[IsraelTimes] Satellite photos show US moving more stealth bombers to Indian Ocean base in striking distance of Yemen and Iran; rebels have launched 7 missile attacks at Israel since March
Suspected US Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s pounded Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... overnight into Saturday, reportedly killing at least one person as the American military acknowledged earlier bombing a major military site in the heart of Sanaa controlled by the Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... rebels.
The full extent of the damage and possible casualties wasn’t immediately clear. The attacks followed a night of airstrikes early Friday that appeared particularly intense compared to other days in the campaign that began March 15.
An News Agency that Dare Not be Named review has found the new American operation under US President Donald Trump ...The Hero of Butler, Pennsylvania... appears more extensive than those under former President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. I'm not working for you. Don't be such a horse's ass.... , as the US moves from solely targeting launch sites to firing at ranking personnel as well as dropping bombs in cities.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shootout, Butch clutched at his other leg...... satellite photos analyzed by the AP show a mysterious airstrip just off Yemen in a key maritime chokepoint now appears ready to accept flights and B-2 bombers within striking distance of the country Saturday.
NEW STRIKES COME AS US RELEASES VIDEO OF ONE BOMBING
The strikes into Saturday targeted multiple areas in Yemen under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthis, including the capital, Sanaa, and in the governorates of al-Jawf and Saada, rebel-controlled media reported. The strikes in Saada killed one person and maimed four others, the Houthi-run SABA news agency said.
SABA identified the person killed as a civilian. Houthi fighters and their allies often aren’t in uniform. However,
there's more than one way to skin a cat... analysts believe the rebels may be undercounting the fatalities given the strikes have been targeting military and intelligence sites run by the rebels. Many of the strikes haven’t been fully acknowledged by the Houthis — or the US military — while the rebels also tightly control access on the ground.
One strike early Friday, however, has been confirmed by the US military’s Central Command, which oversees its Mideast operations. It posted a black-and-white video early Saturday showing an Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... targeting a site in Yemen. While it didn’t identify the location, an AP analysis of the footage’s details corresponds to a known strike Friday in Sanaa. The footage shows the bomb striking the military’s general command headquarters held by the Iran's Houthi sock puppets, something the rebels have not reported.
The Houthi-controlled Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministry in Sanaa separately said US strikes on Friday destroyed "broadcasting stations, communication towers and the messaging network" in Amran and Saada governorates. The strikes in Amran around the Jebel Aswad, or "Black Mountain," had appeared particularly intense.
The Houthis have begun threatening both Saudi Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... and the United Arab Emirates, two American allies in the region, over the US strikes. That’s even as the nations that have sought a separate peace with the Houthis have stayed out of the new US airstrike campaign.
An AP analysis of satellite photos from Saturday shows the American military has moved at least four long-range stealth B-2 bombers to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — a base far outside of the range of the rebels that avoids using allies’ Mideast bases. Three had been earlier seen there this week.
That means a fourth of all the nuclear-capable B-2s that America has in its arsenal are now deployed to the base. The Biden administration used the B-2 with conventional bombs against Houthi targets last year.
The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman has launched attacks from the Red Sea and the American military plans to bring the carrier USS Carl Vinson from Asia as well.
Meanwhile,
...back at the alley, Slats Chumbaloni was staring into a hole that was just .45 inch in diameter and was less than three feet from his heavily sweating face ... La Belle France said its sole aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, was in Djibouti, an East African nation on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which links the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden. The French have shot down Houthi drones in the past, but they are not part of the American campaign there.
MYSTERIOUS AIRSTRIP IN BAB EL-MANDEB APPEARS READY
Satellite images Friday from Planet Labs PBC show an airstrip now appears ready on Mayun Island, a volcanic outcropping in the center of the Bab el-Mandeb. The images showed the airstrip had been painted with the designation markings "09" and "27" to the airstrip’s east and west respectively.
A Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthis had acknowledged having "equipment" on Mayun, also known as Perim. However,
today is that tomorrow you were thinking about yesterday... air and sea traffic to Mayun has linked the construction to the UAE, which backs a secessionist force in Yemen known as the Southern Transitional Council.
World powers have recognized the island’s strategic location for hundreds of years, especially with the opening of the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas.
The work on Mayun follows the completion of a similar airstrip likely constructed by the UAE on Abd al-Kuri Island, which rises out of the Indian Ocean near the mouth of the Gulf of Aden.
Government is those things we do together, the Democrats used to say. Defending the nation from violent jihadi invaders is what we do together, says MAGA.
See also here for a self-organized, volunteer Jewish Onliner team quietly using AI to pluck out the identities of dangerous — often terror-linked — Jew- and West-haters via open source analysis.
[IsraelTimes] Amid push by Trump administration to revoke visas from foreign students involved in violence, an array of private groups are working to identify and report them to authorities
When a protester was caught on video in January at a New York rally against Israel, only her eyes were visible between a mask and headscarf. But days later, photos of her entire face, along with her name and employer, were circulated online.
“Months of them hiding their faces went down the drain!” a fledgling technology company boasted in a social media post, claiming its facial-recognition tool had identified the woman despite the coverings.
She was anything but a lone target. The same software was also used to review images taken during months of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel marches at US colleges.
…so much of it posted on social media by the activists themselves. Petard hoist…ENGAGE!
A right-wing Jewish group said some people identified with the tool were on a list of names it submitted to US President Donald Trump’s administration, urging that they be deported in accordance with his call for the expulsion of foreign students who participated in “pro-jihadist” protests.
Surely the FBI checked the information before acting on it. Their culture is much too not invented here for them to take it on faith.
Many of the protests saw open support for Hamas, the US-proscribed terror group that sparked the Gaza war with the October 7, 2023 onslaught in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and saw another 251 taken hostage into Gaza. Many of the protests have also veered into open antisemitism and seen Jewish students targeted on campuses.
Other pro-Israel groups have enlisted help from supporters on campuses, urging them to report foreign students who participated in the protests against the war in Gaza to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
The push to identify masked protesters using facial recognition and turn them in is blurring the line between public law enforcement and private groups. And the efforts have stirred anxiety among foreign students worried that activism could jeopardize their legal status.
Good. Both actions and elections have consequences, and you lot put yourselves at the intersection of that. Consider it a necessary learning experience for the next time you think about leaving home.
“It’s a very concerning practice. We don’t know who these individuals are or what they’re doing with this information,” said Abed Ayoub, national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “Essentially, the administration is outsourcing surveillance.”
This is a grassroots,self-organized effort. Had it not gone to the FBI, they would have posted it all over the internet, embarrassing you much more publicly.
It’s unclear whether names from outside groups have reached top government officials. But concern about the pursuit of activists has risen since the March 8 arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student of Palestinian descent who helped lead demonstrations against Israel’s conduct of the war.
Immigration officers also detained a Tufts University student from Turkey outside Boston this week, and Trump and other officials have said that more arrests of international students are coming.
“Now they’re using tools of the state to actually go after people,” said a Columbia graduate student from South Asia who has been active in protests and spoke on condition of anonymity because of concerns about losing her visa. “We suddenly feel like we’re being forced to think about our survival.”
UNCERTAINTY ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES
Ayoub said he is concerned, in part, that groups bent on exposing pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activists will make mistakes and single out students who did nothing wrong.
No doubt. That’s why the FBI/ICE/whoever should be double checking the information they’re given, just like they do all other tips from civilians.
But groups pushing for deportations say their focus is on students whose actions go beyond marching in protests, to those taking over campus buildings and inciting violence against Jewish students.
“If you’re here, right, on a student visa causing civil unrest … assaulting people on the streets, chanting for people’s death, why the heck did you come to this country?” said Eliyahu Hawila, a software engineer who built the tool designed to identify masked protesters and outed the woman at the January rally.
He has forwarded protesters’ names to groups pressing for them to be deported, disciplined, fired or otherwise punished.
“If we want to argue that this is freedom of speech and they can say it, fine, they can say it,” Hawila said. “But that doesn’t mean that you will escape the consequences of society after you say it.”
Pro-Israel groups that circulated the protester’s photo claim that she was soon fired by her employer. An employee who answered the phone at the company confirmed that the woman had not worked there since early this year. In a brief phone conversation, the protester, who has not been charged with any wrongdoing, declined to comment on the advice of an attorney.
CALLS TO REPORT STUDENTS TO THE GOVERNMENT
The unearthing and spreading of personal information to harass opponents has become commonplace in the uproar over the war in Gaza. The practice, known as doxing, has been used to expose both activists in the US and Israeli soldiers who recorded video of themselves on the battlefield.
But the use of facial-recognition technology by private groups enters territory previously reserved largely for law enforcement, said attorney Sejal Zota, who represents a group of California activists in a lawsuit against facial recognition company ClearviewAI.
“We’re focused on government use of facial recognition because that’s who we think of as traditionally tracking and monitoring dissent,” Zota said. But “there are now all of these groups who are sort of complicit in that effort.”
The calls to report protesters to immigration authorities have raised the stakes.
