[ICE] SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico ‐ U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents, working jointly with other federal, state and local law enforcement agents arrested 53 individuals Thursday for drug and illegal arms trafficking and money laundering. The arrests were part of an investigation dubbed Operation Green Mountain against members of a transnational drug trafficking organization with nexus in Mexico and Colombia operating from Las Dolores Ward in Rio Grande, Puerto Rico.
The indictments allege that since 2010, the organization purchased and sold wholesale quantities of heroin, cocaine and marijuana and that it used the United States Postal Service (USPS) to purchase and mail these drugs to and from various distributors in several states.
USPS employees were aware of the shipments of controlled substances and would hold the packages for pick-up by co-conspirators or divert them to other members of the conspiracy.
Members of the conspiracy included police officers who provided information regarding investigations of the conspirators, interfered in police investigations for the benefit of the conspirators and provided information to the conspirators on how to avoid police detection. The indictment alleges they used and leveraged their official positions as law enforcement officers in furtherance of the conspiracy. The charging document also alleges that the conspirators sold street quantity amounts of cocaine, crack and marijuana at drug points in Río Grande.
[IsraelTimes] The Pak immigrant Shahed Hussain went undercover at a NY mosque, where he made tapes that helped convict a cell planning to attack Jews and shoot down a military planes
The owner of a limousine company involved in a crash that killed 20 people was a paid FBI informant known for his work that helped foil a series of planned terror attack, including on two synagogues.
Records show Prestige Limousine is owned by Shahed Hussain, a Pak immigrant and Albany-area businessman who began going undercover for the FBI after he ran into legal trouble. Another failed Paki business venture? Probably no connection whatsoever to the Awan Bros. car dealership in Falls Church, VA.
A stretch SUV in the company’s small fleet sped off the road and crashed in Schoharie, New York, Saturday. State and federal authorities are investigating the cause and roadworthiness of the vehicle. A lawyer for the company said the limo was safe.
In 2009, prosecutors credited Hussain with rooting out radical Moslems in an elaborate sting at a mosque in Newburgh, a city north of New York City. At trial, the jury heard testimony that Hussain was posing as a wealthy representative of a Pak terrorist organization. Living an easy cover, since that's probably what he actually was anyway.
He drove a BMW and other luxury vehicles provided by the FBI to maintain his cover. He also made hundreds of hours of video and audio tapes of the defendants picking targets and ranting against Jews. His cooperation resulted in the conviction of four men in a thwarted plot to attack synagogues and shoot down military planes.
But Hussain’s work also came under attack by defense attorneys and civil liberties groups as entrapment. They portrayed him as a master manipulator who entrapped a crew of aimless nobodies while earning $96,000 for his work. We've spent a lot of money on this project, it's time for a conviction.
Even US District Judge Colleen McMahon said at sentencing that she was not proud of the government’s role in the plot.
"I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition," McMahon said. She added, "That does not mean there was no crime."
According to his trial testimony, Hussain first entered the US in Texas with his wife and two sons in the 1990s after he was accused of murder in Pakistain. Hussain said the accusation was false and politically motivated. A Paki political refugee and alleged murderer, with a British passport arriving via Moscow.
He went to Albany, where he received asylum. In April 2003, he was working as a government translator when he pleaded guilty to a federal fraud charge for helping someone get their driver’s license illegally. Was the "someone" also a Paki intelligence agent? Delta Frequent Flier ?
He got a sentence that required no more jail time by working as an FBI informant. So he became a source to avoid prosecution. "Flipped" essentially.
Hussain was a central player in an FBI sting targeting an Albany pizza shop owner and a holy man who were convicted of money laundering and conspiring to aid a terrorist group. Both defendants said they were tricked by Hussain during the sting, which involved a business loan using money from a fictitious missile sale. Sun article in comments provides "Undercover FBI footage" of Hussain holding a rocket launcher while chatting to one of the terror suspects he helped bring down. Wall camera in adjacent room, Crest Inn Suites and Cottages ?
More recently, a botched sting involving Hussain in Pittsburgh became the subject of a documentary called "(T)error." Hussain’s role in the Newburgh case was also the subject of an HBO documentary.
In more recent years, he was the owner of a low-budget safe house motel, the Crest Inn Suites and Cottages, outside Saratoga Springs. The limo company was registered at that address.
