March 2024 in a separate outbreak linked to geckos. The salmonella strain of that outbreak was traced back to a gecko habitat at a home of a person who was infected.
Politico legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney shared his immediate takeaways on the 165-page document Smith filed in a Washington DC federal court.
In the filing, Smith asserts his case against the former president within the context of the Supreme Court ruling that Trump enjoyed partialpresidential immunity in the lead-up to the US Capitol riots on 6 Jan 2021.
Smith argues Trump can still be tried on election interference charges as he acted as a private citizen seeking personal gain and not a US official seeking to protect the integrity of national elections.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to those charges and contended Wednesday, as he has in the past, that Smith is mounting a political witch hunt.
1) A Trump campaign employee sought to foment chaos at the TCF Center in Detroit where ballots were being processed.
“When a colleague at the TFC Center told [redacted] ‘We think [a batch of votes heavily in Biden’s favor is right, [redacted] responded, “find a reason it isn’t,” “give me options to file litigation,” and “even if itbis [sic],” the filing reads.
“When the colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers Riot, a violent effort to stop the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, [redacted] responded, ‘Make them riot’ and ‘Do it!!!'”
2) Trump sidelined his campaign legal team on 13 Nov and put Rudy Giuliani in charge because he was willing to lie about the election results.
“As the defendant placed alternating phone calls to [redacted] and [redacted] throughout 13 Nov [redacted] informed [redacted] , another private Campaign advisor, of the change,” the filing states, “writing, “Close hold don’t tell anyone Trump just fired [redacted] and put [redacted] in charge.”
3) Vice President Mike Pence told Trump he saw no evidence of fraud over the course of many conversations detailed in his book and cited by prosecutors.
“In the post-election time period, Pence, the defendant’s own running mate, who he had directed to assess fraud allegations told the defendant that he had seen no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud in the election.”
“The defendant disregarded [redacted] and Pence in the same way that he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies’ legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states including those in his own party–who stated publicly that he had lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false.”
4) Trump repeatedly promised to provide election fraud evidence to Govs. Doug Ducey (R-AZ) and Brian Kemp (R-GA) but never did.
“The defendant was on notice that there was no evidence of widespread election fraud in Arizona within a week of the election.”
“The defendant also raised claims of election fraud, and [redacted] asked the defendant to send him supporting evidence. Although the defendant said he would, stating ‘we’re packaging it up,’ he never did.”
5) Mark Meadows and a White House attorney exchanged messages on 3 Dec 2020 confirming that dead voters statistics were false.
“During the hearing, Chief of Staff [redacted] and [redacted] exchanged text messages on their personal phones confirming that a Campaign attorney, [redacted] had verified that [redacted] claim of more than 10,000 dead voters was false and that the actual number was around 12 and could not be outcome-determinative.”
6) A US senator helped facilitate a 8 Dec call between Trump and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr.
“US Senator [redacted] told [redacted] that the defendant had heard that [redacted] was ‘whipping,’ or lobbying, other state attorneys general against filing amicus briefs in support of Texas.”
“[Redacted] asked [redacted] if he would speak with the defendant about it, and [redacted] agreed.”
Trump supporters heeded his call and stormed the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. Many of them have now been convicted and incarcerated. VPOTUS Mike Pence did not abandon his duty as Trump wanted; instead, he stayed to certify the election. Photo: Roberto Schmidt AFP via Getty Images
Special Counsel Jack Smith is competent and experienced, having convicted war criminals at the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague. Nevertheless, the American electorate should not rely on Mr. Smith, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, NYSAG Letitia James, or any part of the US legal system to stop Donald Trump and Project 2025. The Democratic strategy should be to register voters as many voters as possible and overwhelm Republican ballots so that even GOP voter suppression tactics will be ineffective.
Since 2016, poaching of one-horned rhinoceroses in India’s Assam state has fallen 86% after the government took decisive steps to protect them
By expanding protected areas and bolstering ranger patrols, 3,000 rhinos grace the Assam savannah.
“Rhinos are synonymous with the identity of Assam. They are our pride and the crown jewel of our biodiversity. Ever since we assumed office, we have taken various initiatives to protect the prized species, expand its habitat and ensure its safety,” Assam state’s Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma wrote on X.
In India, the Chief Minister, often abbreviated CM, is the equivalent on an American governor, and the state of Assam which Sarma governs is India’s rhino stronghold, with 88% of all the rhinos in the country located in Kaziranga, Manas, and Orang national parks, and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary.
The remaining 12% is spread widely across the country. CM Sarma’s tenure which began in 2021 oversaw the addition of nearly 50,000 acres of habitat in Orang National Park, and another 50,000 to two other protected areas.
Last year, GNN reported that for the first time since 1977, zero rhinos were poached in India.
Sarma ordered the rhinos to be treated like “presidents”, with sophisticated police commando teams patrolling the parks with night vision equipment and drones during moonlit nights.
Since then, the population of Assam’s rhinos has grown by 105 to 3,000; up from a low of 600 during the 1960s. The government released these figures on World Rhino Day (22 Sep) to show that “if the will to protect these animals is there, the most poached megafauna species on Earth can thrive.”
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum addresses supporters during a rally in the Zocalo, Mexico City’s main square, on her inauguration day, 1 Oct 2024. Photo: AP
Claudia Sheinbaum was sworn in Tuesday as Mexico’s new president, becoming the country’s first female president and the first president of Jewish descent in the largely Roman Catholic country. Her win comes 70 years after women in Mexico won the right to vote. President Sheinbaum is also the first woman to lead a government in North America. Should Kamala Harris win the US election next month, the continent will have two women in charge of their nations, another first.
The daughter of activist academics, Sheinbaum (62) was also the first female mayor of Mexico City, Mexico’s capital. She stepped down from that position last year for her presidential campaign, which had the support of her predecessor and political mentor, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
She has promised to continue the social welfare programs for the country’s poor that Lopez Obrador initiated, despite Mexico’s current massive budget deficit and sluggish economy.
Sheinbaum is also facing a country beset with violence, such as battles between drug cartels that often erupt onto the streets of the northwest city of Culiacan, where many cartels are located. Local security forces have had little luck in quelling the violence.
As mayor of Mexico City, Sheinbaum was applauded for reducing the city’s homicide rate by increasing the salaries of an expanded police force, a strategy she has promised to duplicate across the country.
Sheinbaum is also assuming Mexico’s helm just as the country is implementing a judicial overhaul, a move spearheaded by Lopez Obrador. The controversial reform will eventually replace all of Mexico’s judges with new ones elected by popular vote.
Former President Ernesto Zedillo, who has been critical of the overhaul, said in a recent guest essay in Britain’s Economist magazine that “our hard-won democracy will be transformed, for all practical purposes, into a one-party autocracy.”
Sheinbaum, however, said, “The reforms to the judicial system will not affect our commercial relations, nor private Mexican investments, nor foreign ones. Rather, the opposite. There will be a greater and better rule of law and democracy for everyone.”
The first trip for the new president, a former climate scientist who has a doctorate in energy engineering, will be to Acapulco, the resort on Mexico’s Pacific coast, which was brutalized last week by the rains of Category III Hurricane John, after being devastated last year by Hurricane Otis.
Population of Mexico: 130,739,927; GDP per capita: $22,400 (2023 est.) Data and map: CIA
Russian Forces Execute 16 Ukrainian POWs Near Pokrovsk
In 2022, Vadim Shishimarin, a 21-year-old tank commander, was sentenced to life in prison for killing an unarmed civilian in Ukraine’s first war crime trial following Russia’s invasion. He had pleaded guilty to killing a 62-year-old citizen in north-eastern Ukraine. There will be more war crimes trials in the future.PhotoCredit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
Russian forces appear to have shot 16 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) in Donetsk Oblast, the largest recorded case of mass execution of surrendered soldiers on the battlefield, Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said on 1 Oct.
Evidence of the execution appeared on social media earlier on 1 Oct. The POWs were reportedly killed after surrendering on the front line near Pokrovsk. The Prosecutor General’s Office said it was verifying the material published online and investigating the circumstances around the case.
The execution of POWs is a “cynical and gross violation of the Geneva Conventions,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.
“This is the most massive known case of execution of Ukrainian POWs on the front line,” Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said.
“The murders and torture of prisoners are not an accident, but a purposeful policy of the Russian military and political leadership,” he added.
In early September, Russian forces executed three Ukrainian POWs near Toretsk in Donetsk Oblast. The Prosecutor General’s Office said earlier this year that it was investigating more than 50 cases of execution of Ukrainian POWs.
The US Department of Justice has been investigating Russian war crimes as well. Last year the DOJ charged four Russian soldiers with torture, inhumane treatment, and unlawful confinement of a US national in Ukraine.
Iran Counterattacks Israel on Behalf of Lebanese Hezbollah with Ballistic Missiles
Photo: AP
Iran launched a massive ballistic missile attack at Israel on 1 Oct in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Lebanon’s Hezbollah in a new escalation of the conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed resistance group.
Israeli air defenses intercepted many of the estimated 180 missiles that were fired, though some landed in central and southern Israel. There were no reports of any injuries and after about an hour after the attack was launched it was safe for them to leave their bomb shelters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack “a big mistake” and said Tehran “will pay for it.” He added: “Whoever attacks us, we attack them.”
US President Joe Biden said he would discuss a response with Netanyahu. Asked what the response would be, Biden replied: “That’s in active discussion right now. That remains to be seen.”
He added that the attack appears to have been “defeated and ineffective, and this is a testament to Israeli military capability and the US military” and said the US is “fully supportive of Israel.”
Israeli police reported that at least six people were killed and nine wounded in a shooting and stabbing attack in Tel Aviv. Police said it was a “terrorist” attack carried out at a light rail station and the two attackers were later killed by civilians and inspectors using their own firearms. There has been no claim of responsibility.
While the missile attack sent Israelis scurrying to take cover in bomb shelters, it prompted people in Iran to celebrate. State television broadcast images from the city of Mashhad showing people in the streets waving the yellow flag of Hezbollah and portraits of the group’s slain chief, Hassan Nasrallah. Similar celebrations also took place in the capital Tehran and in several provincial cities.
World leaders urged Iran and Israel to step back from the brink and negotiate a cease-fire.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the “broadening conflict in the Middle East” following fighting in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.
To a hammer, everything is a nail as Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is demonstrating. He has ignored the entreaties of the UN and world leaders for a cease-fire, as well as the pleas of his citizens to make a deal to release the remaining hostages. The widening conflict will keep Netanyahu’s bribery and corruption trial in abeyance while casualties begin to mount. In this “David versus Goliath” conflict, Israel and her supporters should expect asymmetric attacks or lone-actor reprisals against soft civilian targets, ranging from runamok knife attacks (like in Germany earlier this year), vandalism against synagogues, or bomb threats against Jewish hospitals (like earlier this year in Canada).
Lebanese man stands in remains of a building destroyed by the IDF in Beirut on 1 Oct 2024. The Lebanese economy was already in shambles before the Israeli onslaught. Photo: Fadel Itani / UPI.