“Please tell everyone you know who is at a university to file complaints about foreign students and faculty who support Hamas,” Elizabeth Rand, president of a group called Mothers Against Campus Antisemitism, said in a Jan. 21 post to more than 60,000 followers on Facebook. It included a link to an ICE tip line.
I joined the group a few weeks ago. Mostly they just want to know where their children should and shouldn’t apply to college, where they will or won’t be safe. But they also spread information.
Rand’s post was one of several publicized by New York University’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Rand did not respond to messages seeking comment. NYU has dismissed criticism that she had any influence with its administrators.
She doesn’t, as I recall — mostly because the administrators are deaf to logic.
In early February, messages from a different group were posted in an online chat group frequented by Israelis living in New York.
“Do you know students at Columbia or any other university who are here on a study visa and participated in demonstrations against Israel?” one message said in Hebrew. “If so, now is our time!”
An accompanying message in English by the group End Jew Hatred included a link to the ICE hotline. The group did not respond to requests for comment.
FACIAL RECOGNITION LOOMS OVER PROTESTS
Weeks before Khalil’s arrest, a spokesman for right-wing Jewish group Betar said the activist topped a list of foreign students and faculty from nine universities it submitted to officials, including then-incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who made the decision to revoke Khalil’s visa.
Rubio was asked this week how the names of students targeted for visa revocation were reaching his desk and whether colleges or outside groups were providing information. He declined to answer.
“We’re not going to talk about the process by which we’re identifying it because obviously we’re looking for more people,” he told reporters late Thursday during the return flight from a diplomatic trip to Suriname.
In a one-sentence statement, the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said the immigration agency is not “working with” Betar, nor has it received any hotline tips from the group. But DHS declined to answer specific questions from The Associated Press about how it was treating reports from outside groups or the usage of facial recognition.
Betar spokesman Daniel Levy said that some people on its list were identified using the facial-recognition tool called NesherAI created by Hawila’s company, Stellar Technologies, which was launched from his Brooklyn apartment. The software takes its name from the Hebrew word for “eagle.”
Demonstrating the software for a reporter recently, Hawila paused repeatedly to tweak computer code to account for what he said was the just-completed ingestion of thousands of additional photos scraped from social media accounts.
After some delay, the software matched a screenshot of a fully masked protester — seen on video confronting Hawila at a recent march — with publicity photos of a woman who described herself online as a New York artist. He said he would report her to the police for assault.
Hawila, a native of Lebanon, is no stranger to controversy. He was the subject of news stories in 2021 when, after marrying an ultra-orthodox woman in New York, he was confronted with accusations that he lied about being Jewish. Religious authorities have since confirmed that his mother was Jewish and certified his faith, he said.
I’m glad to get the rest of the story — being Jewish seemed to mean so much to him at the time.
Hawila said he no longer works directly with Betar but continues to share protesters’ names with it and other pro-Israel groups and said he has discussed licensing his software to some of them. He showed an email exchange with one group that appeared to confirm such contact.
“Technology, when used in good ways, makes the world a better place,” he said.
TRUMP PROMISED TO CRACK DOWN DURING CAMPAIGN
As a candidate, Trump campaigned on a promise to crack down on campus antisemitism and threatened to deport activists with student visas that he called violent radicals.
Soon after the election, Betar claimed on social media that it was working to identify and report international student protesters to the incoming administration.
“Entire university departments have been corrupted by jihadis,” Levy said in a recent e-mail exchange with the AP.
Days before his arrest, Khalil said in an interview that he was aware of Betar’s call for his deportation and that it and other groups were trying to use him as a “scapegoat.”
Students protesting Israel’s conduct in Gaza have been unsure what to make of Betar, which the Anti-Defamation League recently added to its list of extremist groups. The ADL has also voiced support for revoking the visas of foreign student activists.
At the University of Pittsburgh, leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine said they spoke with police in November after an online message from Betar that said it would be visiting the school to “give you beepers” — an apparent reference to Israel’s detonation of thousands of electronic pagers last fall to kill and wound members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Ross Glick, who was Betar’s executive director at the time, said that the message was “a tongue-in-cheek dark joke,” not a threat.
Both sides said police eventually decided no action was warranted. Months later, Betar said that Pitt students were among those on its deportation list.
STUDENTS DEPENDENT ON VISAS FEAR BEING TARGETED
When you act in public, those who see get to choose how they respond. Sort of a no plan survives first contact with the enemy thingy.
The efforts to target protesters have fueled anxiety among international students involved in campus activism.
“They’ve abducted someone on our campus, and that is a key source of our fear,” said the Columbia student from South Asia.
Oh no, dear heart, that was a plain vanilla police arrest…. unless it was the FBI or ICE, I don’t recall. But at any rate, it was a legal arrest rather than an illegal kidnapping. Which is why lawyers and judges and phone calls were involved instead of sequestering and ransom requests.
She recounted cancelling spring break plans to travel to Canada, where her husband lives, for fear she would not be allowed to reenter the US. She has also shut down her social media accounts to avoid drawing attention to pro-Palestinian posts.
The internet is forever, I’m told, and of course privacy does not really exist once something is posted somewhere. But doing better now is a very good idea as a general principle.
And, because her apartment is off campus, she said she offered accommodation to other international students who live in university housing and are wary of visits by immigration officers.
The government has been doing network tracing at least since the second Iraq war. Figuring out who your friends are and that they might be with you is child’s play to them.
Leaders of Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at George Washington University and Pittsburgh said some international students have asked to have their email addresses and names removed from membership lists to avoid scrutiny.
Too late. But again, doing better is always a good idea.
A Columbia graduate student from the United Kingdom said that when he joined a pro-Palestinian encampment last year, he never considered whether it might affect his immigration status.
No reason to — a year ago, when the Democrats were running things in PresidentJoe Biden’s name, Jew hate and violent protest were wildly fashionable. And their allies loudly assured everyone that he, and then VP Kamala Harris’ campaign, could not possibly fail. Foreigners generally believe the authorities.
Now he’s rethinking an incident in October, when someone scattered fliers in a campus lounge celebrating the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war. A classmate who supports Israel accused him and others in the room of being responsible for the fliers and snapped their photos, according to the student, who said he had nothing to do with the material distributed.
“My main worry … is that he shared those photos and identified us and shared it with a larger group of people,” the student said.
Other students have been dismayed by an atmosphere that encourages students to inform on their classmates.
“It really bothered me because this cultivates this environment of reporting on each other. It kind of gives memories of dictatorship and autocratic regimes,” said Sahar Bostock, who was among a group of Israeli students at Columbia who wrote an open letter criticizing efforts to report pro-Palestinian protesters.
[Rudaw] The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced on Friday they captured an Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) member in Hasaka province accused of smuggling people out of al-Hol camp.
"As part of ongoing operations against remnants of ISIS cells, our SDF’s military operations teams (TOL), with support from the International Coalition, conducted a security operation on Thursday, targeting a member of an ISIS terrorist cell in the village of al-Tuwaimin, al-Shaddadi town, southeast of al-Hasaka," read a statement from the SDF.
"Following intelligence on the movements and activities of the terrorist Zahir al-Kaidi al-Fian, also known as Abu Ghazi, our forces raided his place and successfully captured him.
The terrorist Zahir was an active ISIS member involved in smuggling terrorists, particularly foreign ISIS women, out of al-Hol camp," the statement added.
He was caught with two AK-47 rifles, ten magazines and one military telescope.
The Kurdish-led and US-backed SDF fought the lion’s share of the battle against ISIS and ultimately defeated the jihadists territorially in their last bastion of Baghouz in 2019. They are now in control of numerous detention facilities that house tens of thousands of veteran ISIS fighters and camps like al-Hol where some 40,000 ISIS-linked people, mainly women and kiddies, are held. The camp has been branded a breeding ground for terrorism and Kurdish authorities have repeatedly called on the international community to repatriate their citizens.
ISIS is trying to take advantage of Syria’s evolving security landscape following the overthrow of the regime in Damascus by a coalition of rebels.
The SDF, which controls northeast Syria (Rojava), is working to prevent the jihadists from reestablishing their presence, but has warned that its ability to combat ISIS in the east is being undermined by an offensive against their forces by The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...just another cheapjack Moslem dictatorship, brought to you by the Moslem Brüderbund... and its allied militias in the north.
[Rudaw] At least two suspected Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) snuffies were killed in an Iraqi strike on their hideout in the vast western Anbar desert, the army said on Friday.
Iraq’s air force "carried out a successful Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... using F-16 aircraft, which resulted in the killing of two ISIS terrorist gang members according to initial information. The strike was followed by successive explosions inside the hideout from the destruction of weapons, ammunition, equipment, and logistical materials inside," the army’s Security Media Cell said in a statement.
The army said that the Anbar strike was their "own way" of congratulating the Iraqi people on the upcoming Moslem Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan. "This congratulations consisted of continuing to pursue and kill the remaining ISIS terrorist gang members," it said.
Iraq carries out frequent airstrikes on suspected ISIS hideouts to pursue remnants of the group, particularly within areas of Diyala, Salahaddin, Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... and Nineveh provinces that are disputed between Erbil and Baghdad and a security vacuum exists, as well as in the Anbar desert that borders Syria. Iraqi forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga are coordinating to combat the group in the disputed areas.