Asked Monday about Hussain, the FBI wouldn’t comment. Neither Comey or Mueller are said to be answering their phones.
Hussain, 62, fled to the US from Pakistan in 1994 after he was arrested for murder in his homeland, the Daily Mail reports.
After his father allegedly bribed local police to let him go, Hussain left the conservative Islamic country using a British passport and he travelled to Moscow then Mexico before entering the US, claims the report.
He then reportedly applied for political asylum in America using an immigration lawyer which enabled him to get a job as a translator at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).
However he was arrested in 2002 by the FBI after being busted for taking part in a racket within the DMV where he would offer learner drivers guaranteed passes on their tests in exchange for a fee.
But rather than go to jail, Hussain became an informant for the Feds, recording conversations of his colleagues within the motoring organisation.
According to the Daily Mail, four years later, after filing for bankruptcy, he was able to buy a hotel in Gansevoort, which later became the Crest Inn, with money he claimed was given to him by Pakistan’s then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.
#2
Driver in deadly limo crash reportedly had prior drug busts
The driver in the deadly upstate limo crash was busted twice on drug charges during the past eight years — including once during a traffic stop, according to reports published at the time.
Scott Lisinicchia, then 48, was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, unlawful possession of marijuana and an equipment violation when he was stopped while driving in Saratoga Springs on Nov. 22, 2013, The Saratogian reported the following day.
Lisinicchia was also charged with unlawful possession of marijuana in Saratoga Springs on July 2, 2010, according to the Saratogian.
#5
What are the chances that the FBI informant Pakistani Shahed Hussain was working undercover on the SAME CASE that Monica McLean, Christine Blasey-Ford's "beach friend" and former FBI agent, was working on in 2009?
[DAWN] Indonesia on Tuesday told foreign aid workers that their help was not needed in disaster-ravaged Palu and they should go home, frustrating relief efforts after a quake-tsunami killed more than 2,000 people.
Foreign teams on the ground were told new rules barred them from searching for the dead in hard-hit parts of Palu, where thousands are missing since the Sept 28 twin disaster.
Indonesia initially refused international help but President Joko Widodo reluctantly agreed to allow in overseas aid once the picture became clearer on Sulawesi island.
Foreign aid poured into the ravaged city of Palu where authorities believe 5,000 people could be missing and 200,000 survivors desperately need food, water and other life-saving supplies.
But international search and rescue teams were prevented on Tuesday from accessing hard-hit parts of Palu, where thousands are believed to be buried underneath rubble.
Ahmed Bham from South African charity, Gift of the Givers, was told that new rules barred foreign urban search and rescue teams (USAR) from playing any part in retrieving the dead.
They were told, "all foreign USAR teams should make their way obviously back to their countries. They don't need them in Indonesia", he said.
"We've got experienced search and rescue teams here in Indonesia with really specialised equipment. I'd like to use them," he told AFP in Palu.
Their 27-strong team arrived in Palu three days ago from Johannesburg, but days of delay frustrated their wish to join the search for the dead.
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10/10/2018 00:00 ||
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[NYPOST] Four people died when a massive sinkhole swallowed them in the Chinese city of Dazhou.
The ground ripped open around 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the city in Sichuan Province, leaving a 100-square-foot chasm by the time the earth settled.
Video posted to state-run social media shows the fateful moment, in which several people can be seen casually strolling through a city plaza before the ground opens and they plummet out of view.
Two victims who had recently been married died in state hospitals after being pulled from the pit, and the bodies of two other victims, a father and his son, were taken from the sinkhole Tuesday after being buried under more than 30 feet of rubble ‐ just beyond the reach of excavation equipment, CNN reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Universal Hub] - A federal judge today sentenced Herzzon "Casper" Sandoval to 20 years in prison for a RICO violation - his role in encouraging the murder of a 15-year-old on Trenton Street in East Boston and two attempted murders.
Sandoval was the leader of MS-13's Eastside Loco Salvatrucha "clique" when one of his clique members tried for a promotion by murdering Irvin de Paz, 15, on Trenton Street on Sept. 20, 2015. A federal jury in Boston found him guilty of a RICO violation in February, the US Attorney's office reports.