A French naval ship is deploying to Lebanon to assist with any evacuations of French citizens. Approximately 23,000 French and Franco-Lebanese residents live in Lebanon. The French embassy in Beirut has established a hotline and started coordinating evacuation options for civilians who wish to leave. Two French nationals have already been killed by the IDF.
Florida Man Found Guilty of Felony Destruction of Property and Other Charges During 6 Jan Capitol Breach
Supporters of then-US President Donald Trump enter the US Capitol’s Rotunda on 6 Jan 2021, in Washington, DC. Photo: NBC News.
A federal jury in the District of Columbia found Marcus Smith (47) of Fleming Island, FL, guilty of a felony offense of destruction of government property and several misdemeanor charges during the 6 Jan 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Joining the mob that stormed the US Capitol, Smith noticed some rioters trying to breach a locked door inside the building. The defendant joined them in breaking down the door. The Architect of the Capitol later determined that the value of the damage to the door, which was part of the original construction of the Senate Wing of the Capitol and dated back to the 1850s, necessitated the door being replaced at a cost of approximately $21,000.
After further trespassing within the US Capitol, this runamok finally departed at approximately 2:50 PM. The FBI arrested Smith on 26 Jan 2024, in Fleming Island.
This brontosaurus represents America’s Fedayeen Saddam (FS), dead-ender white supremacists clinging on to the last vestiges of white privilege in the US. Marcus Smith is lucky that he wasn’t charged with any crimes of violence against USCP officers. The Honorable US District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich will sentence Smith on 10 Jan 2025.
In the 44 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,504 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 560 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
US Targets Israeli-Occupied West Bank Settler Violence with Sanctions
Hilltop Youth settlers in West Bank (Photo credit: REUTERS/Gil Cohen Magen)
The US sanctioned one informal organization and two people as the Biden administration continues to tighten its financial grip on those it accuses of perpetrating violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The US Treasury designated Hilltop Youth, an extremist group of West Bank settlers accused of attacking Palestinians and destroying their homes and property. The US government listed Hilltop Youth as a “criminal organization.”
The Treasury said the group of settlers has “conducted a campaign of violence against Palestinians,” which includes killings, arson, assaults and intimidation, with the goal of driving Palestinians out of the West Bank. It conducts what are called “price tag” assaults, which are revenge attacks conducted in reprisal for actions carried out against settlers.
The late author and Israel Prize laureate Amos Oz who was known as: “The humane heart of Israel.”
In 2014, the late Amos Oz condemned the perpetrators of “price tag” attacks, saying “‘Price tag’ and ‘Hilltop Youth’ are cute nicknames for a monster that needs to be called what it is: Hebrew neo-Nazi groups.” Oz went on to say that the only difference between neo-Nazis around the world and those who commit hate crimes in Israel is that “our neo-Nazi groups enjoy the support of numerous nationalist or even racist legislators, as well as rabbis who give them what is in my view pseudo- religious justification.”
The State Department sanctioned Eitan Yardeni and Avichai Suissa, who leads Hashomer Yosh, an Israeli non-government organization the US sanctioned in late August.
Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory and the establishment of settlements are widely viewed as illegal under international law and have attracted the repeated criticism and condemnation of the UN and the wider international community.
The US has been a critic of Israel’s occupation and has said it represents an obstacle to a two-state solution. The Biden administration has sanctioned 27 individuals and entities accused of perpetuating violence there under an executive order that President Joe Biden signed in February.
The Biden administration has used the sanctions to criticize Israel for not doing more to curb violence in the West Bank, while critics have called on the administration to use its sanctioning power against those in the Israeli government who enable the violence against Palestinians.
“The Biden administration imposes more sanctions on settlers for violence against West Bank Palestinians but still hasn’t imposed sanctions on any of the Israeli officials who are encouraging the settler violence,” Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch and current visiting professor at Princeton, said on X.
According to an update from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been some 1,390 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians between the start of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 Oct and 23 Sep.
Of those attacks, 135 involved the killing and wounding of Palestinians, 1,110 saw Palestinian property damaged and about 150 caused both casualties and property damage. The report added that some 1,628 Palestinians, including 794 children, have been displaced by the settler violence. The AP reported that 623 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank.
French Far-Right Leader Marine Le Pen on Trial for Misusing EU funds
Marine Le Pen sits in the European Parliament, Strasbourg, in Jan 2017. She looks quite pleased with herself. Photo: AP / Jean-Francois Badias
Marine Le Pen, her father, and 25 colleagues – including current and former French lawmakers and MEPs – are accused of embezzling public funds and collusion. Prosecutors claim that the defendants set up a fake jobs scheme using European parliamentary funds to pay for assistants who in fact worked for her National Rally party, formerly called the National Front, rather than on European affairs.
The scheme, which ran from 2004 to 2016, was in breach of EU rules.
The EU Parliament estimated in 2018 that 6.8 million euros had been embezzled. Marine Le Pen has always denied any wrongdoing.
The trial runs through to 27 Nov. If found guilty, Le Pen could face a maximum ten years behind bars and a €1 million fine. That’s unlikely, but she also faces a possible five-year ban on standing for public office. This would rule her out of the 2027 presidential election she is preparing for, and which a recent poll suggests she has a stronger than ever chance of winning.
A total of 11 members of the European Parliament, 12 of their parliamentary assistants and four party collaborators are to be tried as well, while the RN party itself faces charges of concealing the wrongdoing. Among the high-profile figures are Le Pen’s father Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of the National Front, her former partner Louis Aliot – the mayor of the southern city of Perpignan – and RN spokesperson Julien Odoul.
The National Rally is not the only party to be accused of misappropriating MEP funds.
In February this year the centrist MoDem party, currently part of President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble coalition, was fined €350,000 for similar charges.
MoDem’s leader, Francois Bayrou, was acquitted due to reasonable doubt, but the eight people found guilty were ordered to pay fines, sentenced to prison terms of 10 to 18 months and were banned from serving in public office.
German police arrested a Chinese woman accused of spying on the country’s defence industry while working in a logistics company.
Named only as Yaqi X., she allegedly reported to another suspected Beijing agent now under arrest, Jian G., who was working in the office of a German far-right member of the European Parliament, Maximilian Krah. The woman arrested on Monday is “strongly suspected of acting as an intelligence agent for a Chinese secret service.”
Yaqi X. worked for a company that provides logistics services at Leipzig/Halle Airport in eastern Germany.
She allegedly used her position to gather information on “the transport of military equipment and persons with connections to a German arms company.”
Between mid-2023 and February, she “repeatedly sent information on flights, cargo and passengers at the airport to an employee of a Chinese secret service — namely Jian G., who is being prosecuted separately,” prosecutors said.
Jian G., a German national, was arrested in April on suspicion of spying while working in the Brussels office of German MEP Krah of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Her Leipzig home and workplace were also searched.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann told Bild daily that “the arrest of a suspected Chinese spy in Leipzig shows us once again that foreign intelligence services have long had Germany in their sights.
Citing unnamed security sources, news site Der Spiegel reported that Yaqi X., a 38-year-old, in particular had targeted the arms giant Rheinmetall, which is involved in making Leopard tanks and which uses Leipzig airport for cargo flights.
Her alleged handler Jian G. was arrested on suspicion of sharing European Parliament information with a Chinese intelligence service and of spying on Chinese opposition figures in Germany.
The European Union assembly, which had listed Jian Guo as an accredited assistant to Krah, moved to suspend him earlier this year. Krah posted on X at the time that prosecutors had confirmed to his lawyer that he was “not a suspect in the investigation”. The allegations involving China were among a series of controversies to hit Germany’s AfD, including claims that some of its members have links to Russia.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser called the allegations against Guo “very serious” and said that, if confirmed, it was “an attack on European democracy from within”.
According to German broadcasters ARD, RBB, and SWR, Guo was no stranger to German intelligence. He had reportedly offered his services as an informer at least a decade ago but was turned away on suspicion he might be a Chinese double agent.
California Wildfires One Million Hectares This Year
Map: FIRMS US / NASA
The total hectares burned in California this year surpassed one million as spiking temperatures Tuesday added to the challenges facing firefighters struggling to contain a stubborn blaze in the mountains northeast of Los Angeles that flared up over the weekend.
Evacuation orders were expanded again Monday for remote communities northeast of Los Angeles as the Line Fire that has been burning for nearly a month spread over nearly 176 square kilometers (68 square miles) of the San Bernardino Mountains, and containment dropped from 83% to 76%.
“The dry vegetation, steep slopes and wind aligned … to create conditions for the rapid fire spread,” according to a statement late Monday from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
The risk of wildfires increased across California as an autumn heat wave scorched much of the state. Some inland areas could see temperatures up to 20 degrees above average for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.
San Francisco, where residents typically break out the sweaters in October, could hit 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit), while triple digits 38 C were predicted for Sacramento. The weather service office in the state’s capital urged residents to stay indoors during the heat of the day on Tuesday.
Dry, hot winds in the northern part of the state prompted Pacific Gas & Electric to pre-emptively cut power to small clusters of customers in high-risk areas. The utility routinely stops electricity service in counties where weather conditions increase the probability of fires.
In Southern California, the Line Fire’s surge pushed the total hectares burned across the state in 2024 to 405,492 (1,001,993 acres) as of Tuesday morning, according to Cal Fire. The milestone surpasses the total scorched during the same time last year — 118,719 hectares (293,362 acres) — but is roughly on par with the five-year average for the period, the Los Angeles Times reported.
At its height, the blaze threatened more than 65,000 homes in and around the Big Bear Lake area.
A 34-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to starting the Line Fire on 5 Sep. Justin Wayne Halstenberg of Norco, CA, was charged with 11 arson-related crimes.
Firefighters monitor the advancing Line Fire in Angelus Oaks, CA, 9 Sep 2024.
Vietnam: 25 Students Suspected of Poisoning After Drinking Free Soft Drinks; Other Cases of Possible Food Poisoning Reported This Summer
Pediatric patient treated at the hospital. Photo: BVCC
After drinking free soft drinks at the gate of Binh Minh Secondary School, Thanh Oai, 25 students showed signs of poisoning; 12 were hospitalized with headaches, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. Physicians suspect food poisoning. Three more serious patients were transferred to Intensive Care, the rest were treated at the Infectious Diseases Department. The children drank free bottled soft drinks outside the school gate. There is no information yet regarding the brand or the ingredients, but the product was distributed for free for advertising purposes.
Authorities recommend that schools in the area, as well as parents, educate their children not to eat snacks outside the school gate and absolutely not to accept food from strangers.
On 21 Sep, 70 people at Primary and Secondary School in Nong Thuong commune, Bac Kan city vomited, had abdominal pain, diarrhea, headache, and were hospitalized. The day before, 88 students and five teachers ate rice, fried chicken, vegetable soup with melons, stir-fried potatoes, and watermelon.