Two weeks ago, another airstrike in Anbar province killed Abdullah Makki Muslih al-Rafiei, ISIS’s second-in-command globally and its top man in Iraq and Syria.
In late February, the head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell told Rudaw that Iraqi security forces have largely eradicated ISIS from the country, with only a few hundred snuffies remaining in remote areas. The group was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, three years after it seized control of swathes of territory in the north and centre of the country.
[HodhodYemenNews] The Ministry of Health in Gaza Strip announced on Saturday that its hospitals received 26 martyrs, including one who was retrieved from under the rubble of a destroyed building, and 70 wounded citizens over the past 24 hours.
In its daily report, the ministry pointed out that the casualties of the Israeli renewed aggression since March 18 have reached 921 martyrs and 2,045 injured.
The ministry pointed out that an unspecified number of victims are still trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings or lying on roads and rescue teams cannot reach them.
The death toll from the Israeli aggression on Gaza since October 7, 2023, has risen to 50,277 martyrs and 114,095 wounded, according to the report.
Mortar shells fired at troops near Khan Younis, armored bulldozer hit by IED, none hurt; IDF acknowledges mistakenly firing on ambulances in Rafah, says troops targeted Hamas
The Israeli military said Saturday evening it had expanded its ground offensive in the southern Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip in the past few hours.
Troops pushed into the al-Jneina neighborhood of Rafah as part of efforts to expand a buffer zone along the borders of the Strip, the IDF said. During the operation, the IDF said troops demolished Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... infrastructure in the area.
Separately, dozens of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s were carried out over the weekend, targeting what the military said was Hamas and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... infrastructure. The targets included weapon depots, rocket launchers and buildings used by the terror groups, according to the IDF.
Strikes also killed several terror operatives, including some behind mortar attacks on Israel, the military added.
On Saturday afternoon, three mortar shells were launched at IDF troops operating on the outskirts of southern Gaza’s Khan Younis. Additionally, the IDF said an armored D9 bulldozer was hit by an bomb planted in the ground in the same area.
No soldiers were maimed in either incident, the military noted.
Following the attacks, the military issued an evacuation warning for Paleostinians in the area, and later said it struck the launch site.
In a post on X, the IDF’s Arabic-language front man, Col. Avichay Adraee, published a map of the area that was to be evacuated, saying that it was a "final warning" before the IDF carried out strikes there.
The area to be evacuated included the Abasan suburbs of Khan Younis, and the towns of al-Qarara and Khuza’a.
Also on Saturday, the IDF acknowledged mistakenly opening fire on ambulances and fire engines in the southern Gaza Strip a week ago, as it targeted and killed several Hamas operatives. The incident took place last Sunday in the Tel Sultan neighborhood of Rafah. According to Hamas authorities, at least one rescue worker was killed.
According to the military, troops had opened fire "toward Hamas vehicles and eliminated several Hamas button men" in Tel Sultan. "A few minutes afterward, additional vehicles advanced suspiciously toward the troops... The troops responded by firing toward the suspicious vehicles, eliminating a number of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists," the IDF said
The IDF adds that "after an initial inquiry, it was determined that some of the suspicious vehicles... were ambulances and fire trucks," while condemning "the repeated use" by "terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip of ambulances for terrorist purposes."
The military did not say if there was gunfire coming from the vehicles.
On Friday, the Hamas-run civil defense agency reported finding the body of the team leader and the rescue vehicles — an ambulance and a firefighting vehicle — and said a vehicle from the Paleostine Red Islamic Thingy Society was also "reduced to a pile of scrap metal."
On Friday, the IDF said it carried out 25 strikes across Gaza, targeting operatives and infrastructure of Hamas and other terror groups, as United Nations ...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships... agencies accused Israel of atrocities and forced displacement in the Strip.
The Strip’s Hamas-run health ministry said Israel had killed 896 Paleostinians since resuming hostilities on March 18, and over 50,000 since the war was triggered by the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023. The figures cannot be independently confirmed and don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel says it seeks to avoid targeting civilians and accuses Hamas of embedding itself among them.
The Paleostinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA reported several deaths on Friday in airstrikes on homes in Gaza City, Rafah and Khan Younis, as well as a tent sheltering displaced people in the Jabalia camp and a vehicle west of Khan Younis. WAFA also reported gunfire by Israeli military vehicles in Jabalia and Beit Lahiya, artillery fire in Gaza City and demolition of buildings in Rafah by Israeli forces.
[SaharaReporters] There is tension presently in the Wuse area of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, over persistent gunshots as the Nigerian Army personnel attacked and shot at the members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN)
…Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky (and a number of other spellings), the former head of the Muslim Brotherhood in Nigeria, converted to Shi'ism after a visit to Iran and now is a fiery Iranian sock puppet. He founded the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), the Shiite version of the Muslim Brotherhood — only beholden to Iran. Nigeria declared IMN a terror group in 2019. ...
at the Banex Plaza.
Speaking with SaharaReporters, a source in the area said, "It's been a rain of sporadic shootings by the Nigerian Army around Austoma Petrol Station/ Banex Axis on Aminu Kano Cresent, Wuse 2, Abuja.
"Some parts of the road have been condoned to probably fish out the Islamic protesters that might be hiding around.
I had to abandon my car on the Ahmadu Bello/Aminu Kano Cresent Traffic light because of the shootings."
The clash occurred just hours after the United States Embassy in Nigeria issued a security alert, warning its citizens about planned IMN protests in Abuja and other major cities on Friday.
In the advisory, the US Embassy had cautioned that demonstrations could lead to disruptions such as roadblocks, traffic congestion, and possible confrontations.
"The Islamic Movement of Nigeria has called for demonstrations in Abuja and other major cities on Friday, March 28, 2025. Heavy traffic and other disruptions are possible. Based on past occurrences, protests may involve roadblocks, checkpoints, traffic congestion, and physical confrontations," the embassy had stated.
The security warning listed potential protest locations, including Banex Plaza, Berger Junction, Unity Fountain, the National Human Rights Commission Head Office, Eagle Square, Area 10 Shopping Plaza, the National Mosque, al-Noor Mosque, and Fouad Lababidi Mosque.
Dozens of pro-Palestinian protesters have been killed and wounded as security forces opened fire on an International Quds Day demonstration in Nigeria’s capital city.
According to reports, at least 19 demonstrators were killed and dozens more wounded in Abuja on Friday.
Video footage of the scenes shows armed forces securing the perimeter as protestors flee for cover while bullet shots are heard. The footage also shows soldiers dragging the lifeless body of a civilian on the street and dumping it into a pickup while beating two other protesters and forcing them to get into another truck.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) had expressed concern over attacks against protesters after it was revealed that Nigerian authorities were making preparations in this regard as a pretext for an attack.
The Office of the National Security Adviser had stressed the necessity to stop the al-Quds day demonstration to “prevent a breach of the peace” by the pro-Palestinian protesters, according to a leaked internal letter seen by the IHRC.
In the leaked communique, Nigerian authorities had warned that though the pro-Palestinian demonstrations were peaceful, the protesters had the potential to seek justice by attacking US and Israeli interests in the country. Therefore, their demos must be stopped.
This method has been used by Nigeria’s pro-Israel officials in recent years to prompt the forces to stage a violent crackdown on the demonstrators.
At least one person was killed, and many more were injured after police opened fire on the Quds Day demo in Abuja in 2023.
[HodhodYemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... News] UK police arrested nine individuals, among them six young women, for holding a meeting to discuss the ongoing genocide in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Youth Demand, a pro-Paleostinian group advocating for climate action and an end to UK arms sales to Israel, reported on Friday that at least nine of its members and supporters have been arrested, with police raiding homes and events associated with the group.
On Thursday, 30 Met coppers stormed into the Youth Demand Welcome Talk at the Quaker Meeting House in Westminster and arrested six young women, including one attending their first ever welcome talk and a journalist.
Three of them were released in the early hours of the morning, but three remain in jug
Police said that they were arresting people for "conspiracy to cause a public nuisance."
In a separate incident at around 8.00 am on Friday, police arrested Youth Demand supporter Eddie Whittingham in his house in Exeter, but he has been released without charge.
Three other supporters were arrested at another location. Then, at around 12:30 pm on Friday, cops raided another Youth Demand supporter’s home and arrested them.
Youth Demand, in a post on Instagram, announced that the UK police have made nine arrests in less than 20 hours.
"Arresting those for attending a welcome talk is an unprecedented level of police repression that has never been seen before in the UK. Repression means the state is nervous and we are winning," it said.
The Welcome Talk is an opportunity to share information about Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Paleostinian people in Gaza and the West Bank and about the mass killing that is being imposed on marginalized people across the globe as a result of the accelerating climate crisis.
Ella Grace-Taylor, 20, an actor, musician, and one of those arrested, said after her release that UK politicians are complicit in allowing law enforcement to carry out mass arrests and detainments of those who speak out against the government’s involvement in enabling the Israeli genocide.