De Paz was a member of the rival 18th Street Gang and the murder should have been enough for a promotion to "homeboy" for Julio "Animal" Martinez, but Sandoval refused to give it to him because of past supposed violations of MS-13 rules. Instead, Sandoval encouraged Martinez to do more killings, according to a federal sentencing document in the case.
[DAWN] Bangladesh opposition leader the loathesome Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... ‐ who was transferred from jail to hospital last weekend ‐ can no longer use her left hand, her doctor told AFP on Tuesday.
Zia, 73, was placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! in February for corruption and has been on trial in a special room in the abandoned Dhaka Central Jail on additional graft charges that her supporters say are politically motivated.
On Saturday Zia, a long rival to Prime Minister the loathesome Sheikh Hasina ...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as the Battling Begums.. , was transferred to hospital because of poor health following an order from the country's High Court.
"Her symptoms have worsened in the last few months," Abdul Jalil Chowdhury, one of the physicians at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) hospital who has since examined her, told AFP.
"She has developed deformity of left hand in the last few months due to long standing rheumatoid arthritis. She can't use her left hand," he said.
"In addition, she has developed left frozen shoulder," he said, adding Zia was also suffering from neck and back pain and she is a diabetic.
Lawyers for Zia, who was Bangladesh's prime minister from 1991-1996 and 2001-2006, had argued that the government was putting her health at risk by refusing her specialised care in prison.
When Zia ‐ who leads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party ‐ was placed in durance vile Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! in February for corruption, the sentence triggered festivities between police and thousands of BNP supporters.
She was found guilty of embezzling money intended for an orphanage.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/10/2018 00:00 ||
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[Washington Examiner] Mexican officials found a cross-border tunnel that started in a home in Jacume, Mexico, less than 100 yards away from the U.S. border.
After mapping the 31-feet deep and 627-feet long tunnel, U.S. officials determined that the tunnel reached 336 feet into the area in Jacumba, Calif., the Los Angeles Times reported.
U.S. Border Patrol, Homeland Security Investigations, and Drug Enforcement Administration officials determined that even though the tunnel does cross the U.S.-Mexican border, it does not have an exit yet into the U.S.
The beginnings of an exit shaft reached 15 feet but had not broken the surface.
"Sophisticated tunnels take a lot of time and money to make," said Border Patrol Agent Tekae Michael. "When we find them, they’re a pretty big deal."
Michael said that these types of tunnels are not uncommon in the area, and the tunnel was likely made to transport drugs into the U.S. from Mexico.
#1
They need Palestinians experts, these people dig smuggling tunnels at depths of up to 30 meters (100 feet), and reach up to 800 meters (2640 feet) in length.
[NYPOST] Around 10,000 people were evacuated after a fire and explosions hit a defense ministry ammunition depot 109 miles east of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, early Tuesday, officials said.
There was no mention of any casualties and it was not immediately clear whether the explosions were an accident or sabotage.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/10/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
...It's been my experience that Slavic explosives safety protocols are...ummm...sketchy.
The Severomorsk Disaster in 1984 pretty much wiped out the ammo reserves for the Soviet Atlantic Fleet - had they gone to war, they pretty much would have fought with what they had on the ships, there would have been no reloads. Among other things that contributed to the accident:
*Explosives quantity/distance rules were routinely violated.
*Magazine doors often could not be closed due to poor construction, and in some cases frustrated weapons crews just took the damn doors off.
*Traffic in a bomb dump is supposed to go one-way at VERY low speed limits in order to avoid the possibility of collisions. Severomorsk didn't do that (unclear as to whether or not they were ignoring policy or never had the policy in the first place) and according to the report I saw in the late 80s, two explosives laden trucks did in fact collide at a fairly good clip...right in front of one of those mags that didn't have doors.
Hilarity ensued.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
10/10/2018 5:57 Comments ||
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[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The newly elected government in Pakistain has invited ire from religious quarters for a peculiar reason.
The government has suggested exemption of 400 units of electric power per month to mosques where prayer leaders issue edict declaring power theft as forbidden [haram] in Islam and run a campaign in Friday sermons against power theft.