The next morning, 20 students appeared with hot fever, abdominal pain, headache, diarrhea, and were admitted to the emergency city health center. The number of sick patients increased to 70 with similar symptoms. The cause is unknown.
On 16 Sep, 34 students of Ton Duc Thang Secondary School in Pleiku drank milk tea at the Mid-Autumn Festival. Within a few hours, 21 students had abdominal pain, nausea, dizziness, and vomiting. They received emergency medical treatment and doctors suspected food poisoning.
The City Health Center took food samples for testing to find the cause.
Without further information, these incidents appear to be isolated examples of poor quality control over food and beverage production in Vietnam, and not a sinister plot to murder innocent children.
When an Australian nurse working at a hospital with outdated incubators happened upon a kangaroo rescue center, she realized she could help save lives.
Once used to help save premature human babies, the incubators are now mimicking the conditions of a mother kangaroo’s pouch, where her joey will live for the first eight months of its life.
Every year dozens of orphaned joeys and pinkies, or marsupial pups who haven’t opened their eyes yet, are brought into Kununurra Kangaroo Rescue Haven in East Kimberly, Australia.
Since they are the largest terrestrial animal in Australia, an adult kangaroo rarely has to worry about predators and their populations can balloon quite dramatically. This, unfortunately, renders them much like whitetail deer in the US—at extreme risk of becoming roadkill.
Mandy Watson, director of the Kununurra Haven, has saved hundreds of orphaned joeys from their moms who have been hunted or struck by vehicles. Young, pinky joeys can struggle to survive without the warmth and humidity of their mother’s pouch. She has seen hundreds of orphans return to the wild, but thousands not make it to adulthood.
“In 20 years, we’ve released 823 back into the wild. It’s really hard, especially in the dry season, for us to keep up that constant temperature,” Watson told ABC News Down Under. “The humidicrib (incubator) is going to be a constant temperature that’s going to dramatically help [to] save a few more lives.”
The humidicribs were donated by nurse Jane Darlington, a clinical pediatric nurse at the Kununurra District Hospital. The hospital needed to get rid of them as the rapid march of medical technology had seen them become obsolete.
Darlington got the idea while shopping in town. She saw a volunteer from the rescue center helping to raise awareness of their work by walking around in a wallaby costume, holding one of their orphaned joeys.
Mandy Watson (left) and a volunteer play with some joeys next to their truck-mounted incubator. Photo: Jane Darlington
The IDF will deploy formidable Merkava tanks in their ground offensive into Lebanon.Adjusting for inflation, US aid to Israel from 1951 to 2022 totaled $317.9 billion, making Israel the largest recipient of American foreign aid since World War II as well as the 17th most powerful country in the world according to the Global Firepower Index (GFI). The Lebanese Army is ranked 118/145. Photo: AP
Israel has deployed troops near the border with Lebanon, a day after the air strikes in Beirut that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Lebanon is currently observing three days of mourning following Nasrallah’s killing but Israeli warplanes have continued to bombard Beirut, killing 33 people across Lebanon.
Meanwhile, hundreds of displaced Lebanese families have been sleeping in public spaces in Beirut as the Israeli aerial assault continues.
Families sit on the ground in central Beirut after fleeing Israeli in the southern suburbs, 28 Sep 2024. Bilal Hussein/Copyright 2024 The AP. All rights reserved.
“We just want a safe place, we do not need clothes or aid or food or drink. We just want a safe place so that our children are not afraid, we left the Syrian war for the sake of the children, we came here and the same war happened,” said Syrian refugee Fatima Ziyada.
The wave of displacement comes alongside a rapid escalation over the past week that has killed more than 700 people in Lebanon and culminated with a massive barrage of strikes Friday and overnight that levelled at least six multi-story buildings.
And across the border in Israel, Tel Aviv residents took shelter as sirens sounded throughout the city.
The Israeli military said a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted shortly after the sirens were heard. There were no reports of injuries. It was not immediately known if the missile strike was aimed at PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s flight who cut short a trip to the US to return to Israel.
Israel first invaded Lebanon in 1978 and then again in 1982 which led to the 16-18 Sep 1982 “Sabra and Shatila massacres” of between 1,300 and 3,500 Palestinians and Lebanese Shias in Beirut by Christian militias. Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon was forced to resign “for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge” during the massacre in which the IDF stood passively by and allowed the Falange militias to murder the unarmed and defenseless captives. The 1982 Israeli invasion was the genesis of Lebanese Hezbollah. In 2017, Janes assessed Hezbollah’s strength at more than +20,000 full-time fighters and approximately +20,000 reservists.
Remarkably, a former senior Republican official wrote a recent editorial that “a new Gang of Four has emerged: [the leaders of] China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia,” completely ignoring Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, a man indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague. 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip and 623 in the West Bank.
Just before becoming Special Counsel investigating former president Donald Trump, Jack Smith was a prosecutor at the ICC. Karim Khan at the ICC is now prosecuting a war crimes case against Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Chief prosecutor Karim Khan KC of the ICC is seeking an international arrest warrant for indicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he was indicted for war crimes committed against the people in Gaza.
The Lebanese military or Hezbollah will be unable to stop the imminent IDF offensive. Somehow, in a “David versus Goliath” battle, Palestinian fighters in Gaza were able to disable one Merkava tank in Oct 2023. The fate of the IDF tank crew is not clear.
NTSB Issues Urgent Safety Recommendations on Boeing 737 Rudder System
The rudder control system could jam or become restricted on some 737NG and 737MAX airplanes. Image: jetnews.com.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued urgent safety recommendations to The Boeing Company and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in response to the potential for a jammed or restricted rudder control system on some 737 airplanes.
The NTSB is investigating a 6 Feb 2024 incident in which the rudder pedals on a United Airlines Boeing 737-8, a MAX variant, were “stuck” in their neutral position during the landing rollout at Newark Liberty International Airport, NJ. The captain used the nosewheel steering tiller to control the airplane’s direction after touching down. There was no damage to the airplane or injuries to the 155 passengers and six crewmembers.
NTSB investigators tested one of the rudder control components from the incident airplane, a rollout guidance actuator, at the component’s manufacturer, Collins Aerospace. When the incident actuator and an identical unit from another airplane were tested in a cold environment, the actuators’ function was significantly compromised.
Investigators found evidence of moisture in both actuators, which failed testing. Collins Aerospace subsequently determined that a sealed bearing was incorrectly assembled during production of the actuators, leaving the unsealed side more susceptible to moisture that can freeze and limit rudder system movement.
Collins notified Boeing that more than 353 actuators that Collins had delivered to Boeing since February 2017 were affected by this condition.
The NTSB has recommended that Boeing “determine appropriate flight crew responses besides applying maximum pedal force” for such situations in flight or during landing. The NTSB also recommended that Boeing notify flight crews operating 737s with affected actuators that the rudder control system can jam due to moisture that has accumulated inside the actuators and frozen.
To report an incident/accident or if you are a public safety agency, please call 1-844-373-9922 or 202-314-6290 to speak to a Watch Officer at the NTSB Response Operations Center (ROC) in Washington, DC (24/7).
‘Asian NATO’ Supporter Shigeru Ishiba to Become Japan’s Prime Minister
Former Japanese defense minister Shigeru Ishiba waves as he is elected as new head of the ruling party in the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership vote and is set to become Japan’s next prime minister in Tokyo, Japan, 27 Sep 2024
Veteran Japanese lawmaker Shigeru Ishiba, who supports the creation of an “Asia version of NATO,” will become the next prime minister after winning a closely fought contest to lead the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The LDP chose Ishiba as Japan grapples with increasing security threats and risk of war in the region, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and China’s growing military assertiveness.
The 67-year-old Ishiba said changes in the security environment were the reason he announced his candidacy. He advocates deterrence, strongly backs Taiwanese democracy, while also calling for deeper engagement with China.
The former defense minister expressed his desire to create an “Asian version of NATO” and bring equality to the Japan-US Status of Forces Agreement.
Ishiba announced he would consider revising the SOFA, or Status of Forces Agreement, which set the rules for US military operations in Japan in 1960. He has considered establishing a base in the US to train Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
He wrote in his memoir that conflating the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a possible Chinese attack on Taiwan was driven by emotion, not a pragmatic assessment of Chinese threats and the impact on Japan.
“I want to protect Japan, protect the people, protect the local regions, and want to be the LDP that follows the rules,” Ishiba said during the campaign.
He will be officially announced as prime minister at a special legislative session on 1 Oct, the same day Mexico inaugurates its first female President, Claudia Sheinbaum.
Russia Convicts Nearly 800 Foreign Nationals Fighting for Ukraine Since 2014
Undated photo of Georgian national Giorgi Goglidze. Russia Ministry of Defense
Russia has convicted 785 foreign nationals for fighting on the side of Ukraine since hostilities between the two countries first broke out in 2014, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Thursday.
Investigators disclosed the figure while announcing criminal charges against Georgian citizen Giorgi Goglidze, accusing him of fighting for Kiev “for monetary compensation.”
In Nov 2023, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces captured Goglidze, releasing an interrogation video where he claims to have been promised $300 for every Russian soldier he killed. The ministry alleged he was recruited in Germany and said he fought with Ukraine’s 2nd International Legion.
In the days following Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the creation of an international territorial defense legion consisting of foreigners fighting on behalf of Kiev. Among the most prominent pro-Ukraine foreign units are the Freedom of Russia Legion, the Belarusian Kastus Kalinouski Regiment, and the Georgian National Legion.
Russia labeled the Georgian National Legion as a terrorist organization earlier this year, accusing the group of organizing sabotage and terrorist acts on Russian territory and torturing Russian military personnel and civilians.
In March, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed its forces had killed nearly 6,000 foreign volunteers fighting for Ukraine since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, including 561 fighters from Georgia.
Russia’s military is also known to enlist the help of foreign volunteers as it continues to wage war against Ukraine, recruiting men from African countries, Cuba, Nepal, and India, among others. Many of the volunteers from India and Sri Lanka have escaped the Russian army, claiming they were duped into combat service by unscrupulous recruiters offering contracts of employment to be either helpers or security guards.
Russia had discharged dozens of the 91 Indians who were duped into fighting for Russian forces in the country’s war with Ukraine. Several of them have since returned home, while the process to bring others back is still under way.Undated photo: BBC
With 13,623,302 people, Rwanda is one of Africa’s most densely populated countries. Map: CIA
Rwanda has confirmed six deaths and 20 cases of Marburg disease; the majority of victims are health workers in an intensive care unit.
“We are counting 20 people who are infected, and six who have already passed away due to this virus. The large majority of cases and deaths are among healthcare workers, mainly in the intensive care unit,” the health minister said.
Marburg disease, a viral hemorrhagic fever, can cause death among some patients, with symptoms including severe headache, vomiting, muscle aches and stomach aches. Institutions and partners are working to trace those who have been in contact with the virus-affected individuals.
