86 Palestinians Killed in the Living Hell of Gaza as Israel Prepares to Invade

Note one of the mourners is missing an eye. (Photo: Palestinian Health Authority)

At least 91 Palestinians were killed and 284 others were wounded over the past 24 hours as the IDF prepares for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian death toll since Oct 2023 is now 54,381; 124,381 people are injured or maimed. The majority of the victims are women and children. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the IDF operation will lead to a complete takeover of the territory: “We are finally going to conquer the Gaza Strip.”

In March 2025, the American taxpayer expedited delivery of four billion dollars in military assistance to Israel.

The remains of the Indonesia Hospital in northern Gaza. (Photo: UN OCHA)

Displaced Palestinians trying to survive the IDF onslaught. (Photo: Public domain)

31 starving Palestinians were killed at this food distribution center. (Photo: Public domain)

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/01/middleeast/palestinians-killed-gaza-aid-center-intl-hnk

We Are Going to Build a Jewish State in the West Bank”

With those statements, Katz had a clear message for French President Emmanuel Macron “and his friends”: “They will recognize a Palestinian state on paper, and we will build the Jewish Israeli state on the ground here,” the defense minister said during his visit. “The paper will disappear into the trash of history and Israel will flourish and flourish.”

Earlier, Macron called the recognition of the Palestinian state “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.” He also urged a tougher line from European countries against Israel if it does not respond to the disastrous humanitarian situation caused by the war in the Gaza Strip in the coming hours and days.

Rampaging Israeli settlers protected by the IDF attacking Palestinian vehicles driving at a section of Nablus-Jenin road in the north of the occupied West Bank.

In 2025, the death toll of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces and maniacal Settlers in the West Bank has reached 99, with 60% of these fatalities occurring in just four areas, including Jenin and the Nur Shams refugee camps. The Israeli cabinet just approved establishing 22 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, which marks the largest expansion of settlements in decades.

Source: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/ocha-humanitarian-situation-update-276-west-bank/

IDF Soldier Use of Human Shields Widespread

The boy shook constantly, he said, and both repeated “Rafah, Rafah” — Gaza’s southernmost city, where more than one million Palestinians had fled from fighting elsewhere at that point in the war. It seemed they were begging to be freed, the sergeant said.

Several Palestinians and soldiers told the AP that Israeli troops are systematically forcing Palestinians to act as human shields in Gaza, sending them into buildings and tunnels to check for explosives or militants. The dangerous practice has become ubiquitous during 19 months of war, like you can see below.

Palestinian Hazar Estity kisses her 21-month-old son, Nizar, who is being held by his grandmother, Nazek, on April 29, 2025, at an apartment in the West Bank town of Zababdeh. Estity says she was used as a human shield by Israeli soldiers. (Photo: AP / Nasser Nasser)

Some IDF soldiers and veterans with a sense of decency joined Breaking the Silence. You can read their testimony about IDF brutality here: https://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/

In 2024, PM Benjamin Netanyahu, an MIT graduate, skillfully used the hostage situation to continue military operations to depopulate the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank, keep his corruption trial in abeyance, and tilt the US 2024 election towards Dotard Trumpf by alienating the antiwar segment of the Democratic Party (approximately 6,265,888 voters the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris ticket had in 2020). An international arrest warrant for war crimes issued by the ICC remains active for Benjamin Netanyahu. An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of a law.

Ensuring American support for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel is the notorious American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Their Islamophobic messaging and funding of pro-Israeli candidates in US elections ensures the uninterrupted flow of military and economic aid to Israel. AIPAC’s effective messaging of demonizing Arabs and Islamophobia explains why many American voters are indifferent to the plight of the Palestinian people. AIPAC talking points that “they” should have voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, “they” had previous chances at statehood and didn’t take it, or “they” are all terrorists, or pro-peace activists are all “Hamas lovers,” are all overused palaver. Blah-blah-blah. Thanks to AIPAC, the American taxpayer is complicit in ethnic cleansing and war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/31/middleeast/israel-gaza-strip-occupation-resources-dg

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-army-human-shields-80f358dd2c87a1123f26ffada159701c

https://www.demorgen.be/snelnieuws/live-midden-oosten-israel-opent-vuur-op-menigte-bij-hulpdistributiepunt-zeker-30-mensen-gedood~ba7f8873/

https://www.trackaipac.com/

https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus?ind=Q05

https://www.state.gov/military-assistance-to-israel/

US Intelligence Community Update

Director of National Intelligence

Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard wants to turn President Dotard Trumpf’s daily intel briefings into Fox News-type broadcasts because he “doesn’t read.” The most under-qualified person to ever the any US intelligence agency is hoping to add animations and more dynamic multimedia elements to Trumpf’s President’s Daily Briefs, or PDBs, to fit his viewing habits and hold his attention, five people with knowledge of the discussions told NBC News. Gabbard also reportedly consulted with current and former intelligence officials on bringing in a Fox News producer and host to reshape the PDBs “which are usually text and image-based for national security reasons” to deliver the intel in broadcast form. The process could involve granting the Fox News team security clearance to access classified information.

Source: https://archive.ph/4h2N9

More Stalinist Purges

Tulsi Gabbard fired two senior analysts from the prestigious National Intelligence Council (NIC) who disagreed with Dotard Trumpf about Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro and his alleged connection with a street gang called Tren de Aragua (TDA).

Half of the National Security Council’s (NSC) 350 members were abruptly removed and many were given two hours to clean out their desks. This was supposedly done as a cost-cutting measure, but the reality is the Trumpf junta is ensuring only loyal followers of the MAGA cult remain in positions of power in the US national security architecture.

Sources:

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/06/trump-venezuela-gangs-tda-intel-memo

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/national-security-council-cuts_n_6830f4cee4b0ca4a5f5699b9

FBI Arrests DIA Employee for Attempting to Sell Secrets

The FBI arrested Nathan Vilas Laatsch (28), a Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) employee for attempting to transmit classified information to a friendly foreign government. Laatsch, who held a TS/SCI clearance, said that he had “completed intelligence products, some unprocessed intelligence, and other assorted classified documentation” that he wanted to send. He said his reasoning for the decision was because he did not align with the current Trumpf junta’s policies. The FBI was subsequently tipped off and made contact with Laatsch under the guise of the aforementioned foreign government. Laatsch would end up transcribing and smuggling out classified products on two occasions to who he thought was an official of the friendly foreign government, and was arrested after the second exchange.

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

This is terrible. Nathan Vilas Laatsch worked ten years at Publix before finally getting his break with a position at DIA, only to be disgusted by the Trumpf junta, motivating him to sell secrets. This young man threw his life away. Decades ago DIA was a fine place to work, but who knows how toxic the environment is now under the white supremacist Trumpf junta?

Source: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-government-employee-arrested-attempting-provide-classified-information-foreign-government

CIA Update

Civilian Sleuth Exposes CIA Tradecraft

404 Media reported that Ciro Santilli, an amateur security researcher, discovered that the CIA had been using several Star Wars sites in the early 2000s to communicate with informants in other countries (Image: Cirosantilli2/Wikimedia Commons)

Ciro Santilli, an amateur security researcher, discovered that CIA had been using several Star Wars sites in the early 2000s to communicate with informants in other countries. One such site is StarWarsWeb.net. Santilli dug through hundreds of domain names and analyzed each of the sites’ HTML and even used bots to bypass the Wayback Machine, a massive archive of the internet, to see what the website might have looked like at its launch.

The unassuming site, which is decked out in pictures of R2D2 and C-3P0, a stock image of a boy dressed as a Jedi, also includes ads for the latest Star Wars video games and Lego sets. (Image: cirosantilli.com)

In order to chat with their CIA handler, informants would simply have to enter a password into the search bar, and a pop-up window would appear. The sites were forced to shut down after the Iranian government doubled down on its efforts to find informants who may be speaking with American intelligence agencies in 2018.

“The CIA really failed with this,” said Bill Marczak of the University of Toledo’s Citizen Lab. According to Marczak, the messaging system “stuck out like a sore thumb.”

By 2011, Iranian authorities successfully dismantled the CIA network in its country, and either executed or imprisoned the informants. Likewise, it was reported that authorities in China also found similar websites being used in their country and executed more than two dozen CIA sources between 2011 and 2012.

Other sites include a fan site for the late comedian Johnny Carson, a site about extreme sports, and one about Brazillan music. (Image: cirosantilli.com)

The outlet reports that some of the sites targeted France, Spain, and Brazil based on their language and content. (Image: cirosantilli.com).

Israel, North Korea, Russia, Israel, and China have competent and experienced counterintelligence organizations. Cultivating and handling HUMINT sources in hostile environments with sophisticated or pervasive surveillance systems is therefore a daunting challenge for CIA and DIA. If a civilian sleuth like Ciro Santilli was able to piece this CIA operation together, imagine how easily America’s adversaries were able to unravel this program and neutralize the informants. CIA and DIA adopted other methods of clandestinely communicating with their sources since this operation which Coriolanus is aware of, so that means the enemy is also aware. Moreover, Trumpf’s idiotic purge of the USIC will make intelligence collection even more difficult with the loss of experienced operators, analysts, and investigators.

Messages were posted in Mandarin, Farsi and Korean on various CIA accounts. CIA/ Facebook

Source: https://archive.ph/oPiLu

Drunk Driver Lucky Not to Be Killed by CIA Security Officers

Background: CIA new headquarters building in Langley, Virginia (CIA.gov) Inset: Monia Spadaro (Alexandria Sheriff’s Office)

Security officers shot Monia Spadaro who was driving in the wrong lane toward CIA headquarters. The drunkard was driving her gray Toyota Corolla at about 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, 22 May, when she traveled on to CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia. The federal sign at the front entrance reads: “WARNING: RESTRICTED US GOVERNMENT INSTALLATION” and prohibiting entry to people “without proper authorization.”

Spadaro reportedly entered the complex in the outbound lane of traffic — causing a CIA police officer in a marked CIA vehicle to flash their lights and activate their sirens.

She continued toward the main security gate “while executing several reckless maneuvers” by driving on the wrong side of the road and swerving from one lane to the other. Another CIA officer reportedly tried to stop the car, but it sped up, and as it reached the gate, the officer fired shots at the car and hit Spadaro. The defendant was treated at a local hospital and then arraigned before a federal magistrate in the Eastern District of Virginia.

Miss Spadaro is lucky to be alive. She could have been easily killed by CIA security personnel who did not know whether she was a terrorist, saboteur, lunatic, or drunkard.

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

Source:

Canada: Thousands Flee Massive Wildfires in Northern Manitoba; Evacuation Orders in Alberta and Saskatchewan

Massive wildfires burning out of control in western and central Canada are forcing thousands to flee as dire forecasts for the country’s fire season come to fruition. The intensifying blazes are also sending hazardous smoke toward major cities in the US.

The premiers of Manitoba and Saskatchewan provinces have declared monthlong states of emergency, and much of Canada, from the Northwest Territories and Alberta to Ontario, are at “extreme” risk of wildfires. — the highest level on Environment Canada’s fire risk scale.

A wildfire in the Sherridon, Man. area is shown in a government handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO – Manitoba Government

There are just over 170 wildfires burning across Canada, about half of them uncontrolled. The country raised its National Preparedness Level to 5 of 5, unusually high for this early in the fire season. Last year, Canada didn’t reach that level until 15 July.

These fires are the result of global climate changing and are going to add pollution and carbon into the atmosphere, reducing the Air Quality Index (AQI) in surrounding areas. The habitats of thousands of animals are being destroyed, along with people’s homes and properties. Insurance costs are going to skyrocket after paying out for the losses.

The new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, has several challenges on his plate. Besides dealing with the new geo-political landscape caused by Dotard Trumpf and war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin, Mr. Carney must deal with this natural catastrophe. But the new PM holds a doctoral degree and assembled a competent cabinet which will deal with all of these issues logically. Link: https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/cabinet

Sources:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/wildfires/article/evacuation-orders-impact-thousands-as-wildfires-continue-burning-in-manitoba-saskatchewan-alberta/

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/29/weather/canada-wildfires-smoke-midwest-climate

https://www.saskpublicsafety.ca/emergencies-and-response/active-incidents

https://www.pm.gc.ca/en/news/readouts/2025/05/30/prime-minister-carney-convenes-incident-response-group

US: Multi-State Food Recall for Salmonella-Tainted Cucumbers From Florida

The FDA informs: “Bedner Growers, Inc. of Boynton Beach, FL is voluntarily recalling cucumbers sold at Bedner’s Farm Fresh Market between 29 Apr and 14 May 2025 because they have the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella, an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.”

The cucumbers are being recalled because they have been linked by the FDA to a Salmonella outbreak that has resulted in 26 illnesses in AL, CA, CO, FL, IL, KS, KY, MI, NC, NY, OH, PA, SC, TN, and VA.

Florida is probably one of the worst managed states in America, led by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who graduated Yale University and Harvard Law School. His handling of the COVID epidemic was a disaster as his is response to escalating gun violence in the Sunshine State: tax holidays for firearm purchases. DeSantis wasted money on establishing an election police and empowered local police forces to enforce immigration laws. Tourism is crashing in Florida, farms have lost migrant workers, and the orange juice industry is falling apart. We should expect more calamities from Florida because of poor governance during natural disasters, as well as uncontrolled gun violence and unvaccinated people.

Source:

https://www.fda.gov/safety/recalls-market-withdrawals-safety-alerts/bedner-growers-inc-recalls-cucumbers-because-possible-health-risk

US: Dangerous Invasive Tick Spreading

Per the CDC, the number of people diagnosed in 2022 with tick-borne diseases in the US rose to 62,551. In the previous decade, infections averaged about 33,000 a year. With climate change raising temperatures, tick populations have expanded into new regions and put more people in contact with ticks and their illness-causing bacteria.

Sources:

https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/caes/publications/caes-press-release-invasive-longhorned-tick-infection-5-27-25.pdf?rev=a916f5a25703451994cecca4a8721600&hash=64A38C08E5838D15D88091BF928C6B47

USAToday

Legionnaires Disease Detected in Las Vegas

Five travel-associated cases of Legionnaires’ disease are being investigated by the Southern Nevada Health District. Four individuals have recovered and one remains hospitalized.

Following notification of cases, the Health District conducted environmental water sampling at the facilities the travelers stayed at. Multiple water samples tested positive for Legionella, the bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease, the release said.

Legionnaires’ disease symptoms typically begin within two to 10 days after exposure to the bacteria. However, people should watch for symptoms such as cough, shortness of breath, fever, muscle aches and headaches for up to two weeks after exposure.

Source:

https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8323167/Grandview-Legionella-Investigation

Endnote: The Trumpf junta published its long-awaited report Making America Healthy Again, which was rife with errors and poor or missing citations. Hardcopies of the report would make excellent kindling for the fireplace. HHS cancelled a $590 million contract with Moderna to develop a vaccine for avian flu and the Trump junta terminated the CDC’s Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program as part of the agency’s reduction in force. In Nov 2023, the FDA had recalled these three children’s beverages below because they were linked to lead poisoning.

Link: FDA

A recent report suggested that Felon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had a dust-up in the White House and Musk was seen with a black eye in the Oval Office which he attributed to his five-year-old son inaptly named “X.”

The Worst Person in the World sporting a black eye. Felon Musk won’t be going away anytime soon as a “special government employee.” Expect more corruption, as well as mega-contracts and zero regulation of his companies.

Simply put, the Trumpf junta’s health, economic, diplomatic, intelligence, and national security departments are led by incompetents, lickspittles, political hacks, oligarchs, and mountebanks. The arch-malefactor is oligarch Felon Musk. Their policies do not promote the security, safety, or health of the American people. Dotard Trumpf has turned the White House into a three-ring circus which will endanger American lives while robbing them blind, as you will read more about below.