The government of Prime Minister Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who who convinced himself that playing cricket qualified him to lead a nuclear-armed nation with severe personality problems... has come out with the novel idea to rid the country of the problem of power pilferage, which is particularly rife in the insurgency-hit tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and the rural areas in the other three provinces, causing huge revenue losses.
Though the offer is not yet implemented, it has drawn strong criticism especially from Islamic scholars who dubbed it an "open bribe" to prayer leaders.
"It is shameful that the government which came to power chanting slogans of making the country run like state of Medina, is now offering bribe to Ulema for petty causes which could have been resolved through technical means and improving management," said Mufti Mohammad Naeem, head of Jamia Binnoria.
Dr. Allama Mufti Raghib Hussain Naeemi, member of Council of Islamic Ideology and head of Jamia Naeemia Lahore, said: "Rulers must stop dragging Ulema for achieving political and administrative aims. Crimes can’t be controlled through edicts."
He was of the view that the menace of terrorism did not stop despite Islamic scholars using their platform to issue edicts against it.
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[DAWN] The members of Lahore Bar Association (LBA) on Monday locked entrance gates of sessions court for hours as protest against a suo motu ...a legal term, from the Latin. Roughly translated it means I saw what you did, you bastard... notice taken by Chief Justice of Pakistain Mian Saqib Nisar on manhandling of a policeman by lawyers.
At a general house meeting of the bar, the lawyers termed the suo motu notice taken by the chief justice a disappointing step. They announced removal of all CCTV cameras installed in and outside the courtrooms in the sessions court. They claimed that the cameras had been used for victimisation of the lawyers.
The bar’s leaders announced that next general house meeting would be held in the Supreme Court on Oct 13.
They were of the view that the policeman, who received a bashing at the sessions court, had been patronising a mafia of land-grabbers and lodging false cases against lawyers. They said the protest would continue till cancellation of cases registered against the lawyers.
The other day, Chief Justice Nisar had taken notice of assault by lawyers on a police sub-inspector after video of the incident was aired by television channels.
The chief justice had summoned IGP Punjab 1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots.... for Oct 13 along with a report on the incident. Pakistain Bar Council Vice Chairman Ahsan Bhoon, president and general secretary of the LBA were also asked to attend the hearing.
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[DAWN] A Lahore sessions court on Tuesday sentenced a 60-year-old man to six years in jail for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl.
The court also ordered the convict, Muzaffar Hussain, to pay a Rs500,000 fine.
Two years ago, a case had been registered against Hussain under Sections 367 and 376 of the Pakistain Penal Code. The sections deal with kidnapping in order to subject person to grievous hurt and rape, respectively.
Hussain, a paraplegic, was brought to court in a wheelchair. He fainted when Judge Rehmat Ali read out the court's verdict.
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#5
Is it large enough caliber to make a one shot stop?
.308 or 7.62x51, Sock.
At 500+ rpm there aren't many single hits.
Generally used against clusters or to break charges. Sometimes to clear vegetation.(/sarc)
#7
The demonstrator calls it a Mark 48 Mod 2. The article is from Military Times and was posted in the last 24 hours. It is an upgrade from a Mod 1, which was a pretty substantial redesign/upgrade of a Mod 0. This 'looks' like the main updates center on internal changes; it doesn't look all 'that' different externally (to me) from a Mod 1. But it has been a while. The Mod 1 was solid.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
10/10/2018 13:15 Comments ||
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#8
So is R'burg juxtaposing articles? This one has some smack w/r/t the one above it.
[C-Net] Neuroscientists behind the project called it "BrainNet", a "multi-person non-invasive direct brain-to-brain interface for collaborative problem solving".
In layman's terms, researchers from the University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University figured out a way to connect three brains (still attached to their human hosts!) and have the owners of said brains make collective choices together without speaking.
And they tested it by playing Tetris. Because of course they did.
The team used "electroencephalograms" (EEGs) to record electric impulses from two human brains and "transcranial magnetic stimulation" (TMS) to deliver information to a third brain. The end result: an interface that allowed three human subjects to collaborate and solve Tetris problems using brain-to-brain communication.
In the test, two "senders" were connected to EEG sensors and communicated to a third person, the "receiver" via a TMS helmet with the ability to send flashes directly to the brain.
The two "senders" could see the game of Tetris being played, the "receiver" could not. The goal: send a message telling the receiver to either rotate or not rotate the Tetris piece, depending on how the game was going.