With a fatality rate of as high as 88%, Marburg is from the same virus family as the one responsible for Ebola and is transmitted to people from fruit bats. The virus then spreads through contact with bodily fluids of infected people. Neighboring Tanzania had cases of Marburg in 2023, while Uganda had a similar outbreak in 2017.
In total, 15 women and two men were killed in the shootings, which also sent one additional person to the hospital in critical condition. Photo courtesy of South African Police Service/EPA-EFE
A manhunt is underway after at least 17 people died in shootings in a small village in South Africa on Saturday. Police confirmed the deaths occurred at two separate rural properties in Lusikisiki, a town of around 4,000 people.
In one home, 13 people were killed, with four others found dead on the second of the two properties, which sit slightly over a half-mile apart. In total, 15 women and two men were killed in the shootings, which also sent one additional person to the hospital in critical condition.
Authorities have not elaborated on a potential motive behind the crimes.
The South African Police Service (SAPS) reported over 6,000 murders took place between April and June this year. An average 58 people are murdered every day in South Africa. Like the US, these are war-time casualty figures without going to war.
South African Police Special Task Force in action (public domain image circa 2017).
China’s Newest Nuclear Submarine Sank in Dock Last Year
Chinese nuclear-powered submarines in the South China Sea in 2018. Photograph: China Stringer Network/Reuters
China’s efforts to achieve maritime military parity with the US have suffered a serious blow after its newest state-of-the-art nuclear submarine sank in a dock, American officials have confirmed.
The incident happened last May or June at the Wuchang shipyard near Wuhan – the same city where the Covid-19 pandemic is believed to have originated – and came to light, thanks to satellite imagery, despite efforts by the country’s communist authorities to stage a cover-up.
The Zhou-class vessel – first of a new kind of Chinese submarines and distinctive for its X-shaped stern that aids maneuverability – is believed to have been next to a pier when it sank.
It is not known if there were any casualties – or if the submarine had any nuclear fuel onboard at the time, although experts have deemed that likely, according to the Wall Street Journal. The submarine was eventually salvaged but it is believed that it will take many months before it can be put to sea.
There has been no acknowledgment of the incident from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) or any indication that Chinese authorities have checked the water or nearby environment for radiation.
The incident and the wall of silence shrouding it raised serious questions about the Chinese military’s competence and accountability which has been plagued by corruption, including the PLA rocket forces command.
As of 2022, China had six nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, six nuclear-powered attack submarines and 48 diesel-powered attack submarines. That submarine force is expected to grow to 65 by 2025 and 80 by 2035. Beijing wants to counteract US moves to come to Taiwan’s aid in a conflict and establish “maritime superiority” in a string of islands stretching from the Japanese archipelago to the South China Sea. As posted previously on Coriolanus, a Chinese military hospital ship recently treated thousands of patients for free along Africa’s coasts, fostering goodwill with people while making political inroads on the so-called “Dark Continent”.
Philadelphia Cat Recovering Well After Being Shot with Bow and Arrow
Kimiko is recovering at a PSPCA shelter which posted a clip of the kitty playfully stretching in an open-crate. Kimiko is still loving towards humans despite ample reason to be cautious and even fearful. Image: PASPCA/Instagram
A depraved miscreant shot a cat with a bow-and-arrow and left her to die on a Philadelphia street before she was miraculously saved by a volunteer.
Kimiko was found last week with an arrow protruding from her thigh in an apparent act of animal cruelty, according to the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PSPCA).
The friendly feline was found by the caretaker of a cat colony in the Strawberry Mansion section of Philadelphia on Friday September 20th with the metal arrow jutting out from the side – left to die a slow and painful death.
An x-ray image posted on Facebook shows an arrow point wedged into Kimiko’s right leg – just inches away from her bones. PSPCA surgeons at the Philadelphia Animal Specialty and Emergency hospital rushed to save her life.
Nicole Wilson of the PSPCA said of the heartless attack, “Not only is it senseless, the suffering that that causes. That cat was clearly injured for hours, suffering for hours before somebody was able to find it and bring it to help.”
“This person severely injured this cat,” adding ” we don’t know that an individual who would make that choice wouldn’t make the next choice of potentially injuring a person.”
Pennsylvania recorded 50,000 cases of animal abuse since the year 2017 – when the state introduced Libre’s Law which created stricter punishments for animal abusers including making aggravated assault on an animal a felony.
An x-ray image showed how close the arrow point was to her bones. PASPCA/Instagram
The PSPCA’s Animal Law Enforcement is investigating the incident and asking anyone with information about the person or persons responsible to call the PSPCA’s cruelty hotline at 866-601-7722 or email cruelty@pspca.org.
Undated photo courtesy of the Washington Post. Several ministers in the Likud government agree with this young lady.
Israeli launched a massive strike on what it said was Iran-allied Hezbollah’s central headquarters in a Beirut suburb shortly after PM Benjamin Netanyahu warned the UN that actions against Lebanese Hezbollah would not stop. The IDF announced that the strike killed Lebanese Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Ali Karki, and other commanders. At least four buildings were destroyed in the strikes, six people were killed, and more than 91 were injured. The intensified fighting has killed hundreds and tens of thousands more have been displaced.
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Lebanon, 28 Sep 2024.
Earlier in the day, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken insisted that “the path to diplomacy” was still open in the Middle East despite Israel’s latest massive strike in Lebanon, but he insisted Israel and Hezbollah must both “stop firing.” This diplomatic effort has been rendered moot by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Elsewhere, Iran, Russia, and their allies condemned the strikes on Beirut as a “war crime.”
The attacks against Hezbollah began when many world leaders — including those from the Middle East — were in New York for the annual UN General Assembly gathering on 27 Sep. Before these airstrikes, pagers and walkie-talkies used by Lebanese Hezbollah operatives- and civilians– simultaneously exploded last week, killing 42 people and maiming hundreds.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged the global community to “stop” Israel from waging a “genocidal war” against Lebanon.
“This new Israeli aggression proves that the Israeli enemy doesn’t care about all the international efforts and calls for a cease-fire,” Mikati said.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said: “It is time to face the truth, and the truth is unless Netanyahu is stopped, unless this government is stopped, war will encompass all of us.”
We are probably too late.
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. Israel’s behavior is a poor return for the hardworking American taxpayer who does not enjoy universal health care like Israelis do.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will do anything to hold on to power and keep his nettlesome bribery and corruption trial in Jerusalem held in abeyance, at the cost of Arab lives which the IDF and Likud Cabinet consider disposable. Last year Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter said Israel was going to roll out “Nakba 2023” and Heritage Minister Amihal Eliyahu suggested deploying a nuclear weapon against the people in Gaza.
The constant drumbeat of amalgamating all Muslims as terrorists, all Palestinians as Hamas, all Lebanese as Hezbollah may work with the Western audience, but the rest of the world and the UN sees through the propaganda.
The death toll in the tiny Gaza Strip has surpassed 40,000. The Associated Press (AP) provided the following data:
Palestinians killed in Gaza: at least 40,005
People killed in Israel: about 1,200
Palestinians killed in the West Bank: 623
People killed in Lebanon: approximately 530
Civilians
Civilians killed in Gaza: 5,956 women; at least 10,627 children.
Civilians and foreigners killed in Israel: 860
Children killed in Israel: 53
Civilians killed since 7 Oct in Israel along its northern border: 24
Civilians killed in Lebanon: 97
Meanwhile, the belligerent Netanyahu regime has practically guaranteed denying his principal ally, Democratic US President Joe Biden, a small diplomatic victory before he leaves office. A ceasefire and deal to release the 100 or so remaining hostages held by armed Palestinian groups would have been a final achievement to Biden’s long political career and a boost for his successor VPOTUS Kamala Harris. But now Pres. Biden and the West must expect escalation and asymmetric warfare retaliation by Lebanese Hezbollah and the possibility of a wider war with Iran.
While Netanyahu doesn’t mind if he angers the UN, he should mind upsetting the Biden Administration. Biden felt Netanyahu had humiliated both Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Biden himself with his back-and-forth palaver about a cease-fire proposal with Hezbollah. Netanyahu at first told US officials he supported a pause in fighting with the Lebanon-based militant group, then roundly rejected the cease-fire proposal once it was made public and began this well-planned onslaught on Lebanese Hezbollah, regardless of how many innocent civilians are killed, injured, or maimed.
Netanyahu has made Pres. Biden and his cabinet look ineffectual right before the November presidential election. Democratic President Jimmy Carter also appeared ineffectual during the 1980 “Iranian hostage crisis” and he would go on to lose the election to Republican Ronald Reagan. Does Netanyahu want Donald Trump to win in November?
And thanks to “Crime Minister” Netanyahu, US military personnel in CENTCOM AOR are in harm’s way in the Middle East. US forces are scheduled to depart Iraq next year, but other Americans are based throughout the region. Shia Houthis may attack Western maritime targets in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden on behalf of the people who previously helped them during the Saudi-caused famine in Yemen.
The US military maintains an outsized basing presence for ground troops in the Middle East, which tempts policymakers to use force in a region increasingly marginal to US national security interests.The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier group and an attack submarine have recently deployed to the region. Map: defensepriorities.org.
As posted previously on Coriolanus, the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the Hague has indicted Netanyahu (and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant) for war crimes, but their international arrest warrants have inexplicably not yet been issued. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague has also rebuked the Israeli government for its military operations against the Palestinians.
Psychological Theory: At the famous 4 July 1976 “Raid at Entebbe,” Israeli commandos rescued hostages whose plane was hijacked by Palestinian and German gunmen and flown to Uganda. The one Israeli military casualty was Yonatan Netanyahu, the brother of the current prime minister. Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov, the older brother of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, was hanged in May 1887 for a failed assassination attempt of Czar Alexander III of Russia. After the deaths of their beloved siblings, Muslims (Palestinians, Iranians, Arabs) became anathematic to Benjamin Netanyahu, like the Romanovs became abominable to V.I. Lenin and hence the “no quarter given” policies of both leaders.
Yoni Netanyahu, in a photograph taken shortly before his death at Entebbe in 1976. Yoni was described as a “talented, sensitive man.” His death may have forever impacted his brother’s attitudes towards Palestinians or Iranians. (GPO, Wikimedia)
Pennsylvania Brothers Plead Guilty to Felony Charges for Actions During 6 Jan Capitol Attack
Center: Matthew Valentin, circled in yellow, and Andrew Valentin circled in red. Clockwise from top right: Enlarged image depicting Matthew Valentin grabbing a police officer through a metal barrier; Matthew Valentin’s hand, circled in yellow, can be seen grabbing a police officer’s baton; body-worn police camera footage allegedly shows Matthew Valentin pepper spraying officers; Matthew and Andrew Valentin climbing the media tower on Capitol grounds (all images via Department of Justice court records.)
Matthew Valentin (31) of Stroudsburg, PA, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers. His brother, Andrew Valentin (26), also of Stroudsburg, PA, pleaded guilty to two felony counts of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon.
The Honorable US District Judge Reggie B. Walton will sentence the two on 17 Jan 2025.