"By arming Israel and refusing to call what is happening a genocide, they are perpetrating mass slaughter. Hundreds of children were killed in Paleostine in the last week. We won’t stop saying it. We won’t be intimidated," she added.
A Youth Demand spokesperson said in a statement that the UK government sees the pro-Paleostine group as a "threat" due to their strong opposition to governmental actions facilitating genocide.
"We will not be silenced. Young people all over the country are coming together to shut London down day after day throughout April," the spokesperson highlighted.
Youth Demand is planning on launching its month of resistance on April 1, at 6:30 pm in Mallet Street outside Senate House Library.
"Only sustained mass resistance can put an end to genocide. By standing together,r we can grind the murder machine to a standstill. It’s time to disrupt," the spokesperson noted.
[HodhodYemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... News] The American aggression continues to conduct treacherous Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on multiple Yemeni provinces.
On Friday evening, the enemy aircraft carried out 14 airstrikes on Saada province, resulting in the martyrdom and injury of four civilians.
Local sources reported that the American aggression launched 14 raids around the city of Saada, killing one citizen and wounding three others. Earlier, the US had conducted eight airstrikes near Saada city and two raids on Sahar district in the same province.
In Sana’a province, the American aggression launched eight airstrikes on the al-Sawad area in Sanhan district, south of the capital.
Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, the spittle had reached unprecedented levels... in al-Jawf province, the US carried out eight airstrikes targeting the vicinity of the government complex in Hazm district.
[IsraelTimes] Legal representatives for allegedly pro-Hamas students threatened with deportation have advised and mentored activists leading disruptive rallies around New York and on campuses
Earlier this month, after US federal authorities detained a Columbia University protest leader, student activists walked off campus to rally outside the university’s gates.
They joined demonstrators from Within Our Lifetime, a hardline anti-Israel protest group, to chant for the release of the Columbia organizer, Mahmoud Khalil.
Meanwhile,
...back at the pond, the enormous newt was trying to decide if Gloria was edible... Khalil’s lawyers battled for his release in court, filing legal summonses to US President Donald Trump ...dictatorial for repealing some (but not all) of the diktats of his predecessor, misogynistic because he likes pretty girls, homophobic because he doesn't think gender bending should be mandatory, truly a man for all seasons... and Secretary of State Marco Rubio ...The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida, Secretary of State in the second Trump administration... The activists and lawyers were not disparate players animated by shared outrage over Khalil’s detention, but are connected — part of an overlapping network that has developed over the years around anti-Israel activism on the streets, in the courts and on campuses.
Ramzi Kassem, a lawyer who has represented Khalil, is an example of the intersecting spheres: Kassem is an alum of Columbia who wrote anti-Israel articles for the campus newspaper while a student in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He is now a professor at the public City University of New York (CUNY) law school, a hotbed of anti-Israel activism.
Kassem also heads Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility (CLEAR), a resident nonprofit and legal clinic at the CUNY Law School. Lawyers from the group represent Khalil and other student activists and advise protest groups.
CLEAR aims to represent and advise clients against "government policies and practices deployed under the guise of ’national security’ and ’counterterrorism,’" its website says.
Two of the CLEAR’s recent alumni are CUNY Law graduates Nerdeen Kiswani and Fatima Mohammed, who each gave inflammatory anti-Israel graduation speeches at CUNY Law graduation ceremonies in 2022 and 2023. Mohammed’s 2023 speech set off a national uproar and prompted the law school to remove student speakers from graduation events.
Kiswani and Mohammed are two leaders of Within Our Lifetime, the most prominent anti-Israel activist group on New York City streets. Within Our Lifetime often collaborates with the Columbia activists, including at the protest outside the university this month. Kiswani joined the protest encampment at Columbia last year and co-hosted an off-campus student talk that brought in speakers from the activist group Samidoun, who praised Hamas ..a regional Iranian catspaw,... during the event. Samidoun was designated as a terrorist entity by the US and Canada after the event.
Closing out the circle, CLEAR advises and supports Within Our Lifetime and the Columbia student activists. The day of the protest this month, the Columbia protest group posted an explainer from CLEAR that warned against cooperating with law enforcement. Within Our Lifetime and the Columbia protest coalition instruct followers to contact CLEAR if they run into trouble.
CLEAR is part of the nonprofit City University of New York School of Law Foundation. The group had revenue of $3.8 million between July 2022 and June 2023, the most recent period for which tax filings are available.
WORKSHOPS COACH HOW TO SKIRT THE LAW
In one of CLEAR’s workshops for student protesters last year, lawyers from the group advised activists against non-citizens advocating for terrorism, soliciting funds for terror groups, and membership in terrorist organizations. The lawyers warned that non-citizens were subject to deportation, and students to expulsion, for terror support.
"There are certain kinds of things that we want to make sure that you know will create risks for you if you’re not a citizen, so that’s inciting, advocating, or declaring public approval or support for terrorist activity," one of the lawyers said, according to video of the workshop shared by journalist Stu Smith.
Dallal and Naz Ahmad coached the students on how to avoid Customs and Border Protection making a copy of your phone data. Much stress was placed on how deleted group chats and photos could still be seen by these officers. pic.twitter.com/aB9QqzmMlH
— Stu (@thestustustudio) January 10, 2024
Khalil, a green card holder, was detained days after protesters at an event he attended distributed Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... propaganda. Since Khalil’s arrest, the legal team has argued that he is being persecuted for free speech.
During the workshop, the lawyers also coached the protesters on how to respond to questions about Hamas, what to do when re-entering the US from international travel, and how to avoid scrutiny of "sensitive materials" on digital devices when entering the US.
TIGHT ‘PROGRESSIVE’ NETWORK
The activist network has ties to the broader progressive movement. In 2022, Kassem was appointed as a senior policy adviser for immigration by the Biden administration. Recent donors to the CUNY Law foundation include MacKenzie Scott and the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
Other legal groups also collaborate with the protesters. Within Our Lifetime urges followers to contact the National Lawyers Guild if they are arrested, and the two groups have collaborated on campaigns. Kiswani was a member of the guild while a student at CUNY Law, and the guild backed Mohammed after her 2023 commencement speech.
The guild’s New York City chapter dispatches "observers" to anti-Israel street protests, many of whom wear keffiyehs and anti-Israel apparel. The guild backed the October 7 attack on Israel the day after the onslaught.
In addition to CLEAR, lawyers representing Khalil have come from progressive legal groups that have engaged in anti-Israel activism, such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union, whose New York branch has filed lawsuits against Columbia and CUNY Law on behalf of anti-Israel activists.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech group that has both condoned and condemned Columbia protests, has also defended Khalil, saying his detention threatens free speech protections.
FIRE needs to figure out the difference between speech rights and violence wrongs… This is much more important than preening themselves on their open-mindedness for defending someone who would love to see them dead.
Lawyers from CLEAR are also representing another Columbia anti-Israel student activist, Yunseo Chung, who sued the Trump administration this week against her deportation.
PRO-ISRAEL MOVEMENT MORE FRACTURED THAN PRO-PALESTINIANS
The anti-Israel protest movement in New York is ideologically cohesive in its commitment to Israel’s destruction. There aren’t any non-Jewish pro-Palestinian protest groups in New York calling for peace and two states, and none condemn Hamas or October 7. Palestinian advocates who don’t toe the line are shouted down. Kiswani has openly endorsed Hamas and the Columbia protesters have said, “Violence is the only path.” The protests have disrupted life in the city, targeting cancer patients, museums, memorials, libraries, transportation hubs and holiday events. Outright support for US-designated terrorist groups is common.
The counterweight to the movement is the network of Zionist Jewish organizations, including legal groups such as the Brandeis Center, the Lawfare Project, and the National Jewish Advocacy Center.
The pro-Israel movement is well-funded and longstanding, but more fractured in its politics, approach and outlook, ranging from leftists sympathetic to the Palestinians to the more combative right-wing. The movement has also been eclipsed in some areas. Community leaders acknowledged that the movement had “lost the streets” even before October 7, despite events like New York’s massive, annual Celebrate Israel parade.
In the legal realm, Jewish groups are seeking to regain ground under the pressure of war and surging antisemitism. Pro-Israel legal groups only recently began coordinating lawsuits filed around the US, for example. The pro-Israel legal offensive is gaining steam and evolving, though, with lawsuits filed against universities, activists and nonprofits making their way through courts around the country. Some of the lawsuits are making novel use of civil rights protections, opening new fronts in the lawfare battle. A New York nonprofit that has handled funding for an array of activist groups, including Within Our Lifetime and Students for Justice in Palestine, is facing a potential collapse due to lawsuits. Universities like Columbia are being battered from both sides.
In the latest legal salvo, this week, pro-Israel lawyers filed a lawsuit against street protesters and Columbia activists, alleging that the groups function as Hamas’s “propaganda arm” in New York and on campus. Kiswani and Khalil are among the defendants.
[IsraelTimes] Israeli Ambassador to US Yechiel Leiter says journey to DC last month took 13.5 hours because prime minister flew over US military bases in case he required emergency landing
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s flight to Washington last month was lengthened due to concerns over both his health and an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court, Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter revealed on Thursday.