In order to communicate, the senders had to stare at one of two LED lights. These two lights were flashing at different frequencies, meaning that different signals were sent from the brain depending on which light was being stared at. If the receiver received a flash from the TMS helmet, he had to rotate the block.
Incredibly, five groups of three subjects were able to successfully perform the task 81 percent of the time.
[Defense News] WASHINGTON ‐ Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has ordered the Air Force and Navy to get mission capable rates for four key tactical aircraft up above 80 percent by the end of next September, a daunting challenge given the current readiness rates of America’s fighter fleets.
In a memo issued Sept. 17 to the secretaries of the Army, Air Force and Navy, along with acquisition head Ellen Lord and acting Undersecretary for Personnel and Readiness Stephanie Barna, Mattis acknowledges "budget constraints and shortfalls in aviation squadrons across the force" have led to "systemic underperformance, overcapitalization and unrealized capacity" in the fighter fleets.
"For change to be effective and efficient, we must focus on meeting our most critical priorities first," Mattis wrote in the memo, obtained exclusively by Defense News.
#3
There are different types of orders for something like this. Usually they are given by desk jockys that expect all the usual red tape rules to be followed and utter failure usually results.
Then there are the ones given by warriors and they fully expect the people under them to do what they need to get the job done and damn the rules and the commander who gave the order will give everything he can to help his people get it done.
#6
If you don't have people, planes, tanks and ships you can use, you actually don't have a military, no matter how many pretty slides are in your PowerPoint presentation.
#7
did Sec Mattis just pull this number from his ***
one major problem with these orders is that when the parts suppliers know there is a 'we will pay cost++ emergency' the costs go way up and the tax payer gets the shaft
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[Richmond Times Dispatch] Washington and Lee University has decided to make changes to the names of some campus buildings after concerns from students and faculty.
On Tuesday, the Board of Trustees announced that it will rename Robinson Hall as Chavis Hall, in honor of John Chavis, the first African-American to receive a college education in the United States. He graduated from Washington Academy, the predecessor of W&L, in 1799. Also, Lee-Jackson House will be renamed Simpson Hall in honor of Pamela Hemenway Simpson, who served as an associate dean of the college and helped move to a co-ed environment in the 1980s.
The board also announced that effective immediately, it will replace portraits of Robert E. Lee and George Washington in military uniforms inside Lee Chapel with portraits of the two men in civilian clothing. The board also ordered the doors to the statue chamber in the 1883 addition to Lee Chapel to be closed during university events.
The board’s decisions were made after meeting with students and faculty last weekend and after reviewing feedback from alumni.
In a statement, J. Donald Childress, rector of the board of trustees, and William C. Dudley, university president, said, "We appreciate the seriousness and thoughtfulness with which our fellow trustees have approached these matters. On behalf of the Board, we want to express our gratitude to all of those members of the community who contributed to our deliberations, through countless letters and conversations over the summer and on campus this weekend. We are fortunate to be part of a community that cares deeply about this institution and is so dedicated to its continued success."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
No Senator, I have never stayed at the Crest Inn Suites and Cottages. And yes, this job really has begun to suck. 
[NYPOST] Four people died when a massive sinkhole swallowed them in the Chinese city of Dazhou.
...Bangla dynastic politician and current Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She has been the President of the Bangla Awami League since the Lower Paleolithic. She is the eldest of five children of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangla. Her party defeated the BNP-led Four-Party Alliance in the 2008 parliamentary elections. She has once before held the office, from 1996 to 2001, when she was defeated in a landslide. She and the head of the BNP, Khaleda Zia show such blind animosity toward each other that they are known as 
[Washington Examiner] Mexican officials found a cross-border tunnel that started in a home in Jacume, Mexico, less than 100 yards away from the U.S. border.
One would think the spoil would gain notice. 
[NYPOST] Around 10,000 people were evacuated after a fire and explosions hit a defense ministry ammunition depot 109 miles east of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, early Tuesday, officials said.
[DAWN] A Lahore sessions court on Tuesday sentenced a 60-year-old man to six years in jail for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old girl.
[Richmond Times Dispatch] Washington and Lee University has decided to make changes to the names of some campus buildings after concerns from students and faculty.