On 6 Jan, at approximately 2:29 PM, the brothers rushed a police line while rioters yelled, “push, push, push.” The two then pushed a metal barricade into a line of Capitol Police officers.
The officers retreated and formed a new protective line on the south side of the West Plaza. Matthew Valentin then approached the line and sprayed a chemical irritant towards the officers. The brothers then moved from the Lower West Terrace to the Upper West Terrace, arriving at approximately 2:50 p.m. At about 3:30 PM, the mob, including Matthew Valentin, rushed the line of officers. Matthew grabbed a police baton and attempted to tear the baton out of that officer’s hands.
At approximately 5:12 PM, Andrew Valentin threw a folding chair at the line of officers that were protecting the Upper West Terrace, striking one officer’s shield.
The FBI arrested the Valentin brothers on 11 and 12 Feb 2024 in Pennsylvania.
In the 44 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,504 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 560 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
These two young siblings threw their lives away over white supremacy and Donald Trump.
Signs reading “pesticides = cancer” and “pesticides = murder” are seen near entrance of the International Agriculture Fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on 22 Feb 2024. AFP – LUDOVIC MARIN
According to Vert de rage (Green with Rage), produced by public French television, seven of 22 samples of fruits and vegetables purchased in large French supermarket chains contained pesticide residues banned in Europe.
A grapefruit from China contained two banned products: chlorpyrifos (recognized as neurotoxic, toxic for reproduction, and an endocrine disruptor, and propiconazole (recognized as toxic for reproduction). The EU banned chlorpyrifos in 2020, propiconazole since 2009.
Grapes from Peru contained residues of imidacloprid (part of the neonicotinoids family – known to be harmful to bees), and myclobutanil, a fungicide, which was banned in 2021. An orange from Tunisia contained malathion, a pesticide classified as “probably carcinogenic”, banned in the EU since 2008.
Pesticides banned in Europe were more prevalent in products such as coffee, tea, spices, and some vegetables. Tahitian limes, passion fruit and plums are the most affected, while rice, zucchini and plantain bananas were also found to contain pesticides.
“Imported foods are twice as likely to contain pesticides banned by the EU as foods grown in the EU,” reported the EFSA.
In France, in 2022, the French public agency in charge of food safety Directorate General for Food (DGAL) issued 2,446 food recalls. 328 of them were linked to the presence of pesticides. Among them, 296 contained at least one banned pesticide or pesticide residue “exceeding the maximum limit authorized in food.”
In 2022, the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) reported that pesticide residues were the leading cause of food warnings. Among the products distributed in France, 104 out of 114 notifications concerned the presence of banned pesticides. In 2023, RASFF issued 292 notifications for products containing pesticides, of which 77 contained at least one banned pesticide or pesticide residue.
In three years, “26.46 percent of products distributed in France containing banned pesticides came from India”, making this country “the most frequent origin” for this type of problem.
Vert de rage also discussed pesticides that have been withdrawn from the European market, but which are still produced in France to be exported to countries where they remain authorized.
According to the Swiss NGO Public Eye, the top five destinations for French-made pesticides in 2023 were Brazil, followed by Ukraine, the US, Russia, and the UK.
Despite the ban on sales in France, there are concerns that the production of these pesticides is affecting drinking water, surface water, and groundwater in the towns where the factories are located.
US Charges Iranians with Hacking Attack on Trump Campaign
Montage courtesy of the FBI
The US Justice Department unsealed criminal charges accusing three members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of hacking Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and trying to disrupt the 5 Nov election. The indictment is the latest effort by the Biden administration to counter foreign efforts to interfere in the presidential election between Trump, a Republican, and his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris. The US Treasury Department also said it was imposing sanctions on seven members of the IRGC.
Photo: Carlo Allegri / Reuters
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, whose mental faculties have been called into question more and more by psychologists, threatened to criminally prosecute the Internet search engine Google for allegedly favoring Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in its search results if he wins in November,
Without providing evidence, Trump claimed in a post on his Truth Social site that Google is trying to interfere with the 2024 presidential election by purposely displaying only “bad stories” about him.
“It has been determined that Google has illegally used a system of only revealing and displaying bad stories about Donald J. Trump, some made up for this purpose while, at the same time, only revealing good stories about Comrade Kamala Harris,” he wrote in the post.
Recently the oldest man to seek the Presidency of the United States asked at a rally for the return of iconic TV legend Johnny Carson: “Where Is Johnny Carson? Bring back Johnny.”
The “King” of late-night comedy died in 2005.
The immortal Johnny Carson as the clairvoyant “Carnac the Magnificent”. “Hmm, I see an obese orange-haired alte cocker losing an election and calling for a mulligan.”
China’s Defense Ministry had announced the rare trial on Wednesday, saying that the missile was carrying a dummy warhead and “fell into expected sea areas”.
The launch sparked protests from countries in the region, with Japan saying it had not been given advance notice, and Taiwan expressing “solemn condemnation”.
Australia said it was seeking an explanation, while New Zealand called the launch “an unwelcome and concerning development”.
French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson said “the missile fell not far from … the Marquesas Islands”, an archipelago that is part of its exclusive economic zone.
Hawaii seems to be in range of this Chinese ICBM. Map: Brittanica.com
“The Chinese authorities previously notified their French counterparts of this test,” the French High Commission said in a statement. The US also received “some advanced notification of this ICBM test”, describing this as “a step in the right direction” that would help prevent “misperception or miscalculation”.
China’s military on Thursday released imagery of the missile, showing the projectile soaring into the air in a plum of smoke from an undisclosed location.
The Chinese Defense Ministry described the test launch as a “routine arrangement in our annual training plan” than is “in line with international law and international practice and is not directed against any country or target”.
Analysts said the imagery suggested the launch could be of a Dongfeng-31 AG ICBM, unveiled during a military parade in 2017.
As previously reported here on Coriolanus, Beijing has been rooting out corruption in the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) leadership. At least a dozen executives or officers have been recently purged. This launch, the first of its kind in four decades, is a readiness and capability test and may be a progress report that the anti-corruption measures are working and that the systems are copasetic.
American Warzone: Twenty-Year Old Suspect Attacks California Courthouse, Five Injured
Nathaniel McGuire – Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office via AP
Santa Barbara resident Nathaniel James McGuire (20) was charged with maliciously damaging a building by means of explosive. McGuire allegedly lunged through the Santa Maria Courthouse doors and tossed an explosive at the local arraignment room. When McGuire entered the courthouse, he yelled “Liberty or death!”
After escaping he was quickly detained. McGuire allegedly yelled that the government had taken his guns and that everyone needed to fight, rise up, and rebel. In a recorded interview with investigators, McGuire said he arrived at the courthouse with the intention to kill deputies working the security desk inside the courthouse.
McGuire allegedly was going back to his car to get a shotgun, a lever action rifle, and Molotov cocktails and he planned on re-entering the courthouse to kill a judge. The suspect’s alleged motivation was his 28 July arrest for an alleged firearms violation. Deputies had seized a loaded, concealed, unregistered revolver that was in McGuire’s pants pocket.
If convicted on his federal charge, McGuire faces a minimum sentence of seven years in prison and a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison.
Ten Molotov cocktails, one bomb, and several weapons were recovered from his car outside Santa Maria Courthouse. EOD rendered the bomb safe. Image: US Attorney
If law-enforcement personnel hadn’t quickly detained McGuire after he hurled the explosive, there would have been a lot more victims and carnage. This 20-year-old man threw his life away over his gun craze.
In an average year, 3,299 people die by guns in California. With a rate of 8.2 deaths per 100,000 people, the Golden State has the 45th-highest rate of gun deaths in the US. Nationally, 44,341 people die by guns in an average year, a rate of 13.3 deaths per 100,000 people.
Poll:Half Of Russians Wants Putin to Withdraw Troops from Ukraine
Women walk past a banner that depicts Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and says ‘Killer’ and ‘Nuremberg for Putin’ in Wroclaw, Poland. Photo: SERGEI GAPON/AFP via Getty Images
Nearly half of the Russians surveyed this month support an immediate military withdrawal from Ukraine and negotiations for a peace deal. The independent poll, which found 49% want to end the invasion that began in Feb 2022, also revealed that only 32% were prepared to join the fight if ordered by the Defense Ministry, according to the Kyiv Independent. Another 29% reportedly said they weren’t willing to wage war against Ukraine.
But 53% said they supported ousting Ukrainian troops from the territory seized in Russia’s Kursk region since launching a cross-border incursion 6 Aug. And 29% said they favored another wave of conscription to boost Russia’s military.
The findings are based on a survey of 800 Russians over 18 by the ExtremeScan and Chronicles polling organizations, according to the Kyiv Independent, which cited a Russian-language report on the currenttime.tv website. The results were reportedly released to coincide with the two-year anniversary of Russia’s first call-up of draftees to fight in Ukraine.
The results reflect an increase of about ten percentage points in favor of ending the war since February, according to earlier polling by ExtremeScan and Chronicles. The companies were founded by Russian antiwar activists following the invasion of Ukraine. Russian polling outfits show more popular support for the war. In February, the Levada Center said 77% of those it surveyed backed the war, which the Kyiv Independent said at the time was consistent with the center’s previous findings.
Staggering casualties are being felt by the Russian people and relatives miss their loved ones. As previously posted here, mothers and children of soldiers sent to the war against Ukraine protested outside the Ministry of Defense recently demanding their fathers and husbands come home.
Unwanted Shelter Dogs Pampered With Supermodel Treatment to Find Them Forever Homes
All Dogs Matter, a rescue shelter in London, England, organized a photoshoot to promote lonely canines for adoption. They featured some of their older, bigger, and less ‘photogenic’ pooches, as well as pairs of pups that need to be adopted together.
Whether in foster care or housed at the shelter, these poor dogs were treated to a day of extra attention in the countryside where they were pampered with ‘supermodel treatment’.
Photo shoot for All Dogs Matter – by Wex Photo Video via SWNS
Brian and Cody, a very sweet and bonded pair (10 months – one year old) are up for adoption or fosteringat All Dogs Matter. Wex Photo Video / SWNS
Three-year-old brothers Rumi and Ryan are gentle spirited and regal; up for adoption at All Dogs Matter shelter-by Wex Photo Video/ SWNS
“Much like a dating profile, pictures tell a thousand words,” said a worker at the shelter.
“If these wonderful photos help even one pup find a home, we’ll consider it a job well done.”
Last year All Dogs Matter rescued 331 dogs and placed them with new owners.
Trump supporters sprayed tear gas and trampled police officers when they stormed the US Capitol in Washington, DC on 6 Jan 2021. (Photo by JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images)
Tom Vournas (63) of Bradenton, FL, pleaded guilty to a felony charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers using a dangerous weapon and inflicting bodily injury. Leonard Lobianco (53) of North Port, FL, pleaded guilty on 23 Sep 2024 to a single felony charge of civil disorder.
The Honorable US District Judge Royce C. Lamberth will sentence Vournas on 17 Jan 2025 and Lobianco on 28 Jan 2025.