Russia: Deputy Mayor of Stavropol Neutralized by Explosion

See video of operation in link: https://mamul.am/en/news/326364

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

Germany: Two Heroes in Stabbing Rampage Muslim Refugees

Muhammad al-Muhammad helped to halt a knife attack in Hamburg in which 18 people were injured. (Photo: Marco Zitzow/BILD/BILD Fotoservice)

There were no calls from neo-Nazis to shut down Germany’s borders after this terrorist rampage because the perpetrator was a white German native woman. A 2023 analysis found that both print and television German media reported five times more on violent crimes when the suspect was a foreigner. Munich-based Ifo Institute found there was no correlation between migration and higher crime rates. In June 2024, some 3.48 million refugees with varying types of residency permits were living in Germany, a country of 84,198,272 people, and the third largest economy in the world. Germany provides universal health care for its residents, is cracking down on Neo-Nazis, and is generously helping Ukraine fend off Russian aggression. 

Gut arbet, Muhammad, live long and prosper in Germany; Coriolanus enjoyed his assignment there decades ago.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/26/hamburg-knife-attack-syrian-refugee

https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2025-02-18/more-foreigners-do-not-increase-germanys-crime-rate#:~:text=Migration%20to%20Germany%20does%20not,and%20the%20local%20crime%20rate.

South Africa: Pet Baby Hippo Kills Owner

The late Major Marius Els with Humphrey (Photo: Social media)

An army Major from Free State province of South Africa met a horrifying end after he was mauled to death by his pet hippo who he took in as a baby and treated ‘like a son.’ Marius Els (40) was bitten to death by the 1.2 ton hippo he named Humphrey. He had brought Humphrey to his 400 acre farm where the animal learned to swim with humans. A clip of Els riding the 2,000-pound beast like a horse went viral after many people were shocked he was able to accomplish such a feat.

But there had been several signs the animal would never be able to be domesticated — including an incident where a 52-year-old man and his seven-year-old grandson had to climb a tree to get away from the hippo when they canoed through the section of river on Els’ farm where Humphrey lived. Els reportedly tempted the hippo away with an apple while the pair were rescued by paramedics.

Els’s widow, Louise — a pharmacist — also expressed misgivings, as the hippo had caused trouble before. Humphrey had chased golfers on a nearby course and killed several calves belonging to Els’ business partner.

But Els’ himself was always upbeat about his unusual relationship with the animal. He said: “Humphrey’s like a son to me, he’s just like a human. There’s a relationship between me and Humphrey and that’s what some people don’t understand.”

“They think you can only have a relationship with dogs, cats, and domestic animals. But I have a relationship with the most dangerous animal in Africa.”

“I can swim with him. I go in the water. He allows me to get on his back, and I ride him like a horse. He swims with me. He’s like a son to me.”

But unfortunately for the animal lover, the situation did not end well for him after Humphrey turned on him — resulting in Major Els being killed by the hippo. Paramedics found Els immersed in a river and “had been bitten several times by the animal.” It was unclear how long he had been lying in the water.

Here is a video of what an adult hippopotamus is capable of:

Photo by William Warby on Flickr CC BY 2.0 (Cropped from original).

Hippos are formidable creatures and are armed with giant canine teeth — they are said to kill more people every year than lions, elephants, leopards, buffalo, and rhinos combined. Vegetarians, adult hippos have no predators because of their huge size, thick skin, ferocious temperament, and powerful jaws, but young hippos are vulnerable to Nile crocodiles, leopards, lions, and spotted hyenas.

While the common hippo (Hippopotamus amphibious) is categorized as vulnerable, its smaller relative, the pygmy hippo (Choeropsis liberiensis or Hexaprotodon liberiensis), does have a place on the endangered species list. Both species continue to be threatened by illegal hunting and shrinking habitats.

Source:

https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/pet-hippo-mauled-owner-humphrey-marius-els-south-africa-491517-20250528

Sidenote: South Africa President Cyril Cyril Ramaphosa had recently rebuked Dotard Trumpf’s mythological claim that white Afrikaners are being persecuted in his country. But one such “persecuted” Boer who took advantage of the resettlement plan in the US established a website with resource information to help other Boers emigrate to America:

https://www.refugeforafrikaners.com/

The website author ridiculously wrote that rightwing Fox News and Newsmax are “Trusted News Sources.” At the bottom of the website is a gif of the Dotard doing a silly dance.

‘Verloorder’ is Afrikaans for “loser.”

Mexico Fighting Organized Water Pilferage

Authorities in the Mexican state of Michoacán are employing satellite technology to counter water theft, as criminal groups exploiting an increasingly scarce and valuable natural resource.  The environmental surveillance system will monitor deforestation and land-use, as well as the 35,000 privately-owned irrigation reservoirs to ensure they are not illegally filled during the dry season. If the reservoirs are filled, the government will investigate the source of the water used. 

The system, which is backed by NASA and EU satellites, would permit authorities to “address environmental crimes on a large scale like never before in the state’s history.”

Nearly 76% of Mexico experienced drought through the end of May 2024, according to the North American Drought Monitor (NADM) and the soil has not yet fully recovered. That was the most widespread drought Mexico has experienced since 30 Jun 2011, when 85% of the country was affected.

In March, the Trumpf junta callously refused to release Colorado River water to Mexico, making that the first time the US had refused to release water in their 80-year partnership agreement. On 28 April in the spirit of good fellowship, Mexico said it would meet its water-sharing responsibilities with the US to help Texas ranchers and farmers. This past January, Dotard Trumpf idiotically wasted 2.2 billion gallons of California’s precious water, against the wishes of the US Army Corps of Engineers and Sacramento. Weather predictions indicate this summer will prove to be punishing in the American Southwest.

Sources:

https://insightcrime.org/news/water-scarcity-is-a-boom-for-mexican-organized-crime/

https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/04/welcoming-mexicos-water-deliveries-to-the-united-states-and-steps-to-meet-1944-water-treaty-requirements/

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/multi-year-drought-and-heat-waves-across-mexico-2024

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

Donald Trumpf and Cronies Make Fortune in White House

Two Mega-Goniffs Score With $2bn Investment from Abu Dhabi

The investment by a firm controlled by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund will go to World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm whose biggest beneficiaries are the Trumpf and Witkoff families. Thanks to Abu Dhabi’s purchase of their “stablecoin”, the Trumpfs and Witkoffs will collect hefty fees and could reap hundreds of millions of dollars in interest payments.

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/may/30/trump-steve-witkoff-envoy

Felon Musk Tried to Block Massive Trumpf-backed Mideast AI Deal Unless He Was Included

The worst person in the world rushed to the Mideast to hold up a massive Trumpf-endorsed American AI operation in Abu Dhabi unless it included him. That apparently explains Felon Musk’s sudden appearance at a Trumpf meeting with Saudi Arabia officials during the president’s three-country Middle East vacation.

Trumpf was about to announce a huge AI partnership on foreign soil with America’s OpenAI, run by Musk’s arch rival Sam Altman, and the United Arab Emirates’ G42 company to build a Stargate UAE campus in Abu Dhabi.

The operation would also include America’s Oracle, Nvidia, and Cisco, and Japan’s SoftBank as part of the UAE’s push to become a major AI player. The new venture will be the biggest AI campus outside the US.

The Dotard must have said ‘WTF is Elon doing here?’ like when he blocked Musk’s secret China war briefing a few months ago. Trumpf and his cronies have completely erased the lines between government and private business, making mega fortunes for themselves and there is little the American people can do about their abominable corruption and greed.

Source:

www.the-independent.com

Kitten Comforts Crying Abandoned Puppy

You can hear the robust purr of the kitten comforting the poor puppy.

American Police State Terrorizing Citizens, Foreigners, Dissidents

For those Followers of the Watch residing outside the US, you would be wise to refrain from visiting the once “Land of the free, home of the brave.”

Watch the US police state in action as ICE detains Rumeysa Ozturk (30), a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University:

The ICE agents are using a standard FLETC academy arrest technique where one agent distracts the individual with a “PSST!” or “Pardon me” while another agent gets behind the poor girl.

Protesting the Israeli genocide in Gaza or Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine sent these poor young women to the American gulag. Ms. Petrova also faces other dangers should she be deported to Russia and the tender mercies of Vladimir Putin’s police state.

American citizens have been brutalized by the police for years. The advent of social media exposed the long-standing and pervasive practice which led to the Black Lives Matter movement and the meme ACAB (“All cops are bastards”). Watch three Arizona police officers pummel and tase Tyron McAlpin, a defenseless, deaf black man suffering from cerebral palsy for no reason.

Warning: Followers of the Watch may find this video disturbing.

The white officers received minimal disciplinary action from the Phoenix Police Department. Below is the how the Phoenix Police Department presents itself on its website, reminiscent of a Potemkin Village:

https://www.phoenix.gov/administration/departments/police.html

The reality is that unlike the police departments found all over the world, America inherited the brutal, racist legacy of the antebellum Slave Patrol, which has continued into the 21st century.

White Americans are not immune to police brutality. Grandfather Michael Burch (69) slowly suffocated to death in a rural Colorado jail after a Huerfano County deputy broke his ribs in an altercation and then allowed him to languish in a cell for one week without medical care.

Michael Burch with one of his daughters holding a grandchild. 
(Undated family photo / AP)

Michael Burch’s 2023 death was ruled a homicide. But prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges against the deputy who used a Taser on Burch and wrestled with him in a Huerfano County jail cell. An autopsy found six of Burch’s right ribs had broken and his right lung collapsed. He wasn’t taken to a hospital but instead was transferred to another cell where he was found dead seven days later. The lawsuit alleges Burch suffered excruciating pain and that he constructed a “death bed” for himself as his broken ribs caused him to slowly asphyxiate.

Warning: Followers of the Watch may find this video disturbing.

Here is another reason why American policing requires a complete overhaul.

North Bergen Police Chief Robert Farley.

A police chief in Hudson County, New Jersey, is being accused of assaulting and harassing his officers in a lengthy list of complaints that includes defecating on floors, exposing himself, attempting to drug coworkers, and sticking a hypodermic needle into an officer’s penis. Chief Robert Farley, who was appointed chief of the North Bergen Police Department in February 2024, is also accused of retaliating against an officer who attempted to report him to the New Jersey Attorney General. Five police officers in North Bergen said they plan to sue over Farley’s alleged behavior, which also includes claims of retaliation, discrimination, sexual misconduct, and harassment.

Ilya Kukhar (26) was arrested for impersonating an immigration agent, after allegedly stalking a Ukrainian market with fake “ICE” decals on his car in Fife, Washington. Kukhar, who is “not employed by any federal law enforcement agency,” has been charged with one count of Criminal Impersonation in the Second Degree. He is currently not in police custody and his initial arraignment is scheduled for 11 Apr.

Countries had previously issued travel advisories to their citizens because of US firearm violence and measles. Now nations are advising their citizens to take precautions when visiting America because of ICE. The Trumpf junta is crushing dissent and causing a brain drain from the US, as well as an economic boycott. Canadians didn’t require such an advisory as thousands and thousands of them have voluntarily cancelled their travel plans to the US. Many began selling their vacation homes in Florida and other areas. Trumpf has turned America’s already over-policed country into the Fourth Reich.

Sources:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/27/russian-scientist-harvard-medical-school-ice-detention

https://newjersey.news12.com/lawsuit-claims-north-bergen-police-chief-defecated-on-floors-tried-to-drug-coworkers

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/27/us/colorado-jail-death-lawsuit-hnk/index.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/3-phoenix-officers-disciplined-violent-arrest-of-deaf-man-with-disabilities-tyron-mcalpin/

Israeli Settlers Attempt to Torture and Lynch Oscar-Winning Filmmaker

Hamdan Ballal receives treatment at a hospital in Hebron, in a photo shared on Instagram by Basel Adra. 
(Courtesy Nassr Nawaja)


The Palestinian co-director of Oscar-winning film “No Other Land” Hamdan Ballal was beaten up by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, taken away by IDF soldiers and detained overnight. Following his release from detention, Ballal had been “arbitrarily” held in police detention in Kiryat Arba’a and was beaten in custody by IDF soldiers. Following his release, he was moved to a hospital in Hebron, where he was treated for his injuries.

Despite suffering from dehydration and bruising, Ballal left the hospital returned home to his family in Susya in the occupied West Bank.  

These heinous attacks by the Settlers and the IDF should come as no surprise to the Followers of the Watch. Israel is an ethnic-cleansing police state, supported 100% by the US. Besides the ICC issuing an international arrest warrant for war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague condemned the State of Israel for committing genocide in Gaza and enforcing apartheid on Palestinians, all paid for by the hardworking American taxpayer. Accounting 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.

Israeli Settlers attacked IDF General Avi Bluth’s entourage in Nov 2024. The Rule of Law only exists for Israeli Jews in the apartheid state, as IDF and police officers are complicit in these crimes.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/24/middleeast/ballal-oscar-palestinian-beaten-israeli-settlers-intl-latam/index.html

https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/19/world-court-finds-israel-responsible-apartheid

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

https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192

https://www.icj-cij.org/case/186

Taliban Frees Fourth American Citizen Since Jan 2025

US citizen Faye Hall speaking on the phone after being released by the Taliban on 29 Mar 2025. (Photo: © Diplomatic source in Kabul, AFP)

US national Faye Hall was released by the Taliban after having been detained in Afghanistan in Feb 2025. Hall is the fourth American released from Afghanistan since Jan 2025. Hall, two Britons, and their Afghan translator were detained earlier this year. Hall may have been detained for using a drone without authorization. In Jan 2025 Ryan Corbett and William McKenty were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the US. George Glezmann was freed after more than two years of detention in a deal brokered by Qatar. The US had lifted bounties on three senior Taliban figures, including the interior minister, who also heads the powerful Haqqani Network (HQN) blamed for attacks against Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government.

Sources:

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250329-us-woman-released-by-taliban-in-afghanistan

Ukraine Update

Five Children Returned From Russian Occupied Areas

Ukrainian children return home after being abducted by Russian authorities. (Photo: Ombudsman of Ukraine)

Five children have been reunited with their families and returned from Russian occupied Ukrainian territories thanks to Qatari mediation, the head of the Ukrainian President’s office said. The children, aged between 11 and 16 years old, were returned from Russian-occupied Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia, under the Bring Kids Back UA initiative in coordination with the Ukrainian Ombudsman’s office.

The initial charges levied against Russian President Vladimir Putin by the ICC was for abducting Ukrainian children, a war crime.

First-Ever Military Mosque Opens in Ukraine

Director of Military Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov (L) and who appears to be Minister of Defense Rustem Enverovych Umyerov (R) (Photo: Government of Ukraine)

“On the initiative of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, in whose ranks many Muslim soldiers are fighting, the first military mosque As-Salam has appeared in our country,” said a spokesperson.

The solemn opening, as tradition dictates, began with the reading of the Quran, a holy book for Muslims, and a collective prayer. The event was attended by Muslim Defense Intelligence of Ukraine fighters, as well as the head of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine Kyrylo Budanov.

Budanov thanked the soldiers who profess Islam for their courage in battles with the Russian occupiers and presented the mosque with collections of prayers and commemorations of Allah for a Muslim warrior, arranged by the Military Chaplaincy Service of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine.

Intelligence Director Budanov is a sharp leader who knows that Muslims are fighting and dying for Ukraine. If these Muslims are in the intelligence services, many of them are undertaking risky espionage missions behind enemy lines or recruiting fellow Muslims to turn against Putin. Giving the Ukrainian Muslims a mosque is a gesture demonstrating that they aren’t second class citizens in a Christian-majority nation. Moreover, Ukraine Minister of Defense Rustem Enverovych Umyerov is a Crimean Tatar and therefore a Sunni Muslim who probably endorsed this idea.

Three Chechen soldiers fighting for Ukraine (Undated photo: Sky News)

Remarkable, while Trumpf and Netanyahu are making life absolutely miserable for Muslims, Ukraine President Volodomir Zelensky, who is Jewish, is doing the exact opposite.

New Powerful Re-Usable Ukrainian Drone Has 1,200 Mile Range

The Aeroprakt A-22 is a $90,000 sport plane (Photo: Leighnor Aircraft)

Ukraine’s latest unmanned aerial vehicle can fly 1,200 miles, drop a 550-pound bomb and return to base, making it potentially the most powerful reusable drone in the Russia-Ukraine war. In making its longest-range drones reusable, the drone branch could multiply the number and pace of deep strikes it conducts against targets inside Russia, which have lately included bomber bases and oil facilities. The strikes have raised the cost of Russian bomber sorties targeting Ukrainian cities, and depressed oil production in a country that utterly relies on energy exports for state revenue.

