[AFRICANEWS] The family of an American caught up in a failed coup attempt in Congo said their son, Tyler Thompson, was in Africa on vacation with family friends.
In a statement available to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named, the family added that their son had never been engaged in political activism.
"We are stunned and heartbroken by the videos we have seen from the coup attempt," his stepmother, Miranda Thompson, said in a message on micro-messaging platform X ( Twitter)... "We have no idea how he got wrapped up in this situation, which is completely out of character for him. We are certain he did not go to Africa with plans for political activism."
Thompson was among at least two other Americans who were named by the Congolese army as part of a failed effort to overthrow the government in Kinshasa in the early hours of Sunday morning under an eccentric, self-exiled leader, Christian Malanga.
The two other Americans allegedly involved were a convicted marijuana trafficker, Benjamin Reuben Zalman-Polun, and Malanga's 21-year-old son, Marcel, who was arrested by Congolese forces.
Malanga, the alleged leader, was rubbed out after resisting arrest, the Congolese army said. In all, six people were killed in the attack on the presidential palace and another on the residence of a close ally of President Felix Tshisekedi.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm... condemned the attack in a call with Tshisekedi and offered help from the U.S. with the investigation, according to a summary of the call.
The stepmother said Thompson was not politically engaged and was excited to see the world with family friends. "He is a good kid, a hard worker and a respectful young man. We're so lost as to how he ended up in this mess," she said.
The U.S. Embassy in Congo said Thursday that it was still waiting for the Congolese government to provide evidence that the arrested individuals were Americans before it could provide consular services to them.
The Congolese government has not given a date for when the suspects will appear in court.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2024 00:00 ||
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#1
"We have no idea how he got wrapped up in this situation, which is completely out of character for him. We are certain he did not go to Africa with plans for political activism."
We were under the impression he'd gone Walleye fishing.
[AFRICANEWS] Chad's president-elect, Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, was sworn in on Thursday at a ceremony in the capital, N’Djamena, attended by several leaders from the region.
Deby’s inauguration came a week after the constitutional council confirmed he had won the disputed 6 May election outright, with 61 per cent of the vote.
He seized power three years ago after the death of his father, Idriss Déby, who had ruled Chad with an iron fist for three decades.
A career soldier, Deby junior had promised to hold elections within 18 months, but his government postponed the poll and allowed him to run for president
Opposition leader, Succes Masra, a staunch opponent of the junta won a 18,5 per cent share of the vote.
He unsuccessfully challenged the results of the election, which international NGOs described as neither credible nor free.
[TheHill] Just hours after handing down a ruling confirming that an immigration law in Florida was blocked, a federal judge appeared to issue a reversal of his own ruling.
Judge Roy Altman issued an injunction Tuesday, temporarily blocking a key part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) immigration law, which would make it a felony to transport undocumented migrants colonists into the state.
Altman agreed with the Farmworker Association of Florida that federal immigration laws would likely preempt the law.
In a supplemental order issued Wednesday, Altman wrote he wanted to "clarify the scope of that preliminary injunction." The judge said there were several reasons why a statewide injunction should be appropriate in the case.
Hours later, Altman seemed to backtrack. He issued another order, noting that "on further reflection," he will be hosting a briefing on "the proper scope of the injunction."
The judge wrote that all parties must submit a brief by June 6 on whether the injunction should apply to the plaintiffs or be a district- or state-wide injunction.
In his original order, Altman rejected arguments from Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R) that an injunction could prevent law enforcement from doing its job, including in their efforts to identify people who are narcos.
Florida’s immigration law, SB 1718, was signed by DeSantis last year and led to some migrants colonists being relocated to blue states across the country on buses and planes.
Immigrant rights activists and the Farmworker Association of Florida filed the lawsuit last July, specifically focusing on the transportation of individuals who entered the country unlawfully.
Following Altman’s injunction, Spencer Amdur, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Immigrants colonists’ Rights Project, said the decision was the right call. He called the law unconstitutional and said it "threatened Floridians with jail time for doing the most ordinary things, like going to work, visiting family, and driving kids to soccer games."
"This ruling is an important victory for Florida communities," he said in a statement. The Hill has reached out to the ACLU for an updated comment on Altman’s decision.
The Miami Herald noted that the conflicting back-to-back orders from Altman on Thursday have created confusion about how pending cases will be prosecuted and how the injunction will proceed.
[Beitbart] Senate Democrats have blocked what former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials called “a strong deterrent” against child trafficking at the United States-Mexico border.