On 6 Jan 2021, Vournas and Lobianco, members of the “Zone 5” Proud Boys joined in an attack against a police barricade. Members of this mob violently trampled the metal barriers, moved the barriers aside, and surged past officers to advance toward the Capitol. For the next hour, police struggled to contain the mob, while certain members of the Proud Boys assaulted and engaged with police. Vournas sprayed pepper gel, a dangerous weapon, twice toward a line of police officers, hitting a USCP officer in the face and causing bodily injury. After penetrating police lines, Vournas and Lobianco blithely took pictures together in the “Crypt” before leaving through the Senate Wing Door at approximately 2:25 PM.
The FBI arrested the two men on 4 Jan 2024 in Florida.
Leonard Lobianco (L), Tom Vournas (R). These two runamoks represent America’s Fedayeen Saddam (FS), white supremacist dead-enders clinging on to the last vestiges of white privilege in the US.
MAGA supporters and white supremacists heeded the call of Donald Trump, but the Proud Boys have since turned on him. “Trump will go down as a total failure,” one member of the Proud Boys said in a chat on Telegram; another called Trump a “shill.” Imagery: SITE Intelligence Group
In the 44 months since 6 Jan 2021, more than 1,504 suspects have been charged in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to attacking the US Capitol, including more than 560 seditionists charged with feloniously assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The FBI investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.
Two Russian Nationals Charged in Connection with Operating Billion Dollar Money Laundering Services
The US imposed sanctions on an alleged Russian money-laundering operation that caters to cybercriminals around the world and unsealed indictments against two Russian nationals for their alleged involvement in the operation.
The US and the Netherlands shut down the “prolific” money-laundering operation known as Cryptex and recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.
The two Russians named in the indictment, Sergei Ivanov and Timur Shakhmametov, remain at large. They are charged with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering using stolen credit and debit card information, and other charges. The State Department announced rewards of up to $10 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Ivanov or Shakhmametov.
Ivanov’s services have been used by cybercrime marketplaces, ransomware groups, and hackers responsible for significant data breaches of major US companies.
Cryptex advertises its virtual currency services in Russian and has received over $51.2 million in funds derived from ransomware attacks.
Ivanov also allegedly created and operated Russian payment and exchange services UAPS, PinPays, and PM2BTC, which provided money-transfer and -laundering services directly to criminals.
For nearly two decades, Ivanov operated as a professional cyber-money-launderer, advertising his services to other cybercriminals on exclusive Russian-speaking criminal forums.
The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Ivanov and Cryptex, which is based in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines but operates in Russia.
The Treasury Department also identified PM2BTC as a “primary money-laundering concern” in connection with Russian illicit finance. PM2BTC has long-standing ties to Russian or Russian-affiliated financial institutions that are under U.S. sanctions or other restrictions.
Individuals visiting the sites now see a message indicating that the site has been seized by the federal government. The seizure prevents the owners and third parties from using the sites for money laundering.
Law enforcement authorities in the Netherlands seized the servers hosting PM2BTC and Cryptex. Those servers have been taken offline, and the Dutch have seized cryptocurrency from those servers worth more than $7 million.
The State Department is also offering rewards of up to $1 million each for information identifying the leaders of PM2BTC and stolen credit-card marketplaces PinPays and Joker’s Stash.
US Offers $20M for Details About Iranian Allegedly Behind Plot to Kill John Bolton
The US State Department announced a $20 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the alleged Iranian mastermind behind a plot to assassinate former Republican White House official John Bolton.
In Aug 2022, US officials uncovered a plot by Shahram Poursafi, a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to kill Bolton, who served as national security adviser to former President Donald Trump. The announcement came as Donald Trump (78) claimed there were “big threats” on his life by Iran.
Bolton, considered a foreign policy hawk, is a fierce critic of Iran and advocated that Trump unilaterally and recklessly withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
Poursafi allegedly offered an unidentified person inside the US $300,000 to kill Bolton in the capital area. The plan was likely set in motion after the US killing of top IRGC commander Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on 3 Jan 2020 by a US drone strike outside Baghdad Int’l Airport (BIAP). But the reprisal plot never made headway because the ostensible assassin became an informant of the FBI. Iranian authorities have dismissed the allegations as “fiction.”
General Qasem Soleimani was a popular figure and hero in Iran, as well as an effective combat leader against ISIS in Syria and Iraq. When the US invaded Afghanistan in Oct 2001 after the 11 Sep 2001 attacks, General Soleimani’s Quds Force collaborated with the US and led the 2001 uprising in Herat against the Taliban. Ethnic Hazaras, the Northern Alliance, and the Quds Force liberated the city before US forces entered.Undated image: Wikimedia
The United States designated the entire IRGC a “foreign terrorist organization” in 2019, after previously designating its external operation wing, the Quds Force.
On 4 Dec 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333. Part 2.11 of E.O. 12333 reiterates a proscription on US intelligence agencies sponsoring or carrying out an assassination. It reads:
No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.
Bashkirs, Tatars Bear Brunt of Putin’s War Against Ukraine
Tatarstan soldier Ruslan Sadykov was killed near Ukraine’s Mariupol in 2022.
According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, more soldiers from the central Russian regions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan have died than any other region in the country. The burden of the Kremlin’s war on Ukraine is disproportionately falling on more distant regions of Russia, further away from the wealthy population centers of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The reason for the recent increase in minority casualties is unclear, but it comes two years after President Vladimir Putin stunned the country by announcing a “partial” mobilization that called up some 300,000 men to fight.
Overall, Russian casualties — killed or wounded in action — are believed to exceed 500,000 according to Western estimates, with more men killed over the past 30 months than in an entire decade of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The last official casualty announcement from the Kremlin came in September 2022, with 5,937 Russian soldiers reported killed. At the time, Ukraine was reporting Russian losses at nearly ten times that figure. Analysis reveals that nonethnic Russians, like Bashkirs and Tatars, have been disproportionately represented among the country’s military casualties.
Bashkortostan, a mid-Volga republic with a population a little over four million, had 3,026 confirmed deaths as of 26 Sep according to open-source analysis. In Tatarstan, which has a similar population, 2,740 deaths were registered.
Recent analysis by BBC Russian/Mediazona, which used a similar methodology, listed 2,705 confirmed deaths in Bashkortostan and 2,259 in Tatarstan.
Russia’s Bashkortostan region has borne more fatalities in the Ukraine invasion than any other region of Russia.
In Jan 2024, Bashkortostan saw a wave of nonviolent protests over the sentencing of Fail Alsynov, a popular activist longtime advocate for minority rights and the Bashkir language and culture, to four years in prison for purportedly stoking interethnic enmity. The protests were fueled in part by simmering discontent about the costs of the Ukraine war for the region.Map: kickassfacts.com
In addition to mobilized soldiers sent to fight in Ukraine, other fighters include prison inmates and private military company mercenaries, as well as “kontraktniki”— men who voluntarily sign contracts to fight, induced by extraordinarily high wages and veterans benefits for widows and survivors. Among kontraktniki, Bashkortostan leads Russia in the number of confirmed deaths: 965, according to the RFE/RL tally. Tatarstan ranked second, with 557 volunteer deaths.
By comparison, only 135 volunteers from Moscow — with an official population of more than 13 million — have been confirmed killed. Over the last four weeks, RFE/RL’s Tatar-Bashkir Service has added 575 names to its list of dead soldiers from the two regions, nearly 20 per day.
The confirmed figures are assumed to be a major undercount given the difficulty in identifying deaths amid official secrecy. The exact number of men, kontraktniki, prison inmates, or mobilized troops sent from Bashkortostan and Tatarstan to fight in Ukraine is unclear.
Moscow is paying “special attention” to the Volga region, Tatar political analyst Ruslan Aysin said, as part of what he said was a deliberate Kremlin attempt to “confuse the political status” of the so-called ethnic republics, as the regions of Russia with large nonethnic-Russian populations are called.
Putin’s government, he said, is trying to bolster support for the war — or at least temper discontent — among ethnic Russians in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg by minimizing their casualty burden.
Aysin said that for the Russian authorities, each military death is “just a statistic. But for the republic, for the ethnic group, for the individual family, this is a great tragedy. There is a big gap between the leadership and the average citizen.”
Bashkortostan region head Radiy Khabirov (L) meets with volunteer soldiers near the front line in Ukraine earlier this month. In July 2022, Khabirov was sanctioned by the British government for openly supporting the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is a member of the ruling United Russia party.
As pro-Ukraine Chechens have been fighting against pro-Kremlin Chechens (Kadyrovtsies), Kazan Tatars have been battling pro-Ukrainian Crimean Tatars. During the American Civil War, approximately 7,000 Jewish soldiers fought for the Union and 3,000 for the Confederacy; some 600 of them were killed in combat. Irishmen fought for both the Union (150,000) and the Confederacy (30-40,000; including six rebel generals). They fought each other fiercely during the day, but at night argued with each other across the picket lines about whose cause was right. The Northern Irish contended the Southern Irish were betraying the country that adopted them. The Southern Irish countered the Confederacy was like Ireland, seeking independence from an oppressor (Great Britain). You wonder what discussions today’s combatants would have with each other if circumstances allowed.
Our immense gratitude to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, designated by the Kremlin as an ‘Undesirable Organization” in Feb 2024, for their comprehensive analysis.
‘The Violence is Getting Out of Hand’: Crime Grips Cuba’s Streets
19-year-old Jan Franco (L) was stabbed to death in Havana. “So many young people have been killed this year… The violence is getting out of hand,” said his sister, Samantha Gonzalez.
Few could deny that Cuba’s streets have traditionally been among the safest in the Americas. But this is changing. Samantha González will be the first to tell you. Her younger brother, an aspiring music producer named Jan Franco, was murdered two months ago in an apparent gang-related dispute. From the low-income Havana neighborhood of Cayo Hueso and just 19 years old when he was killed, Jan Franco was stabbed twice in the chest outside a recording studio. He was caught in the middle of an argument when someone pulled a knife. Cuba has a growing drug and gang problem where disputes are settled with knives, machetes, or sometimes guns.
The situation has been worsened by a new drug in Cuba called “quimico” – a cheap chemical high with a cannabis base. Samantha says that it’s increasingly popular among Cuban youth in the parks and on the streets.
The Cuban authorities have always been fiercely protective of their island’s reputation as crime-free and quick to point out that the streets are demonstrably safer than those of most cities in the US. Anything that highlights Cuba’s social problems is generally painted as biased criticism of their socialist system or as anti-revolutionary fabrications originating from Miami or Washington.
In August, an edition of nightly talk program Mesa Redonda – in which Communist Party officials are invited on air to deliver the party line – was titled Cuba Against Drugs. During the broadcast, Colonel Juan Carlos Poey Guerra, the head of the interior ministry’s anti-drug unit, acknowledged the existence, production, and distribution of the new drug, químico, and its impact on Cuba’s youth. He insisted the authorities were tackling the issue.