One of Vladimir Putin’s Limousines Explodes Near FSB HQ

A luxury limousine reportedly from Russian President Vladimir Putin's official fleet exploded in Moscow close to the FSB headquarters. The cause of the explosion remains under investigation, and it is unclear whether anyone was inside the vehicle at the time or if Putin was the intended target.

Olga Nesterova (@onestpress.bsky.social) 2025-03-29T22:32:29.302Z

Coriolanus is monitoring this incident and information is limited. Vladimir Putin is deeply paranoid about his personal security and employs layered security, so this is a curious affair. Below, loyal FSB officers ensure Putin’s Honor Guard are carrying unloaded weapons. In 1981, the late Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat was killed by his own soldiers while reviewing a parade.

Two Storks Finally Reunite After Winter Migration and War

One of the more unlikely celebrities in Ukraine is a stork named Hrytsko who returned to his home nest on 22 March in the village of Lelyaki, Poltava Oblast, to await the arrival of his girlfriend, Odarka. Ten minutes after his arrival, he started to clean up the place. Shortly after Hrystko arrived, he visited one of his neighbors, a beekeeper, to see how things were going.

Hrytsko has been nesting in Lelyaki since 2019. Villagers there are fond of him, coming to visit and feeding him from time to time. In Ukraine, a stork is considered to be a symbol of prosperity, family, happiness, well-being, and of the country itself. A livestream set up by a researcher in 2023 had made the couple a viral sensation in Ukraine.

Hrytsko spent 22 and 23 Mar alone in the nest but with hundreds of people watching him. One user even wrote that watching how Hrytsko is part of her “morning routine.”

For most of 24 Mar, Hrytsko was still solo, bracing himself against the wind and occasionally flying off to run errands. Finally, to the great relief of Ukrainians, Odarka finally showed up unharmed in the evening, re-uniting the happy couple.

Sources:

www.bringkidsback.org.ua

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2025/01/31/ukraines-new-drone-bomber-flies-1200-miles-with-a-550-pound-bomb-and-returns-to-base/

https://www.kyivpost.com/post/49845

https://kyivindependent.com/a-lonely-ukrainian-stork-is-waiting-for-his-girlfriend-and-1000s-of-people-are-watching-live/

Utah is First State in America to Ban Fluoride in Public Water

Idiotic Governor Spencer Cox happily signing this lunacy into law which will ruin the teeth of young Utahans. (Photo: Getty Images)

Madman RFK Jr during a Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing in Jan 2025, where many of the questions focused on his controversial views on vaccines and Covid. (Photo: Allison Bailey /NurPhoto /Rex / Shutterstock)

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gmggp2y99o

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/03/health/rfk-jr-fluoride-science/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/29/top-us-vaccine-official-resigns-over-rfk-jrs-misinformation-and-lies-dr-peter-marks

Lead Poisoning Pervasive in Milwaukee, WI Schools

Nigerian infant suffering from the effects of lead poisoning. (Undated photo: BBC)

The Milwaukee Department of Health informs:

“At least one student has tested positive for lead poisoning after exposure at Golda Meir School Lower Campus. Lead hazards were widespread in the building, found on the ground in the boy’s bathroom, cafeteria, a hallway, the teacher’s lounge, kitchen areas and multiple rooms. Three other students at Trowbridge Street School of Great Lakes Studies, Maryland Avenue Montessori and Albert E. Kagel Dual Language School may have been lead-poisoned due to lead hazards from chipping lead-based paint and lead dust. Trowbridge Street School of Great Lakes Studies became the first MPS building to close due to its high lead levels, followed by Starms Early Childhood Center, Fernwood Montessori, and Lafollette School.”

The WHO reports that exposure to lead can affect multiple body systems. Lead exposure was attributed to more than 1.5 million deaths globally in 2021, primarily due to cardiovascular effects. The harmful impacts on health from lead exposure are entirely preventable. There is no level of exposure to lead that is known to be without harmful effects.

The people of Flint, Michigan underwent a public health crisis from 2014 to 2019 when their drinking water was found to contain lead and possibly Legionella bacteria. In April 2014, during a financial crisis, state-appointed emergency manager Darnell Earley changed Flint’s water source from the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (sourced from Lake Huron and the Detroit River) to the Flint River. Residents complained about the taste, smell, and appearance of the water. Officials failed to apply corrosion inhibitors to the water, which resulted in lead from aging pipes leaching into the water supply, exposing around 100,000 residents to elevated lead levels. (Source: Wikipedia)

.

The people of Milwaukee should not expect sympathy or help from the callous Trumpf junta which lives to serve the interests of the oligarchs and not the masses. Some Followers of the Watch may recall that in the famous 1970s TV comedy show “Happy Days” the teenagers attended the fictional Jefferson High School in Milwaukee. But students in that city are not enjoying any happy days right now in this environmental calamity.

Sources:

https://city.milwaukee.gov/Health/Services-and-Programs/HomeEnvironmentalHealth/Ongoing-Lead-Hazard-Investigations-With-MPS

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

Brazil Supreme Court: Jair Bolsonaro to Stand Trial Over Alleged Coup Attempt

Two criminal oligarchs. One may face justice, the other may not. (Undated photo from social media)

Brazil’s Supreme Court has accepted charges against former President Jair Bolsonaro over an alleged attempted coup to stay in office after his 2022 election defeat. The 8 Jan 2023 coup attempt in Brasilia was similar to the Trumpf-led 6 Jan 2021 insurrectionist attack on the US Capitol.

The five justices voted unanimously in favor of putting Bolsonaro and seven other accomplices on trial on five counts, including involvement in an armed criminal organization and attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law.

The populist Bolsonaro, who swept to power after a shock win at the 2018 election, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and says he’s being politically persecuted. Under Brazilian law, a coup conviction alone carries a sentence of up to 12 years. When combined with the other charges, it could potentially see enemy of the environment and the masses Jair Bolsonaro spend decades behind bars. Gut arbet.

Brazil, which is also standing up to Israel’s murderous campaign against the Palestinians, has demonstrated more respect for the Rule of Law than the US. Former President Joe Biden, VPOTUS Kamala Harris, and USAG Merrick Garland must be sitting around bewildered at this concept, when their administration had four years to deal with Trumpf one way or another.

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

Source:

https://www.euronews.com/2025/03/26/brazils-supreme-court-says-jair-bolsonaro-should-stand-trial-over-alleged-coup-attempt

China Unveils Powerful Diamond-Bladed Undersea Cable Cutter

Concept art of a severed undersea iInternet cable. (Image: X Screengrab)

China has developed a compact deep-sea device capable of cutting armored undersea cables at depths of 4,000 meters — twice the operational depth of existing subsea communication infrastructure. The tool, featuring a 150-mm diamond-coated grinding wheel spinning at 1,600 rpm, was designed for integration with China’s advanced submersibles. The development has raised concerns over the security of global undersea infrastructure, as such cables carry 95% of global data transmission and support critical military and civilian operations.

As you have read here on Coriolanus, Beijing has reportedly already cut cables to Taiwan and is constructing large ‘D-Day’ type amphibious landing craft for a potential invasion of the island republic.

There is no mystery that Beijing wishes to assimilate Taiwan one day. But China is keeping a wary eye on North Korea, who has been getting too cozy to Beijing’s dismay. The Kremlin as been increasing the number, power, and accuracy of North Korea’s WMDs. So, at one point, the Chinese CCP is going to tire of the lunatic Kim Jong-un dynasty at their border with an ever-increasing nuclear stockpile. China is much more interwoven into the capitalist global economy than unstable Russia and North Korea. Coriolanus would be surprised if Beijing did NOT have a contingency plan to one day overwhelm North Korea and defang the nefarious Kim Jong-un once and for all. The “Inchon-style” amphibious landing craft would come in handy for a three-pronged attack from north, east and west.

Sources:

https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/china-deep-sea-cable-cutter-threat-global-security-new-weapon-13874403.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/five-signs-china-preparing-invade-200000510.html

Cat Keeps Jumping Onto Couple’s Boat For Playdates

The Fourth Reich Begins in America

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oxfam informs:

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

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

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

Source:

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

From the Economist:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source:

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

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

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

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

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

Israel National News reports:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources:

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

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

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

Mpox symptoms. (Photo: AFP)

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

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

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

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

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

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

The WHO informs:

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

Sources:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source:

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

Four Types of Tigers in One Photo

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

Gaza Strip: Infernal Abattoir for Journalists, Volunteers, Palestinians

Emergency responders worked to put out the fire in a van marked “Press” and recover the bodies in Nuseirat, Gaza. (Photo: Khamis Said / Reuters)

Five journalists working for a network allegedly associated with a Palestinian militant group were killed when their vehicle was hit by an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat area of Gaza. The vehicle, bearing the word “Press” in red letters, was hit near the gates of Al Awda Hospital. The IDF claimed the journalists were a “terror cell” of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Then why didn’t the IDF arrest them to stand trial for their alleged crimes?

Because alleged membership in a terrorist organization is an automatic conviction and death sentence without a trial, hearing, or evidence. This is called Extra-Judicial Killing (XJK). Does any alleged terrorist, militant, or criminal in the Gaza Strip ever have a day in an Israeli court to answer any charges?

On 2 Jul 2023, the Times of Israel reported that over 1,100 Palestinians were held by Israel without trial or hearing, the highest figure since 2003. This is months before the 7 Oct 2023 sneak attack to seize Israeli hostages for a prisoner swap.

This gruesome attack brings the number of journalists killed in Gaza to 201 since 7 Oct 2023.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in 2023 and 2024, 141 journalists and media workers killed in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Lebanon. The above cited report claims the number is 201.

Palestinian journalist Sami Shehadeh, wounded in an 12 Apr 2024 IDF strike, lies on the floor at Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. (Photo: Reuters / Doaa Rouqa)

In sharp contrast, Reporters Without Borders tallied 63 journalists who died over a 20-year period ending in 1975 while covering the Vietnam War.

In two years, with access to SIGINT, wiretaps, HUMINT sources, First Person View (FPV) reconnaissance drones, and satellite imagery like the Ofek-16 pictured below can provide, the IDF has doubled what took the Vietnam War 20 years to do.

A digital rendering of Israel’s Ofek-16 reconnaissance satellite in orbit around the Earth. (Image: Israel Defense Ministry)

Journalists aren’t the only ones being murdered in the Gaza hecatomb; so are humanitarians like these World Central Kitchen (WCK) volunteers:

World Central Kitchen (WCK) victims from top left to right: Saifeddin Issam, Ayad Abutaha, Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, Damian Soból, Bottom left to right: John Chapman, James Henderson, James Kirby. All were killed in an IDF missile strike on 1 Apr 2024. (Photo: AP)

The same can be said about the West Bank. Israeli troops and settlers have killed nearly 700 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since Oct 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, whose figures do not distinguish between militants and civilians.

On 6 Sep 2024, American-Turkish activist Aysenur Eygi (26) was shot on the head by the IDF protesting the evictions of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank. She joined Rachel Corrie who was murdered while attempting to stop the demolition of a Palestinian house on 16 Mar 2003.

American-Turkish activist Aysenur Eygi pictures in a family photo from her graduation at the University of Washington this past spring. 
(Photo: Aysenur Eygi Family)

No one on the planet can dispute that journalists, humanitarians, or volunteers have been purposefully targeted by the Likud-led IDF in the slaughterhouse known as the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Likud Party and “Israel’s curse” has rubbished any notion of a Two-State Solution and turned Israel into a Pariah State.

Israel’s pogrom has killed at least 45,436 Palestinians and wounded 108,038 since 7 Oct 2023. Followers of the Watch should expect more atrocities from the unrestrained IDF in the future.

Sources:

https://cpj.org/2024/12/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/

https://rsf.org/en

https://www.timesofisrael.com/over-1100-palestinians-said-held-by-israel-without-trial-highest-figure-since-2003/

West Bank: American activist Aysenur Eygi shot dead by Israeli forces, eyewitnesses say | CNN

Azerbaijan Airlines Plane Likely Downed by Russian Anti-Aircraft Missile

A Russian military expert has said it appears that the Azerbaijan Airlines flight that crashed in Kazakhstan was brought down by “something very similar to an anti-aircraft missile.”

Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8432 took off from the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Wednesday morning bound for Grozny in Chechnya. The Embraer 190 aircraft, flight number J2-8243, carried 62 passengers and five crew members. There are 32 survivors, including two children, who have been hospitalized, with many in critical condition. Many were pulled out from the wreckage, while some, according to first responders and video footage, dragged themselves out, bloodied.

Kazakhstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev announced that 38 people had been killed.

The wreckage of the Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 lays on the ground near the airport of Aktau, Kazakhstan. (Photo: Dec. 25, 2024 AP / The Administration of Mangystau Region.)

“The plane was damaged by something very similar to an anti-aircraft missile. And it is really very, very difficult to assume anything else without some serious evidence,” said military expert, Yan Matveyev.

“But overall, it looks like the tail section of the plane was damaged by some missile fragments, probably a Pantsir S-1 missile, or some anti-aircraft system with the same small missiles that carry a not very large warhead.”

Those comments come after Azerbaijani government sources exclusively confirmed to Euronews that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the aircraft to crash in Aktau.

According to the sources, the missile was fired at the plane during drone air activity above Grozny and the shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight.

Yan Matveyev confirmed that Ukrainian drones were flying over Chechnya at the time the airliner went down and that it was possible it had been hit by Russia’s air defences.

“What was happening on the territory of Russia, on the territory of the Chechen Republic at the time when the plane was flying there, points to a possible attack by an air defence system, the Pantsir S-1 air defense system, because Ukrainian drones were flying there at that very time,” he said.

Russian Pantsir S-1 air defense system.

The damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite requests for an emergency landing from the pilots and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan.

If the preliminary data from the probe is confirmed, this would be the second time in a decade that Russian forces have destroyed a commercial aircraft.

Malaysian Airlines flight 17 was shot down by Russian-backed forces over eastern Ukraine in 2014, killing all 298 people on board.

While the Azerbaijani pilots heroically did their best to save lives, Russian air traffic control (ATC) coldly ordered them not to attempt an emergency landing in their territory that may jeopardize Russian lives on the ground.

Sources:

Military expert says Azerbaijan Airlines plane likely downed by anti-aircraft missile | Euronews

Why did an Azerbaijan Airline plane crash in Kazakhstan? What we know | Aviation News | Al Jazeera

Undersea Power Cable Linking Finland and Estonia Hit By Outage

(Map: ec.europa.eu)

A power cable linking Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea suffered an outage, prompting an investigation.

Writing on X, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that power transmission through the Estlink-2 cable stopped Wednesday and that authorities were “investigating the matter.” He said the interruption would not affect electricity supplies in Finland.

Estonian network operator Elering said there was enough spare capacity to meet power needs on the Estonian side, public broadcaster ERR said on its website.

Authorities have been on edge about undersea infrastructure in the Baltic. Two data cables, one running between Finland and Germany, the other between Lithuania and Sweden, were severed in November.

Germany’s defense minister said officials had to assume the incident was “sabotage,” but without providing evidence or saying who might have been responsible. The remark came during a speech in which he discussed hybrid warfare threats from Russia.

The Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that once brought natural gas from Russia to Germany were damaged by underwater explosions in September 2022. Authorities have termed it sabotage and launched criminal probes.

Finnish authorities detained a ship linked to neighboring Russia as they investigate whether it damaged a Baltic Sea power cable and several data cables. Finnish police and border guards boarded the vessel, the Eagle S, and took over the command bridge. The Eagle S’s anchor is suspected of causing damage to the cable.

An anchor like the 36-ton Seawise Giant Anchor which is 7m long, 4.45m across, and 1.13m thick can be dragged and dropped over defenseless vulnerable undersea cables

Remarkable that Western power and communications cables seem to get damaged in winter time. You wonder if these maritime sabotage attacks against the EU and NATO will stop once the Trump-Putin-Musk cabal assumes the White House in Jan 2025?