Netanyahu flew to Israel on February 2 to meet with US President Donald Trump ...So far he's been unkillable, and they've tried.... in the White House, less than six weeks after surgery to have his prostate removed. The trip also came after the ICC last year issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of war crimes, meaning that countries party to the Rome Statute would be obliged to take him into custody.
During a webinar on Thursday, Leiter said that the prime minister’s flight to the US was forced to take a longer path so that it was flying over US army bases in an event that it could be forced to land for medical reasons and would not land in a country that may arrest Netanyahu.
"When the prime minister came here last month, he had to fly 13 1/2 hours — a trip that should take 12 hours — people don’t know this, but the reason is because he couldn’t land anywhere in Europe," said Leiter.
"He had just had surgery, he came with two doctors, and they told him he may have to land for treatment," the ambassador added. "But if he were to land anywhere in Europe, he could be arrested as a war criminal. So he had to fly over American army bases — 13.5 hours."
The Israeli ambassador made the comments during a webinar for the One Israel Fund, a nonprofit that supports Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Leiter, who entered the role of ambassador in January, founded the One Israel Fund in 1994. His son, Maj. (res.) Moshe Leiter, was killed fighting in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... on November 10, 2023.
The ICC announced arrest warrants in November for Netanyahu as well as former defense minister Yoav Gallant.
Neither Israel nor the United States are party to the court, and the warrant has no enforcement mechanism, with the ICC instead relying on cooperation from its member states. ICC member countries are required to act on the court’s arrest warrants but have not always done so.
In the wake of the warrants, a number of countries said they would not arrest Netanyahu were he to visit, including Hungary, Argentina ...a country located on the other side of the Deep South. It is covered with Pampers and inhabited by Grouchos, who dance the Tangle. They used to have some islands called the Malvinas located where the Falklands are now. They're not supposed to cry for Evita... , the Czech Republic and Romania.
Poland said it would seek to shield him from arrest, while La Belle France and Italia said they believed he had immunity as a world leader from a state not party to the ICC.
Netanyahu is expected to fly to Hungary next week for a diplomatic visit.
[IsraelTimes] The American-Israeli Zlotnitsky family is a case study in the conflict facing progressive US Jews as the people they’ve advocated for are some of their biggest adversaries after Oct. 7.
Some may not make it all the way over to our side, but the Democrats have driven them away as voters, donors, and activists. And some will join us. All the agony at the link.
It's hard to talk to such people because you don't want to come off as a bad person so I sort of pretend I don't remember their previous comments. Although sometimes I try to sneak the concept of suicidal empathy into the conversation.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/30/2025 11:59
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#3
well Zlotnitsky and his like did think they were putting themselves in the place of innocent Gazans
were they
certainly some non Hamas Gazans are as bloodthirsty as Hamas, some have conflicted feelings, some are just emotionally beaten up, some change between these points
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/30/2025 16:02
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Some of them brought the ugliness of the culture with them.
[KhaamaPress] A former U.S. Army interpreter in Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman Niazi, was killed in Texas, leaving behind five young children.
Media outlets in the United States have reported the murder of an Afghan interpreter who had worked with U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The incident took place in his office in Houston, Texas.
The Afghan interpreter, Abdul Rahman Niazi, was reportedly stabbed to death. Local news outlet KHOU 11 News confirmed the details of the incident, which occurred on Thursday, March 27.
According to reports, the police arrested a man named Masihullah Sahil in connection with the murder, and the suspect has confessed to the crime. The motive behind the murder remains unclear at this point.
Abdul Rahman Niazi, who lost both of his legs in a bomb explosion in Afghanistan two years ago, had recently established an office in Texas to assist Afghan refugees. His work was highly valued within the community. The United States resettled Niazi as a refugee in Houston in 2014.
The incident has shocked many, especially given that Niazi had been helping others after overcoming his own hardships. Sources reveal that he leaves behind five children, all under the age of 10.
As the investigation continues, questions remain about the reasons behind the killing. Authorities are expected to provide more information as they progress in their inquiries.
Abdul Niazi was stabbed to death in his West Houston office on March 26, 2025.
Niazi, known for helping Afghan immigrants in Houston, had previously assisted the accused killer, Masiullah Sahil, who later admitted the crime during a phone call with Niazi’s wife.
Niazi’s family is seeking justice and has set up a GoFundMe to support his wife and four children following his tragic death.
A double amputee who worked alongside the U.S. Marine Corps was brutally stabbed to death in his office in West Houston, according to the victim’s family.
They’re now searching for answers after a shocking phone call.
The brutal crime
The backstory
Abdul Niazi, a 34-year-old father of four, was killed March 26 in an attack at his office on Harwin Drive.
Police arrested and charged Masiullah Sahil, 37, with murder in the case.
A war hero
His family describe Niazi, a war hero who served for the U.S. in Afghanistan, as an interpreter. They say he lost both of his legs in combat, but had dedicated his life to helping Afghan immigrants find stability in Houston.
"He deserved books written about him, he was a hell of a man," said Niazi’s nephew, who doesn’t wish to share his name.
Niazi, who had spent his life helping others despite his own injuries, was known throughout the community for his kindness and selflessness. He spent much of his time offering assistance to underprivileged immigrants, many of whom did not speak English.
The suspect's connection
"He literally helped thousands of people around Houston, a lot of them underprivileged. The killer was like that as well," his nephew explained.
"My uncle helped him a lot of times, with his own money and time," the nephew added.
The phone call
Following the stabbing, records say Sahil took Niazi’s phone and answered it when Niazi’s wife called. During the call, Sahil admitted to the killing, according to records and Niazi’s family. His nephew says Niazi’s young son was also on the call when Sahil told them Niazi had been sent to the "afterlife."
"The mother called him to come and eat, and the man said, ‘We have sent him to the afterlife,’" the nephew said. "One of Niazi’s sons was also on the line and was traumatized by what he heard."
Niazi’s family is still reeling from the senseless loss, struggling to understand why Sahil, who Niazi had helped so many times, would commit such a violent act.
"I want the man to be held accountable as soon as possible. It’s completely unacceptable," the nephew said.
What you can do
As the family mourns, they have set up a GoFundMe page to help support Niazi's wife and children during this difficult time. The family is asking the community to come together and provide any assistance they can.
#1
The killer said that the processing of his refugee status was taking too long, so he killed the guy. Not joking here.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/30/2025 8:33
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#2
Biden’s State Dept was full of Pro-Taliban folks that did not leave after Trump’s inauguration. They continue to import Taliban folks and give them money. If Congress cuts of the weekly millions that are propping up the Taliban government, we are going to see this type of domestic issue get out of hand fast along with the leftist traitors claiming that we are starving Afghans. In reality, very little of our aid money is reaching the non-Taliban affiliated people. Those few resources that reach the poor are not coming with an American message. They are being presented as Taliban largesse.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 9:11
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[Rudaw] Germany will not provide funding for “Islamists” in Syria, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Rudaw in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, emphasizing that Berlin’s support for the new leadership in Damascus depends on the country’s leading a democratic and inclusive political process.
“Germany and Europe are not prepared to provide funding for Islamists. This is our clear message. We are ready to help them lift sanctions for reconstruction, but there must be a political process in which all parties and all actors participate,” Baerbock said.
In December, a coalition of opposition groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, toppled the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In late January, Sharaa was appointed as Syria’s interim president and pledged commitment to an inclusive political process.
Baerbock remarked on Wednesday, “We have heard many good words [from the new leadership in Damascus], but words and talk alone are not enough. If it's just talk, without action, Syria will continue to be in crisis, and our assistance depends on these principles.”
Last week, Baerbock led a high-profile delegation to Damascus, where she met with Sharaa and oversaw the reopening of Germany’s embassy after a 13-year diplomatic hiatus. She then emphasized that Germany is monitoring developments in Syria, and “has a paramount interest in a stable Syria.”
On Wednesday, the German foreign minister told Rudaw that during her trip to Syria, she told the new leadership in Damascus “clearly,” that if things advance “in the wrong direction, we will not support it.”
Germany is also a key member of the global coalition to defeat the Islamic State (ISIS). Baerbock told Rudaw that she had asked the interim Syrian government in Damascus, “very clearly, why don't you become part of the anti-ISIS coalition?”
Although Baerbock was keen on visiting northeast Syria (Rojava) during her Syria trip, she told Rudaw she couldn’t due to security concerns. However, she praised the Kurds in Rojava who “were able to protect their security and forced ISIS to retreat.” She urged Kurdish parties there to “decide which path to take,” and “in unity, make a joint decision to take this path together.”
The following is the full transcript of the discussion with Baerbock.
[X] Open Source Intel
@Osint613
🚨 Hamas has executed suspected spies in Gaza, according to Asharq Al-Awsat.
Sources say "revolutionary courts" convicted and executed individuals accused of espionage in areas where Hamas leaders were recently targeted. Investigations are ongoing with others.
The crackdown follows a wave of Israeli strikes and reports of intensified Israeli intelligence efforts during the recent ceasefire.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas operatives kidnapped, tortured and executed a 22-year-old Palestinian who participated in last week’s protests wave of protests against the terror group, according to his family.