“Quimico” is allegedly prepared with epilepsy pills, formaldehyde, and animal anesthesia, and smoked in cigarettes like marijuana. Michael Fischer /Pexels/ Getty Images
For its part, the government largely blames the old enemy, the US, for both the existence of synthetic opioids in Cuba and for the decades-long US economic embargo on the island which they say is the reason some Cubans have resorted to crime.
According to http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com, 82 people died in Cuba from drug use in 2020. By contrast, drug use killed 3,686 people in Canada.
People Exposed to Pigs at Minnesota State Fair Contract Variant Flu Strain
A pig is guided through a showing during the closing weekend of the Minnesota State Fair. Nicole Neri for MPR News 2024
The Minnesota Department of Health has reported two human cases of H3N2v, a strain of influenza A, after people were exposed to pigs at the State Fair. The CDC said the two fairgoers are under the age of 18 and sought health care in early September.
One patient is said to have had direct contact with pigs while the other had indirect contact. Neither of them had been in contact with one another at the fair.
The Minnesota Department of Health does not anticipate further spread. A spokesman said that “typically, humans don’t pass it to another human in the way that they would a normal human flu strain.” She added infection can occur in cases where people who are not typically exposed to pigs come in close contact and are exposed to respiratory droplets, but it does not always happen.
“It’s not a very severe illness in humans, it’s like the regular flu. It can be mild to severe, but it’s not symptomatically, or in terms of severity, all that different from human flu.”
The Minnesota Department of Health encourage people to wash their hands after visiting agricultural farms or events and to maintain distance from the animals.
Both fairgoers have recovered from their symptoms and were not hospitalized.
The CDC reported that nine other variants of influenza have been reported during the 2023-2024 season.
ROK Intelligence: North Korea May Conduct Nuclear Test After US Election
Getty Images / STR / Contributor; iStock / KREMLL
North Korea may conduct its seventh nuclear test after the US presidential vote in November, according to the NIS (formerly known as KCIA).
This would be North Korea’s first nuclear test since 2017. North Korea conducted its first nuclear test in 2006. All six have been underground.
The NIS also reported that the North possesses about 70 kgs of plutonium and a significant amount of highly enriched uranium (HEU), enough to build dozens of nuclear weapons.
Regarding the North’s disclosure of an HEU facility for the first time this month, the NIS said Pyongyang appeared to have the US election in mind, but it could be also trying to “instill confidence” in the domestic audience struggling with a crippled economy and food insecurity.
North Korea unveiled details of its uranium enrichment facility for the first time this month, with leader Kim Jong Un calling for increasing the number of centrifuges for uranium enrichment so it can build up its nuclear arsenal for self-defense.
The South Korean intelligence agency said the North’s test launch of new tactical ballistic missiles on 18 Sept was aimed at verifying its precision strike capability.
Calling it a “slight improvement from the past,” the NIS said one of the two missiles fired successfully reached the target, adding that the agency recognized it as a “grave threat” to South Korean security.
The NIS also said that North Korea-Russia relations were “improving and strengthening considerably and continuously” and that it was “watching closely with concerns about Russia’s economic support to North Korea, including the supply of refined oil and technical cooperation such as reconnaissance satellites, as a compensation for North Korea’s weapons supply.”
On Sino-North Korea relations, the NIS reported that they had “deteriorated over the crackdown on North Korean foreign currency earners operating in China.”
This undated photo released from North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency via KNS on 13 Sep 2024 shows North Korean supremo Kim Jong Un inspecting the Nuclear Weapons Institute and the production base of weapon-grade nuclear materials, at an undisclosed location in North Korea. STR/KCNA via KNS/AFP
North Korean supremo Kim Jong-Un keeps holding his neighbors hostage with his growing nuclear prowess while his people starve. The US, South Korea, and Japan will continue their policy to contain and deter North Korea, as the alternatives are grim, including catastrophic radioactive fallout. Beijing disapproves of Pyongyang’s nuclear progress, but is also concerned about the massive instability if North Korea collapses.
Bear Charges at British Columbia Man Inside His Garage
A British Columbia man came face-to-face with a bear inside his garage and the startling encounter was caught on camera.
Coquitlam resident Alex Gold posted a security camera footage to Instagram showing what happened when he was recently unloading groceries from his vehicle in front of his garage.
The video shows Gold’s extremely close encounter with a bear that wandered in through the open garage door.
“I came back to my car and I bumped into the bear,” Gold told CTV News. “She was kind of hissing.”
The video shows the bear charging at Gold multiple times as he claps his hands, makes loud sounds and slowly backs away.
Gold was able to get back into his SUV and honk the horn, which finally scared the mother bear — and her nearby cub — away from his property.
Lisa Lopez of the non-profit WildSafeBC praised Gold’s behavior during the tense encounter.
“The important thing to always remember is to not run,” Lopez said. “Because then it could become a predator-prey kind of situation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on 25 Sep that a conventional attack on Russia by any country that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack.
Putin made the statement as he outlined revisions to Russia’s nuclear doctrine at a meeting of Russia’s Security Council in Moscow.
Russia’s current nuclear doctrine says Russia may use nuclear weapons in case of a nuclear attack by an enemy or a conventional attack that threatens the existence of the state.
The revised version of the document says that Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack posing a “critical threat to our sovereignty.”
“It is proposed that aggression against Russia by any nonnuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, be considered as their joint attack on the Russian Federation,” Putin said.
The conditions for Russia’s transition to the use of nuclear weapons are also clearly fixed,” Putin said, adding that Moscow would consider such a move if it gets reliable information about the start of a mass cross-border attack by air from strategic and tactical aviation, cruise missiles, drones, and hypersonic weapons.
Putin also said the list of states and military alliances subject to nuclear deterrence should be expanded but did not mention which countries would be added.
A top Ukrainian government official denounced the revisions, saying they proved Moscow had nothing left but nuclear blackmail to intimidate the world.
“Russia no longer has any instruments to intimidate the world apart from nuclear blackmail,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said on 25 Sep on Telegram. “These instruments will not work.”
Since Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, he and others in the Kremlin have threatened the West with Russia’s nuclear arsenal to discourage it from ramping up support for Kiev.
The revisions come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy seeks permission from his allies in the US and Europe to use the longer-range weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory.
The change follows Putin’s warning to the US and other NATO allies that allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied longer-range weapons to hit Russian territory would mean that Russia and NATO are at war. Putin said the revisions were carefully calibrated and commensurate with the modern military threats facing Russia.
This is dangerous nuclear saber-rattling and shows how desperate Putin is. He makes this announcement while the UN General Assembly is convening in NYC, a clear snub at the international body. As the recent Russian attack on the civilian cargo ship carrying grain in the Black Sea demonstrated, Putin will attack vulnerable economic targets to discourage the US and NATO from allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons against Russia. A war in the Middle East benefits Putin as this could cause oil prices to rise, sparking inflation in the US and the West.
Such a revision to Russian nuclear doctrine may have required consultation with key allies, Beijing and Pyongyang. The more rational, profit-oriented Xi Jinping probably disapproved of this change. He already has concerns about a nuclear mishap on his eastern border with North Korea and wouldn’t want to expose China to nuclear fallout from the west. Also, Beijing profits from a long, conventional war so China, “the world’s factory,” could continue making money selling everything from A-to Z to Russia. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is also studying tactics, weapons, communications systems, and techniques used in the Russo-Ukrainian War in order to see what would work in a potential conflict with Taiwan and the US. Kim Jong-Un probably approved of this change, having recently become formal allies with Putin and himself rattling his nuclear saber to maintain his grip on the Hermit Kingdom and his starving people.
Maryland Female White Supremacist Sentenced for Conspiring to Destroy Baltimore Region Power Grid
A woman believed to be Sarah Beth Clendaniel is shown wearing tactical gear containing a swastika, holding a rifle and with a pistol in a drop holster on her left leg. (Photo: FBI)
Sarah Beth Clendaniel (36) of Catonsville, MD, was sentenced to 18 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release for conspiring to damage or destroy electrical facilities in Maryland and a concurrent sentence of 15 years in prison and three years of supervised release for being a felon in possession of a firearm. The defendant will be 54 years old when she is released from prison.
In 2018, Clendaniel became acquainted with Brandon C. Russell, a Florida resident, who is currently charged with conspiracy to damage or destroy electrical facilities in Maryland and is awaiting trial. Clendaniel and Russell espouse a white supremacist ideology and advocate a concept known as “accelerationism.” To “accelerate” or to support “accelerationism” is based on a white supremacist belief that the current system is irreparable and without an apparent political solution, and therefore violent action is necessary to precipitate societal and government collapse.
From Dec 2022 through Feb 2023, Clendaniel conspired with Russell to damage energy facilities involved in the transmission and distribution of electricity and to cause a significant interruption and impairment of the Baltimore regional power grid. The intended monetary loss associated with the planned attacks would have exceeded $75 million.
As set forth in her plea agreement, Clendaniel admitted that she communicated and planned over encrypted communication applications (ECA) to carry out attacks against energy facilities. Russell and Clendaniel communicated their plans to commit an attack on the Baltimore region power grid to a confidential human source (CHS-1).
On 3 Feb 2023, law enforcement agents executed a search warrant at Clendaniel’s residence in Catonsville, MD. Law enforcement agents recovered various firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Federal law prohibits Clendaniel from possessing these items because she is a convicted felon, including convictions in Cecil County, MD, for robbery in 2006 and robbery and attempted robbery in 2016.
Brandon Russell mugshot from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office via AP.
Brandon Clint Russell is a Bahamian and American Neo-Nazi leader, terrorist, and founder of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division. He studied nuclear physics at the University of South Florida (USF) as an undergraduate and became a Florida Army National Guardsman.
These two are incredibly dangerous miscreants with histories of violence and hatred. The sooner his trial concludes and he is incarcerated for decades, if not life, the better. Where all of this hatred comes from in white Americans can be attributed to hate messages propagating on right wing radio stations and cable programs, as well as social media, like ‘X.” The next article discusses hate crimes catalogued by the FBI.
Brandon Clint Russell is innocent of all charges until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
FBI:Hate Crimes, Particularly Against LGBTQ Community, On the Rise
Hate crimes motivated by gender-identity and sexual orientation rose from 2022 to 2023, according to FBI data, sparking concern among LGBTQ advocates about the potential impact of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and legislation.
Though violent crime is down about 3% overall from 2022 to 2023, hate crimes are up across the US, according to the FBI’s statistics. Sexual orientation and gender identity were the third and fourth most prevalent bias motivation in 2023, behind race/ethnicity and religion.
The FBI counted 2,936 incidents related to sexual-orientation and gender-identity bias in 2023 – up roughly 8.6% from about 2,700 in 2022.
Sexual orientation, excluding heterosexuality, was the motivation for 2,389 incidents in 2023 – up from about 2,188 in 2022, and about 1,300 in 2021, according to FBI data report.
The FBI report also shows gender identity-based incidents have been on the rise for several years, from 307 offenses in 2021, to 515 in 2022, to 547 in 2023.