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/eu-finland-estonia-baltic-sea-power-cable-6741ef1ce9130602abac6214d7297717

US/Canada: Voluntary Recall of Northwest Naturals Brand Two-lb Feline Turkey Recipe Raw Frozen Pet Food Due to Avian Flu Contamination

Northwest Naturals is voluntarily recalling one batch of Northwest Naturals brand two-pound Feline Turkey Recipe raw frozen pet food after it was tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus.

Consumption of raw or uncooked pet food contaminated with HPAI can cause illness in animals. To date, one case of illness in a domestic cat has been reported in connection with this issue.

The recalled product is packaged in two-pound plastic bags with “Best if used by” dates of 05/21/26 B10 and 06/23/2026 B1. The product was sold through distributors in AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, IL, MD, MI, MN, PA, RI, WA and British Columbia in Canada.

This recall is being conducted in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Salem, Oregon.

Consumers who have purchased the recalled product should immediately discard the product and contact the place of purchase for a full refund.

For additional information or questions, customers may contact Northwest Naturals of Portland at info@nw-naturals.net or 866-637-1872 from 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM PST, Monday through Friday.

Avian flu is spreading in the food chain, endangering not only the national economy, but our cats. This will be the first national health challenge to the incoming Trump administration who has been filling his cabinet with quacks, mountebanks, and frauds.

Source:

https://www.nw-naturals.net/12-24-24-voluntary-product-recall/

Canada: No More ‘Flagpoling’

From the Government of Canada:

Work and study permits will no longer be provided to flagpolers at a port of entry, effective 23 Dec 2024 at 11:59 pm ET.

Flagpoling occurs when foreign nationals who hold temporary resident status in Canada, leave Canada and, after a visit to the US or St. Pierre and Miquelon, re-enter to access immigration services at a port of entry.

This practice has taken up significant resources at the border, diverting Canadian and American officers away from important enforcement activities and has contributed to wait times for cross-border travelers.

Immigration services at the border are meant for individuals arriving in Canada, not for those already in Canada. Applications and renewals for work or study permits need to be submitted through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC). Those who attempt to flagpole for a work and study permit will be told to submit their application to IRCC unless they meet limited exemptions.

These changes benefit Canada and the US by allowing both countries to effectively manage border operations and maintain the integrity of our shared border.

“This change will enable us to further streamline activities at our ports of entry and allow Canadian and American border officers to focus on what they have been expertly trained to do – border enforcement.”

– The Honorable David J. McGuinty, Minister of Public Safety

“A strong Canada-U.S. relationship keeps people and goods moving safely while protecting both sides of the border. Flagpoling is unnecessary and diverts resources from critical enforcement activities. This change will ease border congestion, improve fairness for applicants, and enhance the efficiency and security of our borders.”

– The Honorable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

Quick facts:

  • Between 1 Apr 2023 and 31 Mar 2024, the CBSA processed over 69,300 flagpolers across Canada. Most of these requests occurred in the Pacific, Southern Ontario, and Quebec regions.
  • In very limited circumstances, work and study permits may still be granted at a port of entry to individuals who otherwise meet the definition of flagpoling. The exemptions include:
  • Citizens and lawful Permanent Residents of the US;
  • Professionals and technicians under free trade agreements with the US/Mexico, Chile, Panama, Peru, Colombia and South Korea;
  • Spouses or common law partners of professionals and technicians under free trade agreements with Panama, Columbia and South Korea;
  • International truck drivers who hold a work permit, where required to depart Canada for the purpose of their employment and held maintained status as a result of applying for renewal prior to departure; and
  • Individuals who have a pre-existing appointment booked with the CBSA for permit processing.

Contacts

Media Relations
Canada Border Services Agency
media@cbsa-asfc.gc.ca
1-877-761-5945

Travelers used to take advantage of CBSA facilities to facilitate their visa paperwork at secondary inspection, which was not illegal but time-consuming for border officers. These CBSA officers will now be freed up to catch the army of nefarious migrants crossing the international frontier. This is part of Canada’s “border plan” response to Donald Trump’s incoming regime. But really, which country poses a greater threat to whom?

Sources:

Ending flagpoling for work and study permits at the border – Canada.ca

Government of Canada announces its plan to strengthen border security and our immigration system – Canada.ca

Israel’s Attorney-General Requests Investigation of Sara Netanyahu on Suspicion of Disrupting Prime Minister’s Trial

Gali Baharav-Miara is Israel’s first female Attorney-General, opposes the death penalty for terrorists, and was chosen as one of the 50 most influential women in Israel by Globes Magazine in 2022 and 2023. (Undated photo).

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the Israel Police to open an investigation into suspicions that Sara Netanyahu harassed a witness and disrupting judicial proceedings.

The wife of the Israeli PM appeared to be behind demonstrations in front of the homes of Benjamin Netanyahu prosecutor Liat Ben-Ari and central witness Hadas Klein.

Lahav 433 will probably be conducting the sensitive investigation against Sara Netanyahu.

Reminiscent of VPOTUS Richard Nixon’s infamous 23 Sep 1952 nationally-televised “Checkers speech,” “Crime Minister” Netanyahu published a four-minute video in which he condemned the investigation and the media’s treatment of his wife:

“On the premise that baseless charges against me collapse day by day in court and will collapse further later. These days, the left and the media have found a new old target, mercilessly attacking my wife Sara, the pillar of my life.”

Sara Netanyahu, the Lady MacBeth of Israel, is certainly no Michelle Obama or Dr. Jill Biden

Notably, Israeli psychologists have called on the Health Ministry to review Sara Netanyahu’s fitness to practice psychology, citing concerns over her alleged conduct amid Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing trial and previous odious behavior.

In 2016, Sara Netanyahu was found guilty of abusing her household staff. The Jerusalem labor court awarded Meni Naftali $42,000 in damages and court costs. The former chief caretaker at Netanyahu’s official residence said Sara Netanyahu had used abusive language and insulted him.

The First Lady of Israel fancies herself a big macher.

In addition to this nettlesome corruption trial and now this judicial interference case against his wife, PM Netanyahu has an international arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Moreover, he faces a potential 9/11-style commission investigation about his mishandling and cover-up of the 7 Oct 2023 attacks which led to 1,200 Israelis being killed and 250 captives taken.

The US could have sorely used a dynamic and competent Attorney-General like Gali Baharav-Miara these past four years. The world wishes her success and long life.

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

Sources:

https://apnews.com/article/israel-netanyahu-sara-wife-corruption-trial-investigation-3b99369032b6b3b873f08f70b706bedb

https://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/occupational-hazard-sara-netanyahu-guilty-abusing-household-staff-804204

https://apnews.com/article/israel-netanyahu-corruption-trial-gaza-478c957c7749986d5b8b2d039f670d54

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-834502

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges

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

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgk18pdnxmmo

Cat Makes Itself At Home Atop Waiting Horse

Triquestrian, LLC is located at Rising Spirits Farm in Brooklyn, WI. 

Israeli Attacks Costs Lebanon $5 Billion in Losses; 100,000 Homes Damaged

A ten-year-old boy stands inside his house damaged in an IDF strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, 29 Nov 2024. Thousands of Lebanese returned to their homes only to find rubble with winter approaching. (Photo: Reuters)

The World Bank reported that Lebanon suffered more than $5 billion in economic losses and damaged nearly 100,000 housing units. Nearly 1.2 million people have been displaced.

The World Bank report provided estimates for damage between 8 Oct 2023 and 27 Oct 2024, saying “the conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses” and that it “damaged an estimated 99,209 housing units” — mainly in Lebanon’s war-torn south.

3,580 Lebanese were killed and over 15,000 wounded. And those seeking medical care faced challenges. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 226 Lebanese medical personnel were killed since 7 Oct 2023 and several clinics destroyed. Beirut long accused the IDF of targeting physicians and medical infrastructure.

But the ceasefire does not appear to be holding.

(Map courtesy of the jewishvirtuallibrary.org)

Israel carried out several attacks in southern Lebanon. Artillery bombardment struck the villages of Markaba, Talusa, and Khiyam while four IDF tanks moved into the western part of Khiyam, and an IDF tank fired at a house in Nabatiyeh province. The IDF stated they would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement” after detecting an alleged movement of a Hezbollah rocket launcher.

IDF Merkava Mk 4M battle tank.

Sources:

War costs Lebanon $5 billion in losses, damages 100,000 homes — Naharnet

226 health workers killed in Lebanon since Oct. 7: WHO

2 children and a woman crushed to death outside Gaza bakery amid food shortage

Two Palestinian Children and Woman Crushed to Death Outside Gaza Bakery Amid Food Shortage

Palestinians gather to receive bread from a bakery in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, 29 Nov 2024. Food insecurity is affecting nine out of ten Gazans and winter is fast approaching. (Photo: Reuters)

Two children and a woman were crushed to death as a crowd of Palestinians pushed to get bread at a bakery in the Gaza Strip amid a worsening food crisis in the war-ravaged territory.

The bodies of two girls aged 13 and 17 and the 50-year-old woman were taken to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where a doctor confirmed that they died from suffocation due to crowding at the al-Banna bakery. Video from The Associated Press showed their bodies placed next to each other on the floor inside the hospital’s morgue.

The flow of food allowed into Gaza by Israel has fallen to nearly its lowest level of almost 14-month-old war for the past two months, according to Israeli official figures. UN and aid officials say hunger and desperation are growing among Gaza’s population, almost all of which relies on humanitarian aid to survive.

Osama Abu Laban, the father of one of the girls, wailed over the loss of her life outside the hospital.

“My wife fell when she heard that she [our daughter} was suffocating. She did not yet know that she was dead,” he told the AP.

Some bakeries in Gaza were closed for several days last week due to a shortage of flour. AP footage taken last week after they reopened showed large crowds of people cramming together, screaming and pushing, at one bakery in Deir al-Balah.

Palestinians across the Gaza Strip are heavily relying on bakeries and charitable kitchens, with many able to only secure one meal a day for their families.

More than 44,000 people have been killed and more than 104,000 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Israel has destroyed large parts of Gaza and displaced nearly all of its 2.3 million people. Just in the past 24 hours, the IDF killed 100 Palestinians, including 75 killed in air strikes on two homes in the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

In the West Bank, the IDF killed nine Palestinians, including one child, over the last week, seven of them during a 48-hour period in Jenin. In retaliation, a Palestinian man martyred himself in a counterattack against Israelis on a bus which Hamas took credit for.

IDF personnel surround a bullet-riddled bus close to the settlement of Ariel, near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. (Photo: AFP)

Samer Hussein (46), who spent several years in Israeli jails on suspicion of anti-Israeli activities, was killed by IDF troops shortly after opening fire toward the bus near the Israeli settlement of Ariel. Four soldiers were slightly wounded and three people were critically injured.

The IDF has killed 796 Palestinians since 7 Oct 2023, mostly in military raids on Palestinian cities and towns. Attacks by fanatical settlers on Palestinians and their property also have increased. Rabid settlers attempted to attack IDF MG Avi Bluth last week, but were fended off by the general’s PSD. So naturally counterattacks by armed Palestinians against Israelis in the West Bank would increase, like the incident above.

The terrors and hardships that Benjamin Netanyahu is inflicting on Palestinians is quite similar to what Russian President Vladimir Putin is inflicting on the Ukrainians this winter. Netanyahu’s “Nakba” = Putin’s “Special Military Operation.”

The major difference between these twin terror campaigns orchestrated by the two PIFWCs is that the US is massively funding Israel to conduct the ethnic cleansing, while massively funding Ukraine to prevent its ethnic cleansing.

Remarkably, upon hearing that the International Criminal Court at the Hague issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu, President Biden said it was “outrageous.” He did not say the same when such a warrant was issued for Vladimir Putin. And French President Emmanuel Macron stated France would not honor the arrest warrant should Netanyahu despoil Paris with his odious presence.

Sources:

2 children and a woman crushed to death outside Gaza bakery amid food shortage

(5) Updates LIVE: Israeli attacks kill nearly 100 in Gaza as hunger grips enclave

More Than One Million Ukrainians Left Without Electricity After Latest Russian Attack on Energy Infrastructure

Russia unleashed a “massive” attack on Ukraine’s infrastructure on 28 Nov, leaving more than one million people without power in freezing temperatures across the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of a “despicable escalation,” as the Interior Ministry recorded damage to infrastructure in nine regions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the latest attack was Moscow’s “response” to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with US medium-range ATACMS missiles.

Speaking during a trip to Kazakhstan, Putin warned that Russia’s future targets could include “decision-making centers” in Kiev.

Putin said Russia launched more than 90 missiles and 100 drones in the “comprehensive strike” on 28 Nov and that 17 targets had been hit — the type of detail that the president rarely gives.

Ukraine’s air force shot down 79 missiles and 35 drones, while 62 drones were “lost,” meaning they had likely been disrupted by electronic warfare.

All missiles or drones aimed at Kiev were downed.

A power plant in Ukraine severely damaged by a Russian airstrike. (Photo: AP)

The attack forced national power-grid operator Ukrenerho to urgently introduce emergency power cuts in Kiev, Odessa, Dnipropetrovsk, and Donetsk.

Kiev had also reportedly disconnected several nuclear power units from the network during the attack. Ukraine gets more than half of its electricity from nuclear plants.

The inhumane attack comes as the temperatures across Ukraine dropped to around zero degrees Celsius.

Ukrainian civilians trying to stay warm (undated image).

Earlier this month, a senior UN official, Rosemary DiCarlo, warned that Moscow’s targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure may make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war” nearly three years ago.

During America’s tortured involvement in Vietnam one-half century ago, a familiar meme evolved: “We have to burn down the village in order to save it.” If PIFWC Vladimir Putin had designs on re-absorbing Ukraine and her people into his Pan-Slavic Union, a neo-USSR like in his glory days, he has a strange way of showing his love for the people he wants to one day rule. He is burning down the village in order to save it.

Putin’s “Special Military Operation” = Netanyahu’s “Nakba”

The mutual animus between Ukrainians and Russians have been thoroughly baked into the DNA cake, much like the Israelis and the Palestinians. While the US sanctioned one aggressor baking this horrible cake of hatred (Russia), Washington did not sanction the other (Israel), which cost the Democrats the White House in 2024, just like in 1968. Remarkably, many American Democrats argue that US funding of Israel and the horrendous Nakba had nothing to do with Kamala Harris’ disastrous loss to a criminally convicted and twice impeached GOP candidate. Many are still wondering why millions of Democrats stayed home on Election Day.

Source:

More Than One Million Ukrainians Left Without Electricity After Latest Russian Attack

Putin’s Meat-Grinder War Chewing Up Russian Soldiers on Industrial Scale

Russia lost 2,030 soldiers in the past 24 hours, reports Ukraine’s military.  500 North Korean soldiers were reportedly KIA since their deployment to fight Ukraine.

Russia’s staggering death toll marks the Russian tyrants most damaging period of his over 1,000-day-old conflict so far.

The previous highest was 1,950 on 12 Nov. Putin’s meat grinder approach is still miserably failing with over 738,000 Russian casualties.

But despite the harrowing figures continuing to soar Russia has found success on the battlefield. UK Defence Secretary John Healey has warned the 600-mile frontline is now at the most unstable it has been since February 2022.

While Putin is losing soldiers at an abominable rate, the Russian economy is losing as well. The ruble tumbled to its lowest level in over two years, as a mix of low oil prices, new sanctions against Russian businesses and burgeoning government spending on its war effort put strains on the Russian economy.

The central bank reacted by suspending currency purchases for the rest of this year. That will restrict the supply of rubles and should support the exchange rate accordingly.

In response to the Ukrainian Storm Shadow attack last week, Putin authorized the use of a hypersonic missile called the “Oreshnik.”  This has been described as far superior to any other weapon in Russia’s arsenal. Putin claimed the Oreshnik can turn almost anything it hits into dust.

The Kremlin wisely notified Washington before launching the Oreshnik to prevent a nuclear misunderstanding.