On Thursday, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) sought to pass by unanimous consent the End Child Trafficking Now Act which would require DHS to DNA test all adult migrants and the children they arrive with at the southern border to prove they are relatives.
Senate Democrats blocked its passage.
The bill’s goal, Blackburn and other Senate Republicans said, is to end the process of child trafficking where adult migrants bring unrelated children with them to cross the border in the hopes of being released into the U.S. interior.
President Joe Biden’s DHS reportedly ended such DNA testing last year.
Last year, Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Biden administration’s ending DNA testing would ultimately lead to a spike in child trafficking.
“The results are very predictable: A return to more child smuggling, child recycling, and child trafficking. Say you’re a family and we’ll take your word for it,” Ries said.
DHS officials have previously suggested that as many as 3-in-10 children arriving at the border with adult migrants are being trafficked.
Those startling figures are what prompted former President Donald Trump’s administration to expand DNA testing across the border.
“It is clear on-site DNA testing has a strong deterrent effect, as [Homeland Security Investigations] agents witnessed multiple instances of individuals confessing to faux families prior to being tested as well,” former Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official Derek Benner said in 2019.
Sens. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), Thom Tillis (R-NC), John Hoeven (R-ND), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Steve Daines (R-MT), J.D. Vance (R-OH), and Joni Ernst (R-IA) are cosponsoring the bill. Rep. Lance Gooden (R-TX) previously introduced an identical bill in the House.
[GEO.TV] In yet another incident of sexual abuse, a prisoner was allegedly subjected to gang rape by two of his fellow inmates in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail.
Rehan Khan, the victim, lodged an FIR with Saddar Bairooni Police Station, saying that two of his fellow inmates subjected him to gang-rape on the night of May 18 at the barrack.
Narrating his ordeal, Rehan, a resident of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar ...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistain's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire... , said that the police personnel from Shalimar cop shoppe in Islamabad took him into custody in a case on January 25 and shifted him to Rawalpindi Jail.
The incident took place at 11pm, Rehan said, adding that he informed the deputy superintendent of jail about the sexual assault.
The jail officer told him that he would produce him before the jail superintendent the next day.
The next day, the victim said that he was produced before a court in Islamabad, where he was acquitted after completing the jail term. After the court’s verdict, Rehan said that he was released with immediate effect.
Later, the victim of sexual abuse approached the police and get registered his complaint at the Rawalpindi cop shoppe against the two suspects.
According to the coppers, they were probing the incident and collecting the evidence in this regard.
Earlier in January, an under-trial prisoner was strangled to death before being subjected to sexual abuse by four inmates.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2024 00:00 ||
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[IsraelTimes] Amid rising antisemitism, North American and Western European arrivals this year expected to total 15,500, more than 2.5 times the number that arrived last year, Jewish Agency says
As Israeli officials and activists prepare for an influx of immigration from Western countries, some 8,000 Russians have made the move since January, accounting for most of the newcomers during this year’s first trimester.
Of 11,361 new immigrants colonists who came to Israel under its Law of Return for Jews and their relatives between January 1 and May 15, more than 70 percent, or 7,999, were from Russia, according to an interim report by the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration presented Monday at the Knesset Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs.
By comparison, only about 700 newcomers moved to Israel during that period from Western Europe, roughly half from La Belle France and 165 from the United Kingdom. The United States, where about 7 million Jews live, provided Israel with even fewer immigrants colonists: 564 of them in the first 135 days of 2024, the period surveyed in the interim report.
Ukraine, which is fighting a defensive war against Russia, provided about 300 immigrants colonists, or olim, during that period.
The data for immigration to Israel, or aliyah, from Russia is in line with trends observed in 2023. That year, Russians accounted for nearly 70% of the 46,590 annual tally of olim. In Russia, international sanctions over its ongoing war against Ukraine are crippling the local economy amid a war-related crackdown by authorities on free speech and civil liberties.
Thus many Russian olim are leaving out of fear of a new Iron Curtain.
Only 2,170 of the olim during that year were from Ukraine. That country has provided Israel with fewer than 20,000 olim since Russia invaded it in 2022. Russia, meanwhile, has seen nearly 84,000 of its citizens immigrate to Israel since the war broke out. Russia in 2020 had some 590,000 people eligible to make aliyah compared to about 190,000 in Ukraine, according to the Institute for Jewish Policy Research. Aliyah from both countries rose dramatically after 2022.