In June 2023, Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the US, which is still in effect, citing an increasingly hostile environment and the record-breaking wave of legislation negatively impacting the LGBTQ community.
Canadian Auto-Theft Plague: 78 Stolen Vehicles Seized in Montreal Port in One Month as Numbers Continue to Skyrocket
This stolen Lexus was recovered in a storage container at the Port of Montreal in 2019. It was one of 97 high-end vehicles recovered by police during Project Shildon. Police say the Lexus and other stolen vehicles were destined for Africa. Photo: Ontario Provincial Police
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) seized 78 stolen vehicles valued at nearly $6 million and transferred them to the local police. The CBSA seized 348 vehicles in Quebec in the entire year in 2018.
In 2023, the CBSA reported that 1,204 vehicles were seized, topping the 1,050 vehicles seized in 2022.
With just over three months to go in the year, 1,061 vehicles have so far been seized in Quebec.
The Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) reported that the cost of insurance claims for replacing stolen vehicles skyrocketed in 2023 to $1.5 billion, and 2024 is likely to be similar.
The IBC said that between 2018 and 2021, auto theft claims averaged $556 million.
“Canada’s auto theft crisis is also placing pressure on drivers’ insurance premiums – as auto theft continues to increase, so do the associated costs,” said IBC vice president Liam McGuinty. “Auto theft is not a victimless crime.”
From 2018 to 2023, claims have increased by 56 per cent and the cost of those claims increased 254 per cent.
The destinations of these stolen cars include China, West Africa, and the Middle East, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
Unidentified Wagner fighter. On 26 Jan 2023, the US Treasury sanctioned the Wagner Group as a Transnational Criminal Organization (TCO) and the UK designated them as a terrorist entity in Sep 2023. (Undated photo / TASS)
Wagner’s late leader and founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said in late June 2023 that 32,000 former inmates recruited by his group from prison had returned home after being granted clemency as part of their remuneration for fighting in Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin said those fighting in Ukraine must become “Russia’s new elite” and allowed to occupy state posts. So now more than 300 soldiers who fought Ukraine have become elected officials, the majority of them from Putin’s ruling United Russia party.
Former Wagner mercenary Mikhail Ostryansky who fought in Ukraine has been elected speaker of a local parliament in the Perm region. Ostryansky, a 65-year-old former police officer, now holds the highest position by a returning soldier since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
But the reintegration of prison recruits has been a disaster for Russia over the past two years. Hundreds of cases of violent crimes, including murders and sexual attacks, have been committed by former Wagner mercenaries and other returning soldiers, some of it reported here on Coriolanus.
Russian courts tend to hand mitigated sentences to such perpetrators, citing their “patriotism” and “contributions” they made to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In October 2023, Putin urged state-run media outlets to refrain from covering crimes committed by returning soldiers. In January, because of the crime wave committed by these veterans, Putin ended the practice of exonerating prison recruits. These convicts were officially granted “a release on parole,” maintaining their criminal records.
According to a new report by the US-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), JPMorgan and HSBC unknowingly processed payments for companies controlled by Wagner.
Wagner established an early foothold in Africa during the mid-2010s thanks to access it had to an international “network of financial services and transportation networks to move supplies and generate revenue. Intermediary banks and shipping companies formed crucial linkages between PMC Wagner’s early mining activities and the wider international economic system,” C4ADS said.
For example, Prigozhin’s Sudanese mining firm, Meroe Gold, purchased industrial equipment, diesel generators, and spare parts from China in 2017. The payments, made from a local bank account, were processed through JPMorgan Chase and HSBC Group’s Hang Seng Bank as intermediaries. The Financial Times, which first reported on the C4ADS findings, wrote that neither JPMorgan nor HSBC were found to have knowingly handled transactions for Wagner’s front companies.
Footnote: In July 2012, the US Senate Sub-Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs accused HSBC of exposing the US financial system to money laundering, drug, and terrorist financing risks. See official findings linked below.
Following Prigozhin’s death in August 2023, Russia’s Defense Ministry absorbed Wagner’s operations across Africa. The group is estimated to have approximately 5,000 mercenaries operating in Africa, many of whom were former Russian soldiers and convicts. Three of them were recently detained in Chad for unspecified reasons. The Russian foreign ministry identified them as Maxim Shugaley, Samer Sueifan and E. Tsaryov.
The state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported that Shugaley and Sueifan are “sociologists” that had been held at the airport of Chad’s capital since 19 Sep. The pair were reportedly detained without explanation.
Shugaley heads the Moscow-based NGO “Foundation for the Defense of National Values”, which is part of a media group the US claims is linked to the late Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. He is under EU sanctions, listed as working directly under Prigozhin’s supervision as the “public relations arm of the Wagner Group,” and spreading “propaganda and disinformation.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said a Belarusian citizen had also been detained along with the three Russian men in Chad, identifying him as A. Denisevich.
Undated photo ofWagnerites Samer Sueifan and Maxim Shugaley, who were described as “sociologists.” In May 2019, both Shugaley and Sueifan were arrested in Libya and accused of election interference on behalf of Russia. They were freed after 18 months of captivity.
NYS Announces Statewide Action After Man Dies of Mosquito-Borne Eastern Equine Encephalitis (EEE)
After an Ulster County man died of EEE, NYS issued a Declaration of Imminent Threat to Public Health and urged New Yorkers to follow recommendations to reduce risks of mosquito-borne illnesses.
State measures Include mosquito spraying, more insect repellent for visitors at state parks and campgrounds, and greater outreach to residents.
State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald:
“Eastern equine encephalitis is different this year. While we normally see these mosquitoes in two to three counties each year, this year they have been in 15 counties so far, and scattered all over New York State. This life-threatening mosquito-borne disease has no commercially available human vaccine and must be taken seriously. Mosquitoes, once a nuisance, are now a threat. I urge all New Yorkers to prevent mosquito bites by using insect repellents, wearing long-sleeved clothing, and removing free-standing water near their homes. Fall is officially here, but mosquitoes will be around until we see multiple nights of below freezing temperatures.”
Massachusetts, Vermont, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire, have also reported human EEE cases this year. Eighteen cases of EEE have been in identified in horses across 12 counties in New York State this year.
Eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) is a rare but severe viral disease spread by infected mosquitoes that can affect people and horses. People of all ages are susceptible to infection, but people over 50 and younger than 15 are at a high risk of acquiring the virus.
While most people bitten by an infected mosquito will not develop symptoms, severe cases may begin with the sudden onset of headache, high fever, chills and vomiting. The illness may then progress into disorientation, seizures, encephalitis and coma. Approximately a third of patients who develop EEE die, while many patients who survive EEE experience neurologic impairment.
There is no commercially available human vaccine for EEE and the best protection is to prevent mosquito bites.
This is a direct consequence of global warming. As the planet warms and climate change lengthens the mosquito season, the world’s deadliest creature will expand its geographical range to new regions and re-emerge in areas where mosquito numbers had subsided for decades.
Donald Trump Bashes Catholics Voting for Harris: ‘Should Have Their Head Examined’
The Trump Crime Family (TCF) met with the first Jesuit pope in 2017. This photo reminded the author of the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein. In most of the photos of this 2017 visit, only Trump is seen smiling. Compare with the image below when Pope Francis met President Biden.
Vatican Media Handout via REUTERS
Former President Donald Trump criticized American Catholics who plan on voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, saying that they need a brain exam of some kind. Last week, the ex-president has said the same thing – repeatedly – about Jews who vote for Democrats, stating they should also have their heads examined. He upped the ante by claiming that if he loses, Jews will be largely to blame.
On Monday, he tried a different tack by going after Catholics who will vote for the Democratic nominee.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump announced he will attend the Al Smith Dinner in New York, as is custom for the two major party nominees in an election year, though Harris is not attending. Smith, a Democrat, was governor of New York in the 1920s and was the first Catholic to be nominated for president by a major party. He lost the 1928 election at a time when anti-Catholic sentiment was a substantial factor in US electoral politics.
At the 2020 Al Smith Dinner, which was held virtually because of the COVID pandemic, Trump slammed the Democratic Party as “anti-Catholic.”
Here’s what the ex-President recently posted:
“We know the Spirit of Al Smith, the first Catholic Nominee of a Major Party, and John F. Kennedy, the FIRST Catholic President, will be in the room with us that night. It was a virtual event in 2020, and I was delighted to speak to our Catholic friends that day and, of course, it was a HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL evening in 2016 when we were there in person with Crooked Hillary Clinton. The reviews of my remarks were TREMENDOUS. It’s sad, but not surprising, that Kamala has decided not to attend. I don’t know what she has against our Catholic friends, but it must be a lot, because she certainly hasn’t been very nice to them, in fact, Catholics are literally being persecuted by this Administration. Any Catholic that votes for Comrade Kamala Harris should have their head examined….
Trump expressed similar frustration toward Catholics in July when he said, “I don’t know how a Catholic can vote for the Democrats.”
This is absolutely breath-taking that an irreligious WASP can dictate to Jews and Catholics who they should vote for. With this type of trajectory, we can see the ex-President criticizing blacks or Buddhists for supporting Kamala Harris.
But more importantly, despite his being a presidential candidate, Donald Trump was convicted in a NYS court on 34 counts of falsifying business records. Donald Trump was also impeached by Congress for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. So why are the organizers of the Al Smith Dinner validating this impeached felon by even inviting him? Custom? Tradition? Would Benedict Arnold, Jefferson Davis, or Richard Nixon been invited to the Al Smith Dinner if they were alive?
New Ghost Shark Species with Unusually Long Nose Discovered in Deep Seas off New Zealand
The new species of ghost shark was discovered in the Chathams Rise, roughly 750km east of New Zealand’s coast. Photograph: NIWA
A new species of ghost shark, with an unusually long nose and a whip-like tail, has been discovered in the inky depths of New Zealand waters.
Scientists at New Zealand’s National Institute for Water and Atmospherics (Niwa) initially believed the creature was part of an existing species found around the world, but further investigation revealed it was new, genetically distinct, species. The newly described Australasian narrow-nosed spookfish is only found in New Zealand and Australian waters.
Ghost sharks – also known as chimaeras and spookfish – are a group of cartilaginous fish closely related to sharks and rays. They have smooth skin, beak-like teeth, and feed off crustaceans such as shrimp and molluscs. They are sometimes referred to as the ocean’s butterflies for the way they glide through the water with their large pectoral fins.
The mysterious fish are typically found at great ocean depths – up to 2,600 metres – and little is known about their biology or the threats they face.
The new ghost shark was found in the Chathams Rise, roughly 750km east of New Zealand’s coast. It is distinctive for its very elongated snout that can make up half of its entire body length and has likely evolved to aid its hunt for prey. The chocolate-brown fish can grow up to a meter long, has large milky-coloured eyes, and a serrated dorsal fin to deter predators.
Roughly 55 species of ghost shark have been discovered globally, with about 12 of those found in New Zealand and South Pacific waters.
Coriolanus 