Sources:

Putin’s deadliest day with 2,000 soldiers lost as troops wade through fallen comrades on fastest advance since invasion | The US Sun

Ruble tumbles as Russia’s war economy comes under increasing strain – POLITICO

Hepatitis A Infection Reported at Buffalo Wild Wings in Monterey Park, CA

Los Angeles County public health officials are investigating the possible spread of Hepatitis A after an employee at a well-known restaurant and bar in Monterey Park became sick with the virus. The infection was reported at Buffalo Wild Wings in the 4000 block of Market Place.

(Map courtesy of Mapcarta)

While there are no additional cases reported this week, officials urged anyone who ate or consumed drinks at the restaurant between 13 and 22 Nov to receive hepatitis A vaccine or monitor for the symptoms, which include fever, weakness, fatigue, nausea, loss of appetite, and jaundice.

People who have not received the vaccine or never had hepatitis A infection may be more vulnerable. The public health department is also working with the restaurant to make sure all employees are vaccinated.

Computer illustration showing the liver and a close-up view of hepatitis A viruses. (Image courtesy of NBC News)

Hepatitis A can in some cases cause death as it spreads when a person unknowingly consumes contaminated food or drinks. There is no specific antiviral treatment for hepatitis A

Source:

Hepatitis A reported at Buffalo Wild Wings in Monterey Park – NBC Los Angeles

Director of British Intelligence: “The World is at its Most Dangerous Point in 40 Years.”

Sir Richard Moore, head of MI6, issues a warning to Ukraine’s allies in Paris after Donald Trump’s election. (Photo: AP)

The world is at its most dangerous point for 40 years, the head of MI6 has warned, accusing Russia of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe to undermine support for Ukraine.

“In 37 years in the intelligence profession I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious,” Sir Richard said, adding that if “Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there.”

Sir Richard said MI6 “cherishes our heritage of covert action, which we keep alive today” – with British spies working to stop the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He warned that a victory for Mr Putin in Ukraine would jeapordize both European and transatlantic security, in what appeared a message to president-elect Donald Trump, with the incoming US leader having repeatedly complained about the amount of money and military aid Washington is sending to help Kiev.

“We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine,” he said. “The cost of supporting Ukraine is well known but the cost of not doing so would be infinitely higher. If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous,” Sir Richard concluded.

Whenever the D/MI6 or D/CIA speak, we should pay attention. Coriolanus has previously written about Russian sabotage efforts against NATO, as well as the Kremlin’s insidious covert support for far-right wing parties in Europe. In 2016 retired MI6 operative Christopher Steele accumulated a dossier against Donald Trump which suggested that Vladimir Putin held compromising materials (‘kompramat’) on the President-Elect. Mr. Steele obtained “raw intelligence” from his Russian contacts which needed to be finely sifted. Raw data, rumors, hints, can lead to revelations, but they must not be taken as 100% accurate at face value. While the allegations have never been proven, nothing in the report was ever disproven.  

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “With Trump, all roads lead to Putin. I don’t know what the Russians have on the president, politically, personally, or financially.”

President Trump with Russian FM Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergei Sislyak in the White House, May 2017. No doubt we will see something similar in 2025. (Photo: Alexander Shcherbak / TASS / Getty Images)

In 2025, NATO and the Western intelligence services will be ready to deal with a Moscow-friendly intelligence apparatus. The US will receive less critical information from its allies over concern the data will be leaked to Russia or Israel. Friendly intelligence services will increase their budgets and manpower to make up for less US support. Canada recently led a NATO exercise in the Balkans (as reported here on Coriolanus).

Source:

World at most dangerous point in 40 years, MI6 chief warns | The Independent

Trump Hosts Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov And Ambassador Kislyak At White House : The Two-Way : NPR

RFK Jr. Visited Samoa in 2019 and Spread Anti-VAX Disinformation Causing 83 Deaths and 1,867 Hospitalizations from Measles

Samoa’s then prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi (R), and RFK Jr (C) at 57th anniversary of independence celebrations in Mulinu’u, Samoa, on 1 June 2019. (Photo: Misiona Simo / AP)

From The Guardian:

“In the small island country of Samoa, lives have been forever altered by an outbreak of measles in 2019 that caused at least 83 deaths and 1,867 hospitalizations, mostly of babies and young children. Thousands more fell sick. The preventable illness was able to spread through the small, closely knit population of about 200,000 due to record low vaccination rates – stemming from a medical vaccination error, the Samoan government’s public health mismanagement, and fueled by anti-vaccination sentiment from Robert F Kennedy Jr.”

In developing countries, the suffering from measles is always worse. Many rural Samoans had no transport, feared going to hospital, or tried traditional healers first. By the time people did bring their babies in, they were extremely sick. More than 100 Australian medical personnel deployed to Samoa in the thick of the epidemic.

Siiae Olilefauaitu sits outside her house with her surviving children. She won’t move from her hovel because her dead unvaccinated daughter is buried on her property. (Nov 2024 Photo: Michelle Duff / The Guardian)

Reports that some Republican US Senators won’t confirm this idiot to head HHS is encouraging, nor will they allow a recess appointment allowing him to slip through. Does the President-elect have a “Death Wish” for the American people with his quack choices to lead the US government health agencies? We know Donald Trump accepts the abominable amount of gun deaths in the US as something “we must get over.”  How the GOP elite and wealthy benefit from wholesale needless American deaths is something Coriolanus has been investigating for some time.

Source:


https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/26/rfk-jr-samoa-visit-measles-outbreak-vaccines

Indian Airlines Suffer Through 1,000 Bomb Scare Hoaxes

India’s airlines and airports reportedly received nearly 1,000 fake bomb threats as of early November, disrupting flight schedules and wreaking havoc on services.

Murlidhar Mohol, the country’s deputy civil aviation minister, told parliament that 999 bogus threats had been received as of 14 Nov, with more than half of them coming in the last two weeks of October.

That was nearly ten times the number of threats made in 2023 and a sharp increase from years past. Authorities recorded 120 bomb hoaxes at airports between 2014 and 2017 with about half directed at Delhi and Mumbai.

There was “no actual threat detected at any of the airports/aircraft in India,” Mohol said.

Officials have made 12 arrests in connection to the threats.

The country’s civil aviation ministry said it was making “every possible effort” to protect flight operations, adding that airports have a Bomb Threat Assessment Committee that monitors threats and decides the appropriate course of action.

Threats can lead to the deployment of bomb disposal squads, sniffer dogs, ambulances, police, and doctors.

They also often require passengers to deboard the plane, along with baggage, who then have to go through security again.

Engineer and security teams must also search and clear the plane before it can take off.

(Photo: AFP)

In 1984, Air India 182 exploded over the Atlantic Ocean and the culprits were Sikh extremists, so this is quite a sensitive matter that the Indian authorities are taking seriously. That attack killed all 329 people on board, including 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens, and 22 Indian citizens.[4] The bombing of Air India Flight 182 is the deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian history, the deadliest aviation incident in the history of Air India and was the world’s deadliest act of aviation terrorism until the 11 Sep 2001 against the US.

The idiots making these bomb threats are diverting police resources from genuine threats, as well as wasting time and fuel. India is already choking with smog and people are living under a dangerously poor Air Quality Index (AQI). The flight delays and scheduling problems cause secondary effects with other airports and carriers. Passenger jets have allocated times for arrivals and departure at airports because of the limited amount of airspace, tarmacs, and number of available gates. Delayed aircraft may spend time circling an airport if it misses its allotted landing time, burning unneccessary fuel.   

Sources:

Indian Airlines Suffer Through 1,000 Hoax Bomb Scares | IBTimes

Air India Flight 182 – Wikipedia

Beautiful Orphaned Bird Emulates Human with Voice and Affection

‘Are We Not Humans?’ Fury in Beirut as Massive Israeli Strike Kills 20

Before impact. Beirut’s Shayah neighborhood (Photo: Fadel Itani / UPI)

After impact. (Photo: Fadel Itani / UPI)

Chiyah neighborhood of Beirut (Photo: Fadel Itani / UPI)

A massive Israeli air strike on central Beirut has killed at least 20 people, Lebanese officials say, in the latest attack on the capital amid an escalation of Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah.

The strike happened without warning at about 04:00 (02:00 GMT) on Saturday, and was an attempt to assassinate a senior Hezbollah official, Israeli media reported. The attack was heard and felt across the city, and destroyed at least one eight-story residential building in the densely populated Basta district.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said a so-called bunker buster bomb was used, a type of weapon previously used by Israel to kill senior Hezbollah figures, including former leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Emergency workers used heavy machinery to remove the rubble and retrieve bodies.

More than 60 people had been injured and the number of victims was expected to rise as DNA tests would be carried out on body parts that had been recovered.

“It was a very horrible explosion. All the windows and glasses were over me, my wife and my children. My home now is a battlefield,” said 55-year-old Ali Nassar, who lived in a nearby building.

“Even if one person is hiding here…Should you destroy buildings where people are sleeping inside? Is it necessary to kill all the people for one person? Are we not humans? That’s what I’m asking.”

According to the Israeli public broadcaster Kan, the attack was an attempt to kill Mohammed Haydar, a top Hezbollah official. Hezbollah MP Amin Sherri said none of the group’s leaders were in the building hit, and Haydar’s fate remained unclear.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not commented.

Also on Saturday, the IDF carried out further air strikes on the Dahieh, the area in southern Beirut where Hezbollah is based, saying they were buildings linked to the group.

Israeli attacks have also hit the south, where an Israeli ground invasion is advancing, and the east, where air strikes in the city of Baalbek killed at least 15 people, including four children.

Lebanese officials say a ‘bunker buster’ bomb was used in the devastating strike.

In AKZ-L (Lebanon), more than 3,670 people have been killed and at least 15,400 injured since Oct 2023, with more than one million forced from their homes. With the onset of winter, more innocent and homeless Arabs will die of exposure. The IDF has killed scores of Lebanese medics while destroying the country’s medical infrastructure. PIFWC Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud Party have certainly incubated the next two generations of anti-Israelis and antisemites. Netanyahu can’t wait until Donald Trump becomes POTUS next year. But having a Democratic president in the White House these past four years haven’t really stalled or delayed the Likud Party’s plans to ethnically cleanse Israel of Palestinians anyway.

The imminent and unholy Repub-Likud alliance in 2025 will also bode poorly again for Iranians and chances of a lasting peace in the Middle East.

Sources:

Israel hits Lebanon with widespread bombing and shelling, killing at least 47 – UPI.com

‘Are we not humans?’: Anger in Beirut as massive Israeli strike kills 20

Israel: Fanatical Settlers Attack IDF Major-General Avi Bluth in West Bank

This past weekend, lunatic Settlers in the West Bank attacked IDF Central Command Major-General Avi Bluth, ludicrously calling him a “traitor” and “Israel hater.”

Head of IDF Central Command Major-General Avi Bluth. He escaped unharmed and must have been shocked to face an intifada from the very citizens he has sworn to protect and defend.

Since Oct 2023, Israeli security forces and fanatical Settlers have killed at least 763 Palestinians in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to facilitate the seizure of lands and homes by religious zealots. A few of these maniacs possibly like the Settler pictured below have been sanctioned by the Biden Administration.

Palestinian Alice Kisiya (R), whose family land was taken over by armed Israeli settlers, confronts a rabid Settler in the area of al-Makhrour in the occupied West Bank, near Beit Jala, on 22 Aug 2024. (Photo: AFP / Hazem Bader)

The above pictured Israelis celebrate the death of Palestinian resistance leader Yahya Sinwar at a southern kibbutz, 17 Oct 2024. Note the elation on the faces of the celebrants as if this was V-E Day 1945. They are unaware of twice-GOP Presidential candidate NYS Governor Thomas E. Dewey’s famous words, “You can’t shoot an idea with a gun,” as if the IDF killing of one man erases Palestinian nationalism. Urbane Israelis in Ramat Aviv or Haifa wonder how much taxes these kibbutzers pay or whether they ever served in the IDF like them or MG Avi Bluth. (Photo: AP)

Above, Israeli Police officers arrest an ultra-Orthodox Jew as they block a main road during a protest against IDF conscription in Jerusalem, 19 Oct 2017. Israeli police arrested 40 people in protests by a fringe group within Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. (Photo: Ariel Schalit / AP)

Israeli border police stand guard near Orthodox Jews in the Old City’s Christian quarter, after an incident in which Haredi Orthodox Jews spat at a Christian procession carrying a cross through Jerusalem’s Old City in 2023. Israeli police arrested five suspects. (Photo: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Ultra-Orthodox Jews defied COVID regulations. Above, Israeli security forces arrest an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man as they close a synagogue in Jerusalem (Mar 2020). COVID infection rates in ultra-Orthodox communities were markedly higher than the rest of Israel. (Photo: Ahmad Gharabli / AFP / Getty Images)

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man (L) and a secular man (R) above argue during a protest against the strict religious codes favored by the ultra-Orthodox in the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh. (Photo: Reuters/Landov)

So, is it any wonder that an IDF Major-General may be attacked by his own people when you see the fanaticism emanating from the religious sectors of Israel? Many military veterans have favorite commanders or generals and Coriolanus is no exception. I can’t imagine being in a security detail or in the entourage of my favorite (unnamed) general under attack by maniacs. Luckily MG Avi Bluth and his staff escaped unharmed.

For years Israel has been undergoing a political civil war between secularists and fundamentalists, ultra-nationalists and peace activists, Sabras and newcomers, Ashkenazis and Sephardics, and Likudniks versus Laborites. So far, the religious right-wing and their coalition have been winning in the kaleidoscope of the Knesset, keeping Israeli Crime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in power (for now).

Besides facing an international arrest warrant for war crimes, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu will be facing a criminal or Knesset inquiry into his handling of the 7 Oct 2023 surprise attack which killed more than 1,200 citizens and the capture of over 200 hostages.

Sources:

Israel: Some ultra-Orthodox Jews are ignoring the coronavirus rules | CNN

Israelis Clash Over Strict Religious Codes |

Israeli police arrest 5 Jews for allegedly spitting on Christian pilgrims amid spate of attacks – Jewish Telegraphic Agency

US issues new batch of sanctions targeting West Bank settlers amid rampant violence | The Times of Israel

Passengers Stop Man from Opening American Airlines Plane Cabin Door Mid-Flight

Passengers on American Airlines Flight 1219 stopped a Canadian man who allegedly tried to open the airplane’s cabin door mid-flight by restraining him with duct tape and flex cuffs.

The suspect reportedly told a flight attendant he needed to exit the plane and began acting erratically when he was denied.

The man tried to open an emergency door while the jetliner was airborne.

“He was sitting at the emergency exit and he cracked open the window that was protecting the handle,” reported a passenger. “He ripped down the handle where it exposed some of the emergency exit and all the wind came rushing down.”

“The guy was screaming ‘I want to get out,’” reported a witness.

The unhinged man allegedly assaulted a flight attendant, injuring her wrist and neck.

A passenger sprung into action by restraining the man and securing him with duct tape and flex cuffs provided by the crew. The suspect remained restrained on the floor for the rest of the flight.

After landing, law enforcement and FBI agents boarded the plane to detain the man for a medical evaluation. The flight attendant was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment, while the suspect was taken off the plane in a wheelchair.

The FAA and FBI are working together to investigate the incident further. No charges have been filed.

“The safety and security of our customers and team members is our top priority and we thank our team members and customers for managing a difficult situation,” American Airlines said.

Luckily enough passengers had the wherewithal to overcome and restrain the unhinged man before a catastrophe occurred. Air travel remains one of the safest methods of travel, but occasional incidents like this challenge aviation security experts to come up with non-lethal solutions to neutralize unruly or dangerous passengers without harming innocent people or endangering the flight.   

Source:

Passengers Stop Man from Opening Plane Door Mid-Flight By Duct Taping His Wrists And Ankles Together: Officials | IBTimes

Man subdued on an American Airlines flight after trying to open an emergency exit | CTV News

North Korean Defector: NK Soldiers Will Desert ASAP in Ukraine

North Korean supremo Kim Jong-un meets with his loyal and adoring troops in Mar 2024 (Photo: AP)

Entire units of North Korea’s troops fighting for Vladimir Putin will desert as soon as they get to the frontline, a defector has claimed.