Oday Nasser Al Rabay’s body was left in front of his family’s home over the weekend.
Many dozens were filmed participating in Rabay’s funeral procession earlier today, shouting “Hamas out!”
Hamas has reportedly been threatening Palestinians who participate in the protests against the terror group, but this appears to be the first time that anyone has been killed in connection to them.
The protests were held for three straight days last week, but none were held over the weekend.
The family of 22-year-old Odai Nasser Saadi Al-Rubai, who was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by Hamas militias, opened fire during his funeral and vowed to avenge his death.
Mourners turned the funeral into a protest against Hamas, chanting: "Hamas out, out!" pic.twitter.com/snKhFh6ZVH
[WahingtonFreeBeacon] ‘The cracker hit you on your jaw, you break his neck. That’s the way we think,’ Farrakhan said, prompting applause from Baraka
New Jersey gubernatorial candidate and Newark mayor Ras Baraka (D.) defended the Nation of Islam and accused critics of trying to silence him after a video surfaced showing him applauding racist and violent mostly peaceful comments from Louis Farrakhan, the group’s notorious anti-Semitic leader.
While serving as Newark’s deputy mayor in 2004, Baraka hosted Farrakhan to celebrate the first day of Kwanzaa. The Nation of Islam minister encouraged the mostly black audience to "break his neck" if "the cracker hit you on the jaw," called white people "the devil," and praised Baraka’s father. Baraka, for his part, called Farrakhan a "role model" whose teachings helped him "become a man" as a college student.
"The cracker hit you on your jaw, you break his neck. That’s the way we think," Farrakhan said, prompting Baraka—in the front row—to stand and applaud, video footage posted by the Nation of Islam shows.
After the video resurfaced, Baraka provided a lengthy statement to Jewish Insider on Thursday, saying he would "not be bullied."
"I will not be bullied or silenced into walking away from the fight for justice. I will not be cowed into denouncing my lifelong work for peace, equality, and equity," Baraka said. "These latest accusations and insinuations aren’t just false—they’re a reflection of the fear my candidacy is provoking in the political establishment."
"The Nation of Islam holds deep respect in many parts of the Black community because of the work they’ve done to reduce violence and support self-determination in neighborhoods that have been ignored and abandoned for generations," Baraka added.
The Nation of Islam and its leader have long histories of anti-Semitism. Farrakhan, for example, has compared Jews to "termites" and has praised Adolf Hitler ...late Fuehrer of Germany, founder of the Third Reich, currently communing with his pals Himmler and Heydrich. He is reincarnated every few days, sometimes every few hour if it's an election year, as a politician somebody doesn't like... as a "very great man." The Nation of Islam, meanwhile, sent a letter to several House Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... defending its leader, telling them not to listen to "Satanic Jews" in 2018.
Baraka, the mayor of New Jersey’s largest city, is a leading candidate in the race for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. He describes himself as an "underdog," even though he has the highest favorability among the six Democratic candidates jockeying for the governor’s mansion, according to a March 5 Fairleigh Dickinson University poll.
Farrakhan, during the 2004 speech, said the "cracker is the real devil" and praised Baraka’s father—another anti-Semite.
"You’re dealing with a devil, man. You’re not dealing with righteous people. This cracker is the real devil, and you better wake up and realize that," Farrakhan said.
"Ras Baraka came from a father that understood, ’You kill my cat, you lose your dog,’" he added.
Amiri Baraka, while serving as New Jersey’s poet laureate in 2002, wrote a poem suggesting that Jews had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
"Who knew the World Trade Center was gonna get bombed / Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers / To stay home that day / Why did Sharon stay away?" Amiri Baraka wrote in a poem titled, "Somebody Blew Up America."
Farrakhan, during the 2004 speech, said black people, not Jews, are the subject of biblical prophecies.
"You may think that’s talking about some Jews somewhere, but it’s talking about you," Farrakhan said to the predominantly black audience.
The younger Baraka, in his statement to Jewish Insider, denied any anti-Semitic accusations.
"I am not antisemitic. I have never been. And it’s offensive and irresponsible for anyone to suggest otherwise," he said. "Throughout my life, I’ve built bridges across communities, faiths, and backgrounds to stand for justice and peace."
"This is what happens when someone challenges a broken status quo that’s failed working people for decades," Baraka continued. "So let’s be clear, the people trying to twist my words and my record are the same ones who don’t show up for any community—not Black, not Jewish, not Latino, not South Asian, not working-class people from anywhere. These are people who rely on our collective division."
Baraka did, however, praise Farrakhan and his teachings during the 2004 event.
"It wasn’t until I heard the voice and the organization of the Nation of Islam and Minister Louis Farrakhan that I really began to try to stand up straight and get the courage that I needed to get to begin to organize in the community the way I should have," he said.
Baraka hosted Farrakhan again in 2017 while serving as Newark’s mayor to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the Million Man March.
"For all these years, the American taxpayers’ money has been given each year to Israel to maintain them on the land of the Paleostinians. So don’t you tell me that we have not earned by our sweat and blood—a land of our own and to obligate them," Farrakhan said. "Since we cannot get along with them in peace and equality after giving them 400 years of our sweat and blood and receiving in return some of the worst treatment human beings have ever experienced, we believe our contributions to this land and the suffering forced on us by white America justifies our demand for complete separation in a state or territory of our own."
Baraka, who did not return a request for comment, has not shied away from associating with anti-Israel groups while on the campaign trail. On March 11, he spoke at an anti-ICE rally that featured the Council on American-Islamic Relations ... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ... New Jersey, an anti-Semitic group that characterized Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... 's Oct. 7 attack on Israel as a prison break, calling it "inevitable" and "not unexpected."
[IsraelTimes] Bill would allow cops in England and Wales to control route and timing of protests near places of worship; similar restrictions in place in Australia’s New South Wales
The British government is pushing to let police block protests in front of places of worship, following a similar move earlier this year by Australian politicians.
The new measure in England, part of a policing bill currently moving through Parliament, would give police in England and Wales the ability to control the route and timing of protests that take place around places of worship, the Guardian reported.
The UK home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told a Jewish group on Wednesday that the provision is aimed at curbing protests outside synagogues. Pro-Paleostinian demonstrators have held regular rallies during the Israel-Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... war that began in 2023, and some of the routes have passed synagogues on Shabbat.
"The right to protest must not undermine a person’s right to worship. And everybody has a right to live in freedom from fear," she said at the annual dinner of the Community Security Trust, a Jewish security organization.
The initiative comes after organizers of a pro-Paleostinian protest planned in January for a Saturday in London fought police orders to move away from a synagogue. Cooper’s proposed amendments to the UK’s crime and policing bill would grant the police powers to enforce such orders.
"I have strongly supported action taken by the Metropolitan Police in recent weeks and months to divert protest routes away from synagogues on Saturday mornings," Cooper said at the CST dinner. "But I know how hard the community has had to fight for those conditions — each and every time. And I have listened to your calls for change."
Another amendment to the policing bill would also add London’s forthcoming Holocaust memorial to a list of memorials that are protected from people climbing on them.
Similar restrictions also came to the state of New South Wales in Australia last month, with the passage of a suite of laws that, in part, criminalized protest outside places of worship.
Worshipers at a synagogue in Melbourne were ordered to evacuate by police amid concerns over a nearby pro-Paleostinian demonstration in 2023, in a dramatic incident that came amid a threefold increase in antisemitic incidents in the year since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.
Reception to the New South Wales legislation was mixed, with some critics citing potential free speech concerns.
"I welcome the government’s commitment to addressing the terrible rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... , but we should be careful not to erode civil rights or chill genuine protest in the process," the lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, told The Guardian in February.
In England, Jewish groups expressed cautious optimism about Cooper’s announcement.
"For too long, protests on Shabbat have disrupted communal life at multiple Central London synagogues," the Jewish Leadership Council, which oversees Jewish organizations, said in a statement. "We look forward to seeing the details of any forthcoming amendments in the hope that they will adequately re-establish the balance between the right to protest and the rights of our community to practice our religion without fear and intimidation."
[IsraelTimes] A US federal judge in Massachusetts on Friday temporarily barred the deportation of a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University, who voiced support for Palestinians in Israel’s war in Gaza and was detained by US immigration officials this week.
Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, was taken into custody by US immigration authorities near her Massachusetts home on Tuesday, according to a video showing the arrest by masked federal agents. US officials revoked her visa.
The US Department of Homeland Security has accused Ozturk, without providing evidence, of “engaging in activities in support of Hamas,” a group which the US government categorizes as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
Her arrest came a year after Ozturk co-authored an opinion piece in Tufts’ student newspaper criticizing the university’s response to calls by students to divest from companies with ties to Israel and to “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide.”
A lawyer soon after sued to secure her release, and on Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union joined her legal defense team, filing a revised lawsuit saying her detention violates her rights to free speech and due process.
Despite a Tuesday night order requiring the PhD student and Fulbright Scholar not to be moved out of Massachusetts without 48 hours’ notice, she was now in Louisiana.