At first glance, the data may appear to fall short of the expectations of many for a wave of Western olim following the increases in the numbers of antisemitic incidents documented in Western Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... and North America after October 7.
But the Jewish Agency for Israel, which handles aliyah for the government, expects 15,500 Western olim to move this year, the report said. That’s nearly 2.5 times the 6,220 immigrants colonists who came from developed countries in 2023.
Western aliyah will peak in summer, with about 8,000 olim from developed countries expected to arrive by September, ministry officials wrote in a reply to a query by the committee’s chairman, Oded Forer.
[Jpost] ...According to WSJ, for months, the White House insisted Israel had "no credible plan" to evacuate Rafah’s 1.3 million residents. President Joe Biden asserted there was no feasible way to conduct a major military operation with so many civilians present, leading to an arms embargo on Israel. "We’re walking away from Israel’s ability to wage war in those areas," Biden said.
Despite these objections, Israel proceeded with its plans. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan both expressed doubts, claiming Israel had "no credible plan" and warning against launching a major operation into Rafah.
As the evacuation succeeded, the Biden Administration shifted its narrative, according to WSJ, claiming Israel had updated its plans to incorporate US concerns. A senior US official remarked, "It’s fair to say that the Israelis have updated their plans. They’ve incorporated many of the concerns that we have expressed." The official also suggested the operation might revive hostage negotiations.
[CNN] None of the aid that has been unloaded from the temporary pier the US constructed off the coast of Gaza has been delivered to the broader Palestinian population, as the US works with the UN and Israel to identify safe delivery routes inside the enclave, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
Several desperate Gazans intercepted trucks delivering aid from the pier over the weekend, leading the UN to suspend the delivery operations until the logistical challenges are resolved.
The US is working with Israel and the United Nations to establish “alternative routes” for the safe delivery of the 569 tons of aid transported to Gaza since last week, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday.
Asked whether any of the aid has been delivered to the people of Gaza, Ryder said, “As of today, I do not believe so.” He added that aid had been held in an assembly area on shore, but as of Tuesday had begun getting moved to warehouses for distribution throughout Gaza as alternative routes have been established.
A US official told CNN that the Defense Department and UN are still working to determine how much aid can be held at he staging area inside Gaza at any given time.
The amount of aid getting to the Gaza shoreline from its initial staging area in Cyprus has also fallen short of initial Pentagon estimates.
Since Friday, more than 569 metric tons of humanitarian assistance have been delivered through the temporary pier, called JLOTS, or Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore, to the shore of Gaza to be distributed by humanitarian partners, Ryder said. But Adm. Brad Cooper, the commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command, said last week that the US hoped to initially transport 500 tons of aid per day via the pier, and scale up as time went on.
Over the weekend, as trucks began moving the aid delivered off the floating pier, CNN reported that a group of men in Gaza intercepted the aid, saying they did not trust that it was actually meant for the Palestinian people.
“I have doubts,” Mounir Ayad, a Gaza resident, told CNN near the pier. “I don’t understand this floating pier or what it indicates and what its purpose is. They say it’s for aid, but people are apprehensive. Is this aid or something else? We know that the US has never supported the Palestinian cause, so it’s implausible that it’s giving us aid without something in return.” Shoot him
Ryder acknowledged on Tuesday that some initial aid brought into Gaza was “intercepted by some people who took that aid off those vehicles.”
“Fully appreciating the desperation, but also fully appreciating the fact that it is very important that this aid get to the people who need it most, that’s going to continue to be the focus. So I understand, you know, the focus on why is this not working, or why is that not working, but what we’re focused on is how we can work to ensure that the Palestinian people get the aid.”
The Pentagon said in April that the goal was to deliver roughly 500 tons of aid — amounting to 90 truckloads — per day to the starving population of Gaza, with the intent of working up to 150 trucks daily. The pier was finally anchored to Gaza last week as the humanitarian situation in the enclave has only worsened.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
05/24/2024 00:00 ||
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#1
Mistake my a$$. If Joe could, he'd order US military to attack Israel.
[NEWARAB]Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that his government has "detailed, important, and even surprising plans" regarding Israel's front with Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , as quoted by Haaretz.
His comments come during a visit to the Israeli army's Northern Command where Netanyahu met its commander and divisional commanders.
"[The plans] are meant to bring security back to the north and return the residents safely to their homes."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/24/2024 00:00 ||
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#1
I expect "World Community" to be totally outraged.
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.
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistain's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire...
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