Hyun-Seung Lee, spent 3 1/2 years with an artillery and reconnaissance battalion in the early 2000s. His time in the army included training for six months alongside the Storm Corps. Lee says the troops in Russia will be looking to escape the battle in Ukraine “from the beginning.” 

Leaked footage shows the North Koreans (AKA “Norks”) training in Russia (Credit: Telegram)

He believes the troops are not ready for the frontline and will be used as “human shields” by Russian soldiers in “meat attacks.”

Kim Jong-un has sent his Storm Corps, the country’s equivalent of special forces, to fight for the Kremlin as his war continues to stall. The 10,000-strong force is set to be used on the battlefield in the coming days as the Russian tyrant looks to claw back Kursk

Questions have been raised about how well the North Korean soldiers will fight having not seen combat since the Vietnam War and with the units armed, clothed, and led by the Russians.

In one clip the Norks appear to be practicing Russian (Credit: Telegram)

Lee said the young soldiers in North Korea will have been forced to go and they won’t be that committed to the fighting. 

He said: “It will be individuals at first, but more like as time passes, I think there’ll be like a larger number of group defections, including officers.”

That’s because, Lee says, the Russians will likely treat them as “expendable” and even more poorly than their own troops. 

He said: “Russian soldiers don’t respect them as their fellow warriors and the NORKs will die without any impact.”

North Korean soldiers could be thinking twice about defecting as it could see their families thrown in prison. Pyongyang has a guilty by association policy; if the North’s soldiers are seen defecting by colleagues their families could be put in jail.

Lee said: “They would be socially not respected, there’s criticism [they would face] from the community and organizations.”

High-ranking families would likely face a more severe punishment if authorities knew their relative had fled.

But Lee, whose family fled Pyongyang in 2014, said some families might not even know their brother, son or father are in Russia fighting as North Korea keeps all troop movements secret. The troops will be watched over by a Worker’s Party political officer who will administer two hours of ideological training a day.

Inside North Inside North Korea’s ‘Elite’ Storm Corp Special Forces

The Storm Corps is made of ten units, including a sniper’s unit, a light infantry unit, and a paratroopers unit, according to Lee Hyun Seung.

Lee emphasized they are not comparable to Western special forces. He said North Korea didn’t have the equipment to continually train troops for combat as ammunition and bombs would need replacing.

Instead, they trained “for show” so they could march in parades or for propaganda videos. Lee said those soldiers are drawn from North Korea’s working class and will be ambivalent about fighting for the regime. 

The defector added: “They are just seeking food and then they’re seeking career advancement. I’m sure nowadays, these, you know, young soldiers they don’t have like a real loyalty to the regime. They just got order command from the Supreme Commander, and then they have no choice but to, you know, [go] to Russia.” 

Ukrainian military intelligence had leaked to the press that a score of North Korean soldiers had already deserted but were soon recaptured by Russian security services. Another report suggested that up to 40 NK troops had been killed in recent fighting in Kursk. Coriolanus posted that the Ukrainian military targeted a Russian command and control center and possibly wounded a North Korean general and other HVTs.  The Ukrainians will continue using their PSYOP program to induce defections and undermine the morale of the NORKs while targeting their HVTs. Kiev has less than two months to catastrophically damage the Russian and North Korean armies before Trump takes over the White House and kowtows to Vladimir Putin.

Source:

I was a North Korean soldier – Kim’s terrified troops will FLEE Putin’s army when they reach Ukraine frontline – The US Sun | The US Sun

Cluster of Ventura County, CA Farmworkers Diagnosed with Rare Leptospirosis

Ventura County lies west of Los Angeles, CA.

Ventura County public health officials said they’re investigating a rare and potentially severe disease diagnosed in several workers in county berry fields.

The illness, leptospirosis, is caused by bacteria found in contaminated water or soil. The disease can be spread by urine from animals including rodents and livestock.

In severe cases, the condition can cause kidney damage, liver failure, or meningitis and can be fatal.

Public health officials report the local cases appeared to have emerged between Sep 2024 and Nov 2024. They do not know the exact cause but said farmworkers harvesting or handling berries grown under hoops may be at higher risk of infection.

There are 18 cases, but the numbers are fluctuating. Some of the cases have been confirmed and others are presumed to be leptospirosis.

Farm worker. (Photo: VCStar)

Public health officials said leptospirosis is not considered a risk to the general public as the illness is not spread from person to person and it’s safe to eat berries.

Some patients reported severe symptoms like meningitis, an infection that can cause inflammation of membrane around the brain and spinal cord. Other cases involved mild symptoms like headache and fever.

Public health strongly advised agricultural workers and employers to take precautions to reduce the risk of leptospirosis:

  • Wear waterproof protective clothing and equipment while working outdoors including gloves, long-sleeved shirts, pants and boots or shoes.
  • Cover cuts and scratches with waterproof bandaging.
  • Wash hands, arms and exposed skin thoroughly with soap and water after working in the fields, especially before eating or drinking.
  • Employers should take measures to keep pest populations under control.

Officials inform that rodents are the most common source of the disease but livestock, dogs and cats can also be infected. People should keep pets away from ponds, lakes and other natural bodies of water and prompt veterinary care for animals that become sick.

The CDC reports that some infected people may have no symptoms. Leptospirosis sometimes occurs in two phases with initial symptoms that improve but are followed by more severe conditions like kidney/liver failure or meningitis.

An estimated one million severe cases of leptospirosis in humans occur every year, causing about 58,900 deaths. The disease is most common in tropical areas of the world but may occur anywhere. Outbreaks may arise after heavy rainfall.

Sources:

Cluster of Locally Acquired Leptospirosis Infections – Ventura County Public Health

Public health investigates cluster of leptospirosis infections

About Leptospirosis | Leptospirosis | CDC

Leptospirosis – Wikipedia

First Freight Train from China Arrives in Afghanistan as Beijing Increases Ties

A direct freight train link between Afghanistan and China was inaugurated this month. (File photo)

The first train carrying goods from China to Afghanistan arrived in Mazar-e Sharif on 23 Nov after crossing through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Kabul reported. The Taliban said 55 containers arrived in Afghanistan after a 22-day journey, marking the inauguration of the first direct train link between China and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The train is expected to take Afghan goods back to China for sale there. Since the Taliban returned to power in Aug 2021, no country, including China, has formally recognized the extremist group — which has been accused of massive rights violations — but Beijing has attempted to increase ties as part of its economic push in the region, including its Belt and Road initiative.

Central Asia Rail Routes Map courtesy of Ansher Global

China, the world’s factory, is also building a massive railway system on the Dark Continent which will connect east and west Africa, a concept the previous European colonial powers never conceived.   

China has pledged $75 billion of funding to Africa and her projects have employed tens of thousands of Ethiopians and Djiboutians.

The West is involved in devastating and costly wars while Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative is quietly and peacefully securing China’s future economic hegemony. Beijing will soon have access to critical minerals in Afghanistan needed for the telecommunications and computer manufacturing industries.  

Ukrainians are fighting for their very survival from the Kremlin onslaught while the US wastes precious economic and military resources funding Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians while the IDF devastates Lebanon with US-provided weapons.  The US already wasted billions of dollars fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan while China invested her time and resources wisely to expand her influence globally while subtly beginning her conquest of space.

Sources:

Keynote Address by Helga Zepp-LaRouche to Conference: U.S.-China Cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative and Corresponding Ideas in Chinese and Western Philosophy 4/13-4/14/2017 NYC

Freight Train Arrives In Afghanistan From China As Beijing Looks To Increase Ties

Simultaneous Comeuppance for Two Right-Wing Doppelgangers

Brazilian ex-president Jair Bolsonaro (R) and his Floridian doppelganger ex-Congressman Matt Gaetz (L)

Last week Brazil’s federal police charged former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and 36 accomplices of being part of a criminal conspiracy designed to obliterate Brazil’s democratic system through a right-wing coup d’état attempt on 8 Jan 2023. Bolsonaro had proudly described himself as the “Trump of Brazil,” had accelerated the arboricide of the earth’s lings, the Amazon Rain Forest, for the sake of making money.  

Among the accused are Bolsonaro’s former spy chief, as well as a cadre of senior defense, foreign affairs, and justice ministers. Also charged are a far-right congressman and blogger.


In a scene quite similar to the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021, Jair Bolsonaro supporters generate chaos in Brasilia, Brazil, by invading the Supreme Court, National Congress, and the Planalto Palace on Sunday, 8 Jan 2023. Mounted police and helicopters helped safeguard democracy. (Photo: Mateus Bonomi/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Meanwhile to the north, Bolsonaro’s American junior doppelganger received a concomitant bit of comeuppance. Reactionary Trump acolyte Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) rashly resigned his congressional seat after President-elect Donald Trump nominated him to be his Attorney-General. His annual salary was approximately $174,000. Matt Gaetz, previously arrested on DUI charges in 2008 which his father allegedly influenced the case in his favor, was embroiled in a congressional Ethics Committee investigation and was confident his sins would remain secret from the American public. Joel Greenberg, an accomplice of Matt Gaetz, was already and convicted and sentenced to 11 years for sex trafficking of a minor and a litany of other crimes.

Official Press Release from Ethics Committee (18 June 2024):

“On April 9, 2021, the Committee announced it had initiated a review into allegations that Representative Matt Gaetz may have engaged in sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use, shared inappropriate images or videos on the House floor, misused state identification records, converted campaign funds to personal use, and/or accepted a bribe, improper gratuity, or impermissible gift, in violation of House Rules, laws, or other standards of conduct”.

For years, Republicans successfully prevented the release of the damaging investigation findings of Congressman Gaetz’s alleged peccadillos and acts of moral turpitude. When a reporter from CNN asked Gaetz about reports of a second sexual encounter with a 17-year-old girl, six minutes later Gaetz withdrew his nomination to be President-elect Donald Trump’s next attorney general.

Both right-wing disgraced doppelgangers Jair Bolsonaro and MAGA militant Matt Gaetz are considered innocent of all charges and accusations until both defendants are proven guilty in their respective courts of law.  

“The moral arc of the university is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Sources:


https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/21/jair-bolsonaro-charged-coup-plot

The rise and fall of Matt Gaetz in eight wild days

Friend of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz sentenced to 11 years in prison in sex trafficking case

Cat Rescued After Five Days Stuck Up Tree

Murder-Death-Kill: IDF Warpath Continues With US Elections Days Away

The IDF and the Likud Party are doing the best they can, young lady, so please be patient. (Undated image)

Israeli strikes killed at least eight people, including six health workers in south Lebanon. The killing of the six Lebanese health workers and the wounding of four others in three separate strikes across south Lebanon brought the death toll of health workers to 178 over the last year, while 279 health workers have been injured. Beirut long accused Jerusalem of targeting its medical personnel and infrastructure, a violation of the Geneva Convention. The IDF also struck reported Hezbollah weapons depots and bases in Syria. In Gaza, at least 46 Palestinians were killed in IDF strikes across the enclave, primarily in the north, where one attack hit a hospital. The Israeli military accuses Palestinians of using the hospital for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there, which health officials denied.

An Israeli attack in the occupied West Bank killed three Palestinians. Since Oct 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 763 Palestinians in Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) to facilitate the seizure of lands and homes by fanatical Settlers. A few of these maniacs have been sanctioned by the Biden Administration as a token measure, as you read in previous posts.

Over the past 24 hours, Israel amassed at least 67 deaths in all three Arab Killing Zones (AKZ): AKZ-L, AKZ-G, AKZ-W. (Russian President Vladimir Putin has established a Ukrainian Killing Zone or UKZ, which is discussed later.)

Lebanese fighters counterattacked with projectiles, killing one Israeli farmer and four foreign workers. Their nationalities were not disclosed.

One of the IDF strikes in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, including a paramedic and two local journalists.

In AKZ-L, Israel issued an evacuation warning to residents of Baalbek for a second consecutive day. The IDF conducted heavy airstrikes targeting Hezbollah in and around the city famed for its Roman temples.

Displaced children, who fled Baalbek city and the nearby towns of Douris and Ain Bourday with their families amid the Israeli onslaught, listen to a story at a school being used as a shelter in Deir Al-Ahmar, east Lebanon, 31 Oct 2024.

Dozens of cars could be seen speeding out of the area after Thursday’s warning, with wafts of black smoke still visible emanating from the town of Douris, where an Israeli strike the previous day destroyed Hezbollah fuel stocks.

Lebanese Shia fighters aim to keep Israeli forces out of Khiyam to prevent the IDF from detonating homes and buildings, as has happened on a large scale in other border towns.

Israeli bulldozers damaged the office of UN aid agency UNRWA in the West Bank’s Nur Shams camp, according to Philippe Lazzarini, the agency’s chief.

The office “can no longer be used,” Lazzarini grimly posted on social media platform X.

An IDF bulldozer operates at the parameter of the Nur Shams refugee camp during the ongoing army operation, in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, 31 Oct 2024. This is what Lebanese Shias are trying to prevent the IDF from doing to their homes. An IDF bulldozer like this killed American peace activist Rachel Corrie in 2003.

The late Rachel Corrie (Undated photo: Wikipedia)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is demanding that Lebanese Hezbollah pull back to north of the Litani River, about 30 km from the Israeli frontier. In addition, Israel wants the Lebanese army to deploy along the border, an international intervention mechanism to enforce the truce, and the IDF to remain free to respond militarily in case of threats. And after abandoning their ancestral homes, where would these Lebanese Shias live?

(Map: worldatlas.com)

Lebanese Hezbollah did not exist before 1982. They organized as a resistance to the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Everyone in Lebanon, regardless of their faith, remembers the horrific 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre. The aftermath led to the resignation of Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon (but he was kept in the cabinet as a “minister without portfolio”). As people in the Middle East did not forget 1982, neither will they forget 2023-24.

Israel’s offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza has killed more than 43,100 people, with Israel claiming the death toll includes thousands of militants. Nakba 2024 has devastated much of the Gaza Strip, while the fighting and Israeli evacuation orders have displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people. At this rate of homicide, by year’s end the IDF will have killed close to 50,000 Palestinians while maiming 150,000. Coriolanus has not yet calculated the predicted death toll for of Lebanon.  

The Vietnam War destroyed the legacy of President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ). How will history judge retiring, kind-hearted President Joe Biden? (Artwork: Mr. Dave Chappatte)

Sources:

Middle East fighting rages on several fronts, killing dozens (voanews.com)

Sabra and Shatila massacre – Wikipedia

Finnish Prosecutor Charges Russian Ultranationalist Leader with War Crimes

Russian radical nationalist and accused war criminal Voislav Torden AKA Yan Petrovsky. (Photo: Antifascist-europe,org)

The Finnish Prosecutor-General’s Office has charged Voislav Torden, AKA Yan Petrovsky, a Russian ultranationalist and former commander of the Rusich sabotage group, with war crimes committed in Ukraine in 2014.

Torden faces five counts stemming from his involvement with Rusich, which fought against Ukrainian forces in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Torden and his group are linked to the deaths of 22 Ukrainian soldiers and the injury of four others. He is accused of war crimes and committing acts of cruelty against both injured and deceased enemy combatants.

Born Yan Petrovsky in 1987 in St. Petersburg, Torden relocated to Oslo in 2004 with his mother. He then regularly visited Russia, where he met former paratrooper and nationalist Aleksandr Milchakov. In 2014, they traveled to Ukraine’s Donbas region to support Russia-backed separatists in their fight against Ukrainian forces.

In Sep 2014, Rusich ambushed a column of the Ukrainian battalion Aidar near Shchastya, with Milchakov later boasting about photographing himself with the bodies of slain Ukrainian soldiers, while members of Rusich reportedly mutilated some of the remains.

In 2016, Torden was deported from Norway to Russia, where he changed his name from Yan Petrovsky to Voislav Torden. He entered Finland in 2023 as a family member of his wife, who received a study permit. Torden was detained on 20 Jul 2023, at Helsinki Airport while attempting to board a flight to Nice, France.