In Friday’s order, US District Judge Denise Casper in Boston said that to provide time to resolve whether her court retained jurisdiction over the case, she was barring Ozturk’s deportation temporarily.
She ordered the Trump administration to respond to Ozturk’s complaint by Tuesday.
Mahsa Khanbabai, a lawyer for Ozturk, called the decision “a first step in getting Rumeysa released and back home to Boston so she can continue her studies.”
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
03/30/2025 5:50
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[Iranian] Mahsa Khanbabai is founder of Khanbabai Immigration Law, a boutique firm focusing on health care workers, employment-based immigration and consular visa processing issues, her dedication for this work stemming from her own J2 to US citizen experience. She is an elected Director of AILA’s Board of Governors, serves on the AILA’s USCIS and Equity Belonging Committees. Mahsa has been a vocal national advocate on issues ranging from the Muslim/Africa Travel Ban, Deferred Action, the Afghan and Palestinian immigration crisis and consular delays. She continues to advocate for clients and reform by engaging with elected officials, agencies, and media sources.
[CollegeFix] But some pro-Israel individuals on campus still fear speaking out
The University of Washington, following a year-long surge of anti-Israel protests on campus, reaffirmed its commitment to protecting the Jewish community in response to a recent warning letter from the Trump administration.
The public university was one of 60 that received letters from the U.S. Department of Education this month, warning that the federal government could pull their funding if they “do not fulfill their obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jewish students on campus.”
Spokesperson Victor Balta told The College Fix the university “stands firmly against antisemitism.”
“The University of Washington … agreed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights earlier this year to five actions that will strengthen the UW’s commitment to timely and effective responses to complaints filed by students, faculty and staff,” he said.
According to the agreement, these actions include: reviewing and updating policies and procedures; reporting regularly to the Office of Civil Rights on its work; providing “regular training” to employees on “discrimination” and “harassment,” as well as anti-discrimination training for students and employees; and conducting a “climate assessment” to evaluate its progress.
Balta told The Fix the March 10 letter from the Office of Civil Rights has “no indication that a new investigation is underway or that the terms of the agreement we announced in January have changed.
When asked about antisemitism on campus, one student, Sophia, told The Fix she believes many “don’t understand that Zionism is simply the belief that Israel has the right to exist as a country.” She asked that her full name not be used due to concerns about discrimination.
“Given that, it seems like Jewish students who believe historically displaced Jews should have land to live on and the right to share religious sites are considered anti-Palestinian, even if they do not support Israeli government actions,” she said.
“This exacerbates antisemitic discourse on campus and promotes division where there is already a lack of understanding on both sides,” Sophia said.
The university recently received a “D” on the Anti-Defamation League’s campus report card. The report cited high levels of “hostile anti-Zionist student government activity,” “hostile anti-Zionist student groups,” and “hostile anti-Zionist staff and faculty activity.”
A Hillel spokesperson declined to comment, and noted that The Fix may struggle to find students willing to speak about the issue due to “fear of retaliation.”
Meanwhile, anti-Israel groups are active on campus. Students United for Palestinian Equality & Return organized two protests in February, where over 100 people gathered on campus in support of the Palestinian movement.
“Our fight was never about the ceasefire. The fight is for a single Palestinian state, from the river to the sea,” SUPER UW spokesperson Noah Weidht stated, according to The Daily, UW’s student newspaper.
When the Trump administration sent its warning letter, Education Secretary Linda McMahon expressed disappointment that many universities are doing too little to protect Jewish students.
“The Department is deeply disappointed that Jewish students studying on elite U.S. campuses continue to fear for their safety amid the relentless antisemitic eruptions that have severely disrupted campus life for more than a year. University leaders must do better,” McMahon stated in a news release.
“U.S. colleges and universities benefit from enormous public investments funded by U.S. taxpayers. That support is a privilege and it is contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws,” she said.
[Townhall] After more than 45 years of holy manal dictatorship, the Iranian people deserve freedom. The Islamic Theocratic Republic is a terrorist regime responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths in Iran ...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate JewsZionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol... and across the region.
A diplomatic belief in reform was always a fool’s game for two simple reasons: First, Iranian elections cannot change a regime policy set by unelected figures like Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> . Second, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exists solely to protect the theocratic regime from the Iranian people. Diplomats are naïve to believe that regime reformism is real; in reality, the reformers entrap Western officials in a game of good cop-bad cop. As former Iranian President Muhammad Khatami’s front man explained in 2008, "We had an overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities."
As former Iranian President Muhammad Khatami’s front man explained in 2008, "We had an overt policy, which was one of negotiation and confidence building, and a covert policy, which was continuation of the activities."
The irony of the Iranian regime is that it has greater legitimacy among the West’s useful idiots than it does among the Iranian people. For more than a quarter century, Iranians have poured out into the streets with increasing frequency. The murder of Jina "Mahsa" Amini "Woman, Life, Freedom" Movement was the last straw for many Iranians, who openly called for death to Khamenei. Such an event may not be far off: Iran’s dictator is 85-years-old, has had cancer, and is partially paralyzed from a 1981 liquidation attempt.
Iranians have myriad views about what comes next, though they also have remarkable consensus on three things:
First, they do not want external regime change. Iran is not Iraq. They want support, but will win freedom themselves, not at the barrel of a foreign gun. Second, they do not want Iran divided. When Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Iran in 1980, he spoke about cleaving away "Arabistan," his name for the traditionally Arab-populated, oil-producing province of Khuzestan. Iranians rightly rallied to defend their country from Iraq, but the distraction of war allowed Revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to wrap himself in a nationalist flag to avoid accountability for his revolution’s failures and betrayal. The third point of consensus is disdain for the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO).
This third point remains interwoven with the first two in the minds of most Iranians. The MKO—and Maryam Rajavi, for 40-years, its president-elect—were once fierce proponents of Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution. Rajavi has a right to be personally furious with Khomeini: Like he did with so many other supporters, he betrayed Rajavi and the MKO. Many MKO members fled to Iraq, Iran’s archrival that was at the time killing Iranian conscripts after having invaded the country. Most Iranians despise Khomeini—how else to explain why they would put dog excrement into his tomb—but they could not understand a group allying itself with an Arab dictator bent upon dismantling Iran itself.
Ultimately, Iranians will determine their own future, hopefully through a democratic process once the theocracy collapses. Some Iranians may support the son of the late shah as a unifying figure who can preside over a constitutional convention. Others may prefer a president, and still others may advocate for a parliamentary system presided over by a prime minister. Ethnic or religious groups dominant in one province or another may also seek greater local decision-making. Most Iranian groups debate such structures and cooperate with those with whom they disagree.
The MKO, however, stands apart in vision, in opacity, and in tactics. While Iranian women risk their lives for freedom from forced veiling, not only does Rajavi strictly cover herself, but she also requires that all the women of her group cover their hair. What Iranians want is not a different flavor of Islamic Theocratic Republic, but rather no Islamic Theocratic Republic.
Iranians also want democracy. Too many once believed Khomeini’s promises of democracy; they realize the danger of insincere promises. This translates into deep suspicion about the MKO. After all, how can a group that embraced first Khomeini and then Saddam stand for democracy? To suggest the MKO is pro-American is risible. Prior to the Islamic Revolution, the MKO killed American businessmen and military officers. While that was hardly unique among leftist groups during the Cold War, what makes the MKO different today is it denies its history rather than apologizes for it. Indeed, when Americans are not in the room its anti-Americanism flourishes.
The biggest problem with the MKO, however, is that it actively undermines grassroots opposition by disrupting events that do not pay homage to Rajavi or libeling or slandering those who raise questions about the MKO’s record.
I have been a victim of MKO tactics. Ali Safavi, a member of the foreign affairs committee of the National Council of Resistance® of Iran, the political umbrella for the MKO, has six columns here libeling me in response to my criticism of the MKO. None of his columns address criticisms I made about the MKO. Rather, Safavi’s responses range from the bizarre to the conspiratorial: He accuses me of being an Iranian regime agent because, in his imagination, American Jews who worked in President George W. Bush’s administration and have advocated for regime change in Commentary and the Wall Street Journal over a quarter century must be closet Islamists. Sure, I went to Iran. Yale University funded me. I wrote my dissertation on telegraphy in 19th century Iran and penned several spinoff articles about Persian cryptology, Armenian and Baha’i telegraph workers, and the like. That no more makes me an Iranian agent than the many American students that the regime subsequently took hostage. By Safavi’s logic, am I also al Qaeda because I went to the Taliban ...the once and current oppressors of Afghanistan... ’s Afghanistan? Am I a communist because I went to Cuba? In reality, my job is to study how rogue regimes think, and I consider the Islamic Theocratic Republic the marquee rogue.
Washington policy debate is rough-and-tumble. During the Iraq war, partisans cast aspersions easily. Those that Safavi repeats—about my supposed role shepherding Ahmad Chalabi—originated in convicted fraudster Lyndon LaRouche’s magazine (Actually, I worked mostly with Iraqi Kurds). Ditto, a New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... news hound once accused me of being part of the Lincoln Group, which planted news stories in the Iraqi press. Sorry, Ali. Congress investigated the Lincoln Group; I was not part of it. Don’t be the only Townhall columnist that takes the New York Times at face value. And don’t be the only Iranian who, with the Chalabi calumny, appears to lament Saddam’s fall.