Following his arrest, Ukrainian authorities sought his extradition, but Finland’s Supreme Court denied the request, citing concerns over conditions in Ukrainian prisons and the potential for Torden to face humiliation in custody. Ukraine has charged him with war crimes from the 2014-15 conflict, and he was sanctioned by the US in 2022 for extreme cruelty during combat in the Kharkiv region.

The specifics of his activities in Ukraine during that time remain unclear.

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

Meanwhile, USSECSTATE Antony Blinken said that Russia has been suffering some 1,200 casualties a day in eastern Ukraine, more than at any other time during the war. 8,000 North Korean troops are ready for combat in what will most likely be “meat attacks” against Ukrainian defenders. Blinken stated that Russian President Vladimir Putin turning to North Korean troops “is a clear sign of weakness.”

President Volodimir Zelensky again asked NATO for permission to attack deep targets in Russia following a lethal drone attack on a residential building in Kharkiv.

Police officers stand next to the bodies of people found under the debris of an apartment building that was hit by a Russian air strike in Kharkiv on 31 Oct. Three were killed and scores wounded. Two boys, aged 11 and 15, were among the dead. Putin has turned Ukraine into a killing zone (UKZ), like Netanyahu’s AKZ in the Middle East. (Photo: Reuters)

Sources:

Finnish Prosecutor Charges Russian Ultranationalist Leader With War Crimes (rferl.org)

The Prosecutor’s Office of Finland has charged the leader of the neo-Nazi group “Rusich” Petrovsky with committing war crimes in Ukraine (currenttime.tv)

U.S. Says 8,000 North Korean Troops Ready For Combat In Kursk Region (rferl.org)

Thousands of Passenger Flight Signals Jammed Over Warzones in Ukraine, Middle East

The navigation systems of thousands of passenger aircraft are being disrupted every day as they fly close to conflict zones who warn that the blocking or spoofing technology could one day put lives at risk.

Over the past two years, electronic warfare technology has been deployed to disrupt drones or missiles that use global positioning system or other satellite navigation technology to home in on their targets.

However, the blocking or spoofing of GPS signals also affects commercial aircraft, explained Raphael Monstein, a research associate at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Switzerland.

“Spoofing is when an actor sends out malicious signals to all the receivers that are in the coverage area. And it tricks the receiver into believing that it is in a different position than it actually is. And particularly in aviation, that has quite some consequences, which can be quite negative.”

“It has a lot of side effects in the cockpit, and they can range from spurious warnings — obviously the loss of situational awareness because you’re not quite sure when your GPS indicates you’re somewhere else. You can have very different reactions of the aircraft, depending a bit on the aircraft type.”

Monstein and his team in Zurich track GPS interference of civilian aircraft in real time and publish it on an online map.

They have detected an increase in such incidents since the beginning of 2024.

“And they are mainly around conflict zones. One of them would be the Middle East. One would be the Black Sea and around Russia,” he said. “We talk about on an average day about 1,000 aircraft at least being affected by that. And that is a very big scale. That is novel. We haven’t seen that kind of [interference] anywhere in the world so far.”

The disruption isn’t only happening above war zones. In April, Finnair, Finland’s national carrier, suspended flights to Tartu in eastern Estonia near Russia after GPS disruptions prevented two aircraft from landing at the airport. Finnair resumed the flights in June after the airport installed navigation systems that do not rely on GPS. Experts say most airports have such alternative equipment already installed.

Finnair previously reported similar problems when flying close to the Finland-Russia border and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The interference began in 2022, the year Finland applied to join NATO, after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.

At the time, Estonia’s defense minister said it was a deliberate Russian tactic.

“We all understand that these hybrid attacks are still very acute. We have to be ready also for these.”

Russia denies seeking to disrupt GPS signals of commercial aircraft.

The Swiss-based researcher contends that back-up systems will help prevent catastrophes, such as the ground proximity warning system. GPS blocking and spoofing also affects navigation systems on the ground. Residents of Moscow have recently complained of malfunctioning smartphone applications, such as map, taxi-hailing or food delivery apps. Experts have linked the disruption to Russian attempts to defend against Ukrainian drone attacks.

Sources:

Thousands of passenger flight signals jammed over war zones in Ukraine, Middle East (voanews.com)

France: Former Intelligence Chief Faces Trial for Attempted Extortion

Bernard Bajolet, former head of France’s foreign intelligence service, is due to face trial for attempted extortion of a businessman who the spy agency claims owes it millions of euros linked to murky investments. © AFP / BERTRAND LANGLOIS

Bernard Bajolet allegedly instructed DGSE agents, which he led from 2013 to 2017, to pressure entrepreneur Alain Duménil, with whom the agency was engaged in a lengthy dispute.

Duménil claims he was detained at a Paris airport as he prepared to board a flight and threatened with harm to himself and his family unless he handed over 15 million euros, an account the DGSE contests.

Now a judge has ruled there is sufficient evidence to try Bajolet for complicity in attempted extortion over the 2016 incident. Bajolet has been ordered to appear in criminal court outside Paris, where he will face the charge of “arbitrary infringement of individual liberty as a holder of public authority.”

The case has provided a rare glimpse into the financial interests of the DGSE, which is entrusted with managing a war chest designed to secure the state in the event of a national emergency. 

Seeded by the reparations damages paid to France after World War I, the capital was kept separate from the agency’s operational budget and placed in investments that helped it grow substantially over the decades. But by the turn of the 21st century, with little external oversight to monitor them, the DGSE’s investments had turned risky and were losing it considerable sums, according to an investigation by Le Monde

Seeking to extricate itself from loss-making companies and recover its funds, the service entered into a deal to exchange shares with Duménil in the early 2000s. But the French-Swiss businessman – who has since been sanctioned for tax fraud and other wrongdoing – promptly transferred the remaining assets and liquidated their holding companies, leaving the DGSE with now worthless shares.

The DGSE pursued the case in the courts for over a decade, but failed to recoup a loss it estimates at some 15 million euros.

In March 2016, Duménil alleges, the DGSE resorted to shadier means.

According to statements to investigators seen by Le Monde, he claims he was stopped by border police at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and handed over to two plain-clothes DGSE agents.

“‘You robbed the government of 13 million, which today makes 15 million with interest’,” Duménil said one of the agents told him. “‘You have to give it back to us’… He was very threatening, talking about me ending up in a wheelchair or worse.” 

The businessman says the agents also showed him pictures of his family and friends: “They wanted to make me understand that they could also go after any of these people.” 

Multimillionaire Alain Duménil (undated photo)

Duménil was allowed to leave and subsequently filed a complaint, which has been dismissed several times but allowed to stand on appeal. While the identity of the DGSE agents remains classified, director Bajolet was indicted in late 2022 for allegedly ordering their actions. 

A career diplomat, he acknowledges approving the plan to intercept Duménil at the airport, but told investigators he did not give detailed instructions and hoped only to revive discussions between each side’s lawyers. The DGSE denies Duménil was ever detained or threatened. It has not commented on the latest developments in the case.

Bajolet’s trial, for which a date has not yet been set, threatens to bring the agency further scrutiny.

After the judge’s ruling on 23 Oct, Duménil’s lawyers said in a statement: “Beyond the trial of Bernard Bajolet, this will be the trial of the DGSE and the twisting of its work to private ends.”

To raise funds to fight the Vietminh insurgency, the intelligence services traded in opium during the French colonial occupation of Vietnam, as did the Viet Minh. Both sent their agents to peddle the opium in Thailand. French intelligence agencies also raised funds in Southeast Asia by manipulating the overvalued Vietnamese currency, the Piaster, on the black market. The French intelligence services have a mixed bag reputation during their history. They were accurate about an eventual Taliban victory in Afghanistan, but dead wrong about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And as this incident exposes, there is little oversight of the DGSE.  

On 10 July 1985 in Auckland, NZ, the DGSE sank the Rainbow Warrior, a Greenpeace ship protesting nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean.  A Portuguese photographer was killed.  30 years later Jean-Luc Kister, the DGSE frogman responsible for the explosion, apologized on French national TV.

Sources:

France’s former intelligence chief faces trial for attempted extortion (rfi.fr)

French Indochina: Opium Espionage and “Operation X” (akha.org)

Dirty Wars: French and American Piaster Profiteering in Indochina, 1945-75 ダーティー・ウォーズ インドシナにおける仏米ピアストル暴利 1945-75年 – The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus (apjjf.org)

The French secret service and its ‘war chest’ caught in the nets of the justice system (lemonde.fr)

Italy: Botulism Sickens Eight; Kills One

Bar Necci, a typical bistro in Rome’s multicultural Pigneto neighborhood with working-class Roman roots.

After six patrons at an unspecified bar in the Pigneto district of Rome recently ate sandwiches contaminated with botulism, two other cases emerged. One woman died and her daughter has been hospitalized with serious symptoms after they had eaten frozen artichoke soup, purchased in a supermarket. The two women began to feel seriously unwell shortly after eating. For the older of the two, the poisoning would have been fulminant and she died shortly after admittance to the Sant’Eugenio hospital in Rome. Her daughter spent a week in intensive care. 

The public prosecutor’s office in Rome has opened an investigation. The prosecutor, Fabio Santoni, delegated the Nas carabinieri for the investigation. When the investigators went to the commercial establishment where the product was presumed to have been purchased, they realized that the batch had already been replaced. Investigators are trying to determine how the chain of preservation of the frozen foods led to the death of one person and the serious illness of the other. There is no information suggesting the six bar patrons who dined in the Pigneto bar died from the botulism.

According to the CDC, botulism is a rare but serious illness. It is caused by a toxin that attacks the body’s nerves and causes difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis, and even death. The toxin is made by Clostridium botulinum and related bacteria. There are five main kinds of botulism and all are medical emergencies. Improperly home-canned, preserved, or fermented foods can provide the right conditions for spores to grow and make botulinum toxin.

Sources:

Rome, botulinum in artichoke soup: a woman died – LaPresse

Colorado Animal Murderer Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan Attack on US Capitol

(Photo: FBI)

Patrick Montgomery (51) of Littleton, CO was sentenced to 37 months in prison and 36 months of supervised release by the Honorable US District Judge Randolph D. Moss for assaulting law enforcement personnel on 6 Jan 2021.

On the morning of 6 Jan 2021, Montgomery and co-defendants Brady Knowlton and Gary Wilson met at the Yours Truly hotel in Washington, DC and attended the “Stop the Steal” rally. After the protest, the three defendants made their way to the West Front of the US Capitol building, crossing over inside the restricted perimeter.

When they confronted a police line, Montgomery grabbed a law enforcement officer’s baton and attempted to wrestle it away from him. The officer held onto the baton and fell to the ground with Montgomery. The two then attempted to wrestle control of the baton from each other while Knowlton and Wilson watched nearby. During the scuffle, Montgomery kicked the police officer in the chest.

The three maniacs then made their way near the Senate Floor, where they confronted a USCP officer. Knowlton yelled at the officer: “This is not about us. This is bigger than me, it’s bigger than you. It’s about this – everyone’s right to self-government . . . We’re with you guys. You think these people in this building would fight for you?” Montgomery yelled: “You gotta stop doing your job sometime and start being American. You gotta quit doing your job and be an American!” Wilson yelled: “We came all the way from our job to do your job, and the freaking Senators’ job!”

After this confrontation, the defendants exited the Capitol building. The FBI arrested Montgomery on 17 Jan 2021 in Colorado.

Here Patrick Montgomery proudly poses with two other miscreants on 6 Jan 2021, presumably Brady Knowlton and Gary Wilson. Co-defendant Brady Knowlton is awaiting sentencing. Gary Wilson was previously sentenced to 30 days incarceration followed by 12 months supervised release for his heinous conduct on 6 Jan 2021.

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

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

This abomination proudly murdered a defenseless mountain lion. Cretinous Patrick Montgomery told Colorado gaming officials that he had killed the animal during a March hunt, but a background check unearthed a 1996 conviction that barred the Capitol rioter from owning a firearm. (Undated photo: mediate.com; the-sun.com.)

Patrick Montgomery, Brady Knowlton, and Gary Wilson come from exactly what 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton hailed as a “basket of deplorables.” These “useful idiots,” white supremacist supporters of Donald Trump, heeded his imbecilic call and then threw away the shambles of their lives with these felony convictions.

For the odious animal-killing Patrick Montgomery, the state of Colorado hosts at least three federal prisons to house him for the next three years. The BOP guards should be issued clothespins for their nostrils.  

Sources:

District of Columbia | Colorado Man Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During the Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

Capitol riot suspect, 48, under house arrest after shooting mountain lion in breach of ex-con’s gun ban | The US Sun (the-sun.com)

Unheard Frédéric Chopin Work Discovered

Frédéric Chopin (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Last month, a German library unearthed a previously unknown Mozart composition. Now, a Manhattan museum curator has found what appears to be a long-lost composition by Frédéric Chopin, the first of its kind to be discovered in over half a century.

Curator Robinson McClellan, who is also a composer, found the piece while sorting through a collection of cultural memorabilia in the vault of the Morgan Library & Museum. It’s written on a scrap about the size of an index card, with Chopin’s name written. After a lot of testing and, presumably, many experts’ corroborations, they confirmed that it’s almost certainly a genuine Chopin composition. Before the Polish composer died in 1849 at age 39, he wrote only about 250 known works — much less than his more prolific contemporaries — so there’s some extra magic in coming across a previously unheard piece by him.

Curators are confident that the work is authentic. There are doodles on the page and an oddly-drawn bass clef, which correlate to other original Chopin findings, despite the music itself sounding a bit different than other works. Lang Lang recently recorded the waltz for the New York Times; he told the publication that while it’s “not the most complicated music by Chopin, it is one of the most authentic Chopin styles that you can imagine.”

You may listen to it here.

Sources:

A Previously Unheard Chopin Work Has Been Found (stereogum.co

A Post-Halloween Emeth

UN Official: “The Nightmare is Intensifying.” IDF Kills More Than 100 Palestinians in Gaza

Unqualified US support for Israel has made “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” completely impossible for the Palestinian people and totally rubbishes any concept of a “two-state solution.” Hard-working Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be wasting his time and US taxpayer funds in a kabuki dance when he meets with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu this week. The indicted Israeli war criminal has effectively tarnished President Biden’s legacy who is winding down his multi-decade career in US politics.   

In the past 24 hours 108 people had been killed and 40 injured in bombings across the territory, part of the IDF’s ferocious renewed assault in the Gaza Strip. “The nightmare in Gaza is intensifying. Horrifying scenes are unfolding in the northern strip amidst relentless Israeli strikes and an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis,” Tor Wennesland, said the UN special coordinator for the Middle East.

“Nowhere is safe in Gaza … We owe it to the families suffering in Gaza and Israel. The war must stop now,” he added.

The Likud pogrom against the Palestinians is certainly satisfying this young demonstrator’s desires. Undated photo courtesy of the Washington Post.

The daily death rate in Gaza higher than any other major 21st Century conflict, according to Oxfam, an international NGO. The right-wing Likud cabal is depopulating Palestinians much more efficiently than ultra-nationalist Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” against the Ukrainians.   

An image from the Political Cartoon Gallery in central London Photograph: Political Cartoon Gallery via the Guardian.

IDF bombardment this past weekend in the town of Beit Lahiya flattened several houses and an apartment block, killing members of several families. Among the dead were two parents and their four children, and a woman, her son and daughter-in-law and their four children.

The internet and phone services have been down in parts of Gaza, complicating the rescue operation.

In a post on X, Mounir al-Bursh, the director general of the health ministry, said the flood of injured people from the strikes compounded “an already catastrophic situation for the healthcare system” in northern Gaza.

Unclear during this Israeli offensive is what opportunities are given Palestinian combatants to either surrender to the IDF or turn themselves over to the Israeli police for judicial process in a court of law.

The IDF have nominally held complete control of northern Gaza since January, but launched a new assault on the area two weeks ago to prevent any resistance groups from re-constituting.

Gaza’s civil defense service said it had recovered at least 500 bodies since the operation began on 6 Oct.

Sweeping evacuation orders for the estimated 400,000 people still living in the northern third of the territory, the blockage of aid and food deliveries and the targeting of civilian infrastructure such as hospitals have led rights groups to accuse Israel of the war crime of seeking to forcibly displace the remaining population.

Israel has denied it is systematically removing Palestinians from the area.

Several struggling hospitals have been unable to evacuate patients, and two people at the Indonesia hospital in Beit Lahiya died from a lack of oxygen after electricity and fuel shortages.

Top-secret US documents that allegedly reveal details about Israel’s plans to attack Iran had been leaked and published online.

The papers supposedly date from 15 and 16 Oct, and allege that Israel has fortified underground warplane bunkers at the Hatzerim airbase, where there are signs of preparation for arming plane-launched ballistic missiles. The blood-thirsty Likud regime can’t wait to attack Iran with an American imprimatur, regardless of collateral damage or escalating the conflict.  

An Israeli source told the Israeli daily Haaretz that the US had apologized to Israel for the leak and US House speaker Republican Mike Johnson said that an investigation into the incident had been launched. 100 US servicemembers deployed with the THAAD air-defense system are in harm’s way in Israel.

Israel and Hamas, however, have so far stuck to their irreconcilable demands. Internationally mediated talks aimed at a lasting truce in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Palestinian armed groups during the 7 Oct 2023 attack broke down in August. That raid to capture Israeli hostages in order to release the 7,000 Palestinians being held in IDF prisons in security detention without hearing gave the Likud regime the green light to activate Nabka 2023 to de-populate the Gaza Strip. Simultaneously, rabid Israeli settlers increased their rampages to seize Palestinian properties in the West Bank, killing over 700 Palestinians.  

An American intelligence officer or servicemember opposed to Israeli’s Nakba may have leaked the files out of anger. The other possibility is he or she may be attempting to thwart the IDF plan to pummel Iran which could escalate this conflict even further out of control than it already is. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has loyally worked hard for the Biden Administration, but Netanyahu has scotched all of his good faith attempts at reaching a ceasefire and releasing the remaining 100 hostages. Meanwhile, the bodies of Palestinians keep piling up.

Sources:

More than 100 people killed in latest Israeli bombings in Gaza, say medics | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian

Daily death rate in Gaza higher than any other major 21st Century conflict – Oxfam | Oxfam International

“Beirut in Flames”: Israel Attacks Hezbollah-Linked Bank; Hundreds More Lebanese Made Homeless

Fire and smoke after an IDF airstrike at Dahieh in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, late 20 October 2024. More than 2,400 people have been killed and over 11,400 others have been injured in Lebanon since the start of Israel’s offensive. (Photo by Wael Hamzeh/EPA-EFE)

Israeli fighter jets struck dozens of targets in Beirut and other areas of southern Lebanon overnight, including branches of a bank accused of holding funds used by Hezbollah.

The military’s Arabic spokesman, Avichay Adraee, had earlier in the night issued several evacuation orders for buildings throughout southern Lebanon he said were in the vicinity of facilities belonging to the US-sanctioned Al-Qard Al-Hassan Association Bank.

“Get away from it immediately,” he said in a video statement.

Jeanine Hennis, the UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said that after the IDF issued its evacuations, said there was “widespread panic” in Beirut.

Israel FM Israel Katz said 15 buildings in Beirut were struck as the IDF carried out a wide-scale attack targeting Hezbollah’s financial infrastructure.

“Beirut in flames,” Israeli FM Katz proudly released in a statement.

The IDF attacked not only Beirut, but throughout southern Lebanon and deeper into the country. The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported that an IDF bulldozer had deliberately demolished an observation tower and perimeter fence at its position in Marwahin in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s army, which has remained on the sidelines during the Israel’s campaign, said three of its soldiers were killed by an IDF strike while travelling in an army vehicle in the south of the country.

As previously posted, the IDF does not care about collateral casualties nor does it want any witnesses to its actions, hence the three Lebanese Army soldiers were killed and the UNIFIL post bulldozed. The Likud government wants to make southern Lebanon inhospitable and kill as many Shia combatants as possible. Lebanon, already fractured by its multiple religions and a dilapidated economy, is powerless to protect its citizens, much less house the thousands of displaced people Israel is creating. With winter approaching, the government of Beirut will face much more challenges.

Source:

‘Beirut in flames’ as Israel attacks Hezbollah-linked bank – UPI.com

https://www.jpost.com/HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?id=299259

Whooping Cough at Decade-High Level in US

This 2016 illustration based on electron microscope imagery depicts bordetella pertussis bacteria, which causes whooping cough (Image: CDC).

Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, according to the CDC. 18,506 cases of whooping cough have been reported so far. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin received the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. Treated with antibiotics, whooping cough used to be common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations (along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines). The combo shot is recommended for adults every ten years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, KY. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”

Source:

Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US (voanews.com)

About Whooping Cough Outbreaks | Whooping Cough | CDC

NGO: French Water Supply Contaminated with Untested Toxic Chemicals

The byproducts of pesticides can seep into soil, surface water and groundwater before making their way into drinking water supplies. (Photo: © AFP – MIGUEL MEDINA)

The NGO Générations Futures found that 56 pesticide byproducts known as metabolites – substances formed when chemicals break down – are not being monitored in groundwater or drinking water, despite likely exceeding legal safety limits.

Their analysis, based on research from French health and safety agency, found these metabolites probably contaminate groundwater above the legal limit of 0.1 micrograms per liter.

The substances can seep into soil, surface water and groundwater before making their way into drinking water supplies.

Twelve of the unmonitored metabolites pose particular risks – including trifluoroacetic acid (TFA), which was found at alarming levels in Paris.

“With our colleagues from the Pesticides Action Network Europe, we have taken samples of river water and tap water, and analysed for TFA … and we found it in many places, in very large quantities,” said François Veillerette, of Générations Futures.

“We found TFA at over two micrograms per liter [in the Seine] … and in tap water, about the same quantity. So, two micrograms per liter is 20 times the [legal limit of] 0.1 micrograms per liter,” he said.

The findings raise questions about whether some French regions face higher contamination risks than others.

The threat spans nationwide – water quality in at least one third of France is at risk from TFA contamination alone.

TFA comes from the breakdown of “forever chemicals” called PFAS, found in pesticides, non-stick coatings, and cosmetics.

The NGO warned French authorities cannot ignore TFA’s dangers, noting that German health officials suggest classifying it as toxic for reproduction. More worrying still is the uncertainty around long-term exposure to these substances in drinking water.

“What is really astonishing is that it is an ‘unknown’ … nobody knows [the potential effects] because there are no requisite studies on metabolites,” said Veillerette, warning that if research comes too late and “they’re everywhere, then there’s nothing we can do”.

While data on safe levels remains insufficient, the group cautions these chemicals accumulate over time and could create a dangerous “cocktail effect“.

With France’s water safety at stake, experts are warning this invisible but growing crisis demands urgent attention.

Pesticides have already despoiled French Martinique. This case is the result of competing interests in France: Farmers versus Environmentalists. The agrarian sector relies on pesticides to protect their harvests (e.g. grains, grapes, etc), ignoring the long-term impact of these chemicals in the water supply and the potential health hazards they may cause in the future.

Sources:

French water supply contaminated with untested toxic chemicals, NGO warns (rfi.fr)

man-spraying-herbicides – Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog

Fethullah Gulen, Rival of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Dies in Exile

The late Fethullah Gulen at his home in Saylorsburg, PA. This is the man disgraced retired US Army General Michael Flynn wanted to abduct and extradite to Turkiye. (Photo: Reuters)

US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, once an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan but later accused of masterminding a failed coup attempt in 2016, has died at the age of 83 of an unspecified ailment he was being treated for. Gulen had lived in exile in the US since 1999 and was stripped of his Turkish citizenship in 2017.

The 2016 coup attempt against Erdogan and the government was a turning point in the country. Some 250 people were killed when rogue soldiers hijacked warplanes, tanks, and other heavy military equipment as they tried to push the president out of power.

That event led Ankara to declare an all-out war on Gulen’s network — known as Hizmet, which means “service” in Turkish — saying he was responsible for the coup, charges that Gulen fiercely denied.

Ankara considers Hizmet to be a terrorist organization. It is an opaque but influential group mainly involved in educational activities and promoting civil society.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, in confirming Turkish intelligence reports saying Gulen had died, described Gulen as the leader of a “dark organization.”

Tens of thousands of dismissals and detentions followed the coup attempt in Turkiye, as well as increasingly tense relations between Ankara and any country where Gulen had connections — mostly through the network of his private schools.

Turkish soldiers accused of involvement in an attempted coup in 2016 arriving at court inside the Sincan Prison in Ankara in 2017. Photo: Adem Altan / AFP— Getty Images.

The campaign against Gulen spread into regional allies of Turkiye. Some Central Asian governments intensified a crackdown on institutions linked to the cleric that had started before the coup attempt.

In recent years, there have been reports of Turkish citizens accused of having links to Gulen being arrested and forcibly taken to Turkiye.

In one such incident, Turkish-Kyrgyz educator Orhan Inandi was abducted by Turkish agents in 2021 in Kyrgyzstan and brought to Turkey against his will in 2021. Inandi, who is a dual Kyrgyz-Turkish citizen, was handed 21 years in prison on a charge of “establishing of an armed terrorist group.”

Critics of Erdogan contend that he used the coup aftermath as an excuse to purge the government of thousands of secular Turks, Kurds, AK Party opposition members, and others unaffiliated with the coup or the Gulenists, sweeping them up as so-called “Enemies of the State.”

Opposition politicians Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yüksekdağ had been arrested on terrorism charges. These two certainly look like members of Al-Qaida or ISIS. (Undated photo courtesy of Wikimedia.org)

Sources:

Fethullah Gulen, Rival Of Turkey’s Erdogan, Dies In Exile (rferl.org)

Purges in Turkey following the 2016 Turkish coup attempt – Wikipedia

Mike Flynn and the Insane Alleged Plot to Kidnap a Turkish Cleric (vice.com)

18 North Korean Soldiers in Russia Reportedly Deserted

North Korean supremo Kim Jong Un (Center-R) and Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) walk past children attend a welcoming ceremony at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea on 19 Jun 2024. (Photo: Vladimir Smirnov / POOL / AFP)

Russia recently assembled a “special Buryat battalion” made up of North Koreans. The number of personnel in the unit is estimated at up to 3,000, and likely to be involved in combat activities around the settlements of Sudzha and Kursk. 18 of these North Korean soldiers have deserted their positions, according to Ukrainska Pravda citing sources in Ukraine’s special services. The alleged escapes took place seven km from the border with Ukraine.

The reasons for the North Koreans’ desertion were unknown. Russian forces have begun looking for them while attempting to conceal this information from the High Command.

“Life for North Korean conscripts is brutal and harsh, even without a war, and the consequences for refusing to fight would be extremely dire,” said Pentagon spokesperson Pat Ryder earlier this year. North Korean troops would become “cannon fodder” if they joined Russian forces on “meat assaults” reported an analyst in Ukraine.

The South Korean government summoned the Russian Ambassador and demanded the North Korean soldiers be immediately withdrawn from Russia, saying this move violated UN resolutions and posed a threat to South Korea.  

The Korean People’s Army (KPA) is the fourth largest in the world in terms of personnel, with 1,280,000 active members and 600,000 in reserve. Only China, India, and the US have bigger standing armies. North Korea spent 36.32% of its entire gross domestic product on defense in 2023. North Korean society is heavily militarized and all citizens are required to serve — reportedly 10 years for men, and eight for women. North Korea can provide two material items to the Kremlin: cannon fodder for the front and ammunition and artillery shells from a vast arsenal dating back to the 1950s.

The reported introduction of 1,500 North Korean special forces may present a separate asset to the Kremlin. But these highly-trained soldiers are also inexperienced in combat and how they perform against experienced Ukrainian defenders remains to be seen.

Kim Jong-Un has no regard for the safety or welfare of his own people and will do everything he can stay in power, including starving his own people and executing his uncle.

Jang Song-thaek escorted into court handcuffed by uniformed guards: a special military tribunal found him guilty of treason in Dec 2013 and he was executed. Jang Song-thaek was once one of the DPRK’s most powerful men and uncle of Kim Jong-Un (Photo: Yonhap/AFP/Getty Images)

Sources:

Russia formed ”Buryat battalion” staffed by North Koreans, but 18 soldiers have already deserted – Ukrainska Pravda sources | Ukrainska Pravda

South Korea summons Russian envoy over North Korean troop deployment | South Korea | The Guardian

This is how North Korean troops could be used in Russia’s war in Ukraine (kyivindependent.com)

North Carolina Militant Sentenced for Assaulting Law Enforcement During 6 Jan Attack on US Capitol

Curtis Davis (R). Tonya Bishop (L) faces charges, including entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, plus charges of disorderly conduct and illegally demonstrating at the Capitol building. (Photo: FBI)

Curtis Davis (45) of Snow Hill, NC was sentenced to 24 months in prison, 36 months of supervised release, the first six months of which to be served on home detention, and ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution by the Honorable US District Judge Amit P. Mehta for violent actions on 6 Jan 2021.

At about 3:00 PM on 6 Jan 2021, Davis entered the US Capitol building where law enforcement officers were attempting to disperse a crowd of rioters. Inside the Rotunda, while pressed against a line of police officers, Davis forcibly attacked a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officer and attempted to grab hold of the officer’s baton. Davis then punched an MPD officer in the face shield and refused law enforcement orders to leave the building. A short while later, Davis punched another MPD officer in the head and forcibly pulled away a riot shield from another. Davis then used the shield to press against the backs of a line of rioters in an attempt to resist the efforts of police.

After being expelled from the Rotunda, Davis returned with other rioters and again attempted to breach police lines. This maniac punched a riot shield held by an officer three times.

Later that night, Davis filmed a group of police officers with his cell phone camera before turning it around, filming his fist, and stating, “Them knuckles right there, from one of those m—f— faces at the Capitol.”

The FBI arrested Davis on 8 Dec 2023 in Snow Hill.

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.

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

This violent lunatic represents America’s Fedayeen Saddam (FS), die-hard white supremacists clinging on to the last vestiges of white privilege in the US. Heeding the idiotic call of Donald J. Trump that the minorities stole the 2020 election, Curtis Davis threw his life away with this federal conviction.

Sources:

District of Columbia | North Carolina Man Sentenced for Assaulting Law Enforcement During the Jan. 6 Capitol Breach | United States Department of Justice

Stray Cat Approaches Kind Stranger, Soon Filling Home with Look-alike Kittens

When a volunteer from Be Their Voice Animal Rescue (BTV) in Atlanta, Georgia, went to pick up a cat, another friendly stray came around the corner and walked right up to her.

“She could tell that the cat was pregnant and very skinny,” Aimee, COO for BTV. With no home to call her own, the volunteer scooped her up and took her for her first vet visit.

After the vet, the sweet “house panther” named Jazz inspected her new room, pausing only to rub against the furniture. Finding everything to her liking, she weaved around her foster mom’s legs and purred her thanks.

Though quite underweight, Jazz was in good spirits and grateful for her endless supply of food. She took her time to feast and regain strength, making up for those hungry and weary days on the streets.

“She ended up finally delivering sometime in the middle of the night, and unfortunately, she didn’t know what she was doing.”

Jazz had comfortable nesting boxes to choose from but decided to have her eight kittens in the litter box.

Thankfully, her foster family quickly acted, cleaning the babies one by one and making sure they were all latching.

Over the next few weeks, the kittens grew by leaps and bounds, reaching many milestones, discovering their penchant for mischief-making, and romping around with boisterous energy. Now they are ready for new forever homes.

A happy and grateful Jazz made a lot of people happy.

We can thank the good people at Be Their Voice Animal Rescue in Georgia for their kindness, this story, and the photos.

More on the family and BTV (in GA) on Instagram @_catz4life_ and @fostercatsfordays.

Source:

https://www.lovemeow.com/stray-cat-home-void-kittens-2669446352.html

This little tigress is ready for a forever home.