I’ve got thick skin, but such tactics matter. First, how can Washington policymakers take the MKO seriously when it cites LaRouche as a reliable source? Or deflects policy debate with ad hominem attacks? Or argues that security-cleared, American Jewish neoconservative Iran hawks are really just closet Revolutionary Guards agents?
More seriously, the aspersions Safavi casts toward me are mild compared to how the MKO treats the Iranian opposition. Rather than work jointly toward the goal of ending an odious regime in Tehran, the MKO would rather attack any Iranians who do not blindly submit to Rajavi, live in her group homes, and fork over their income and, in some cases, children.
During the Cold War, there were Communists, anti-Communists, and anti-anti-Communists who cared more about knocking down critics of the Soviet Union than about defeating the Evil Empire itself. This is the dynamic now at play with the MKO as it obsessively attacks critics of the Islamic Theocratic Republic. There could be no bigger gift to Khamenei than the MKO’s efforts to delegitimize its critics.
[RedState] Multiple Turning Point USA staffers were assaulted in Dallas on Tuesday, and the whole incident was caught on video. The suspected perpetrator expeditiously departed at a goodly pace but was quickly tracked down and arrested. That's where the story gets even more predictable, as you'll see momentarily.
TPUSA Chapter president Paige Neumann and her secretary were handing out materials on the campus of the University of Texas at Dallas when they were approached by an angry person on a bike. Things escalated from there, with the assailant striking them with a heavy-duty bike lock. You can see the moment of the attack in the video posted below. Another video shows them making their escape.
JUST IN — Our Chapter President, Paige Neumann, and her secretary Grace were just assaulted while tabling at the University of Texas at Dallas.
The attacker took a metal bike lock and slammed it against Paige's head (pictured below), hitting her so hard that it completely… pic.twitter.com/xgG5QqbqOc
…that it completely shattered Paige's phone. It's unclear if the perpetrator is female or trans.
Paige has filed a police report with University Police who are thankfully taking this matter seriously and are currently searching for the individual.
Thankfully, Paige and her chapter VP Grace (whose phone was also destroyed) are both physically doing okay.
Our
@TPUSA
students are the tip of the spear on college campuses across the country. They are brave, strong, and resilient. Thank God for these amazing students.
A police report was quickly filed, and to their credit, local law enforcement made an arrest that evening. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the attacker appears to be a transgender. individual. Liam Thanh Tam Nguyen, who was wearing a skirt and exposed bra or bikini top during the assault, is a man.
If you read through the list of charges, it's clear Nguyen didn't go quietly. Aside from being charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, he was also charged for resisting arrest, assault on a police officer, and attempting to take a weapon from an officer. The body cam footage must have been wild.
This will continue to happen until real deterrence is established. Because the far-left has turned "transgenderism" into a lauded, protected class, there is a sense of entitlement and lack of accountability that has led to an increase in violence. Perhaps Nguyen should have considered that he wasn't in Washington or Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, though. Assuming he's convicted of one or more of the charges, Texas courts are more likely to come down hard regarding sentencing.
Unfortunately, left-wing politicians, including Texas' own Rep. Jasmine Crockett, are continuing to stoke the flames of hatred, possibly inciting violence along the way. Days before this attack, the congresswoman proclaimed that people should "punch" their political opponents. Other Democrats ...every time you hear the phrase white people, white supremacy,white anything but paint, you're listening to a Democrat. Ask him/her/it to reimagine something for you; they do that a lot, though not well. They can hear a dog whistle a mile or two away. They invented the spoils system and Tammany Hall, and inspired the addition of the word (Thomas) Nasty to the English language. They want to stop continental drift and repeal the law of unintended side effects... have also made similar statements regarding attacking Telsa as a way to get back at Elon Musk.
The left never sits idly by, and you can expect things to get much worse over the next four years as they cope with not only being out of power but also a society that is rejecting their deranged ideologies.
#2
Gotta have tall buildings to throw them off, right?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2025 8:51
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^2
Tehran International Tower would suit the purpose well. It is 50+ stories tall and the IRNG owns several apartments (probably entire floors) in the building.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/30/2025 12:10
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An offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Tuesday said the group cannot lay down arms or dissolve unless political and legal reforms are made.
Bese Hozat, the co-chair of the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK), said the Turkish government has not taken any steps for the process to progress. "The fundamental requirement for the PKK to lay down its arms is the formation of a democratic political and legal dimension. Without this, the PKK cannot lay down its arms or dissolve itself,” she emphasized.
PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan issued a historic message in late February telling the group to convene a congress and “make the decision to integrate with the state and society; all groups should lay down their arms and the PKK should dissolve itself.”
The message was relayed through the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party), which has been mediating peace efforts between Ankara and the PKK, including holding meetings with Ocalan.
In October, Devlet Bahceli, leader of Turkey’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), called on Abdullah Ocalan to address the Turkish parliament and announce the dissolution of the PKK. He also suggested that Ocalan should benefit from the “right to hope” law, which could pave the way for his release if certain conditions are met.
However, Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc has repeatedly stated that there is no legal basis for granting Ocalan any right to release under the "right to hope" regulation. The law concerns prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment who are otherwise ineligible for conditional release.
Ocalan, who founded the PKK in 1978 and launched a war against the Turkish state six years later, has been jailed on Imrali Island since 1999. The PKK leader’s message sparked hope for an end to the conflict that has taken 40,000 lives.
"You are starting such a serious process; of course, you will change the legislation. If you are serious and sincere, you will change that legislation," Hozat said, commenting on Tunc’s position.
Following Ocalan’s message, the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire but set their leader’s release from prison as a precondition to laying down arms and disbanding. The group said it cannot make such decisions without the physical attendance of their leader at the congress he urged for.
[ShabelleMedia] The Somali government has successfully repatriated 145 citizens who had endured significant hardships in Libya, continuing its efforts to support citizens facing difficulties abroad.
Of the returnees, 37 arrived at Hargeisa International Airport, while the remaining 108 landed at Aden Adde International Airport in Mogadishu.
In the capital, they were greeted by Hon. Isak Mohamud Mursal, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, alongside other government officials.
The repatriation is part of Somalia’s ongoing efforts to assist nationals who have been exploited and mistreated in foreign countries, with a particular focus on Libya, where many have faced severe conditions.
This operation highlights the Somali government’s commitment to safeguarding the welfare of its citizens overseas and addressing the challenges confronting the Somali diaspora.
[CollegeFix] Yale Law School has terminated the contract of research scholar Helyeh Doutaghi over alleged ties to a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, Samidoun.
The Buckley Beacon independent student newspaper reported Friday that the move comes after she was put on administrative leave March 5.
Alden Ferro, a spokesperson for Yale Law School, told the Beacon: “Over the last three weeks Yale has repeatedly requested to meet with Doutaghi and her attorney to obtain clarifying information and resolve this matter. Unfortunately, she has refused to meet to provide any responses to critical questions, including whether she has ever engaged in prohibited activity with organizations or individuals who were placed on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list (‘SDN list’).”
“As a result of her refusal to cooperate with this investigation, Ms. Doutaghi’s employment with Yale — which was set to expire this April — has been terminated effective immediately.”
The terror-ties allegations were first reported by the Jewish Onliner on March 2 and quickly picked up by the Beacon.
Doutaghi had been a deputy director of the Law and Political Economy Project at Yale Law School since Sep 2023. Her position was set to expire shortly.
The U.S. Treasury Department stated that Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a “sham charity that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization” in a 2024 news release designating the group as a terror organization.
Doutaghi was identified by Samidoun itself as a “doctoral student of international law and a member of the international Samidoun network” in a July 2022 article.
On March 17, a petition was launched in Doutaghi’s defense, accusing Yale of unfairly railroading her based on anonymous, AI-researched allegations. It has more than 1,000 signatures thus far from professors in the U.S. and Canada.
“Dr. Doutaghi is an internationally recognized and published scholar of international law, political economy, and armed conflict. She completed her PhD in Legal Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) in 2024,” the petition states.
“Her PhD Thesis examined the origin, mechanisms, and effects of US and international sanctions against Iran. Throughout her studies, she has always advocated for the rights and self-determination of oppressed people, including Palestinians,” it states.
“We call on Yale University, Yale Law School, and the Law and Political Economy Project to take accountability for the measures taken against Dr. Doutaghi, including restitution of damages and a public statement clearing Dr. Doutaghi’s name and restoring her reputation.”
The Jewish Onliner reported that Doutaghi participated in an April 2022 panel titled “Palestine and Iran – Changing the Global Balance of Power” with Khaled Barakat, designated as a PFLP terrorist by the U.S.
Masar Badil, the organization that hosted the panel, is also considered to be a PFLP front.
In April 2023, Doutaghi participated in the “Liberation Conference” in Ottawa hosted by Masar Badil and posed for a photo under a Samidoun flag. Other attendees included Charlotte Kates, a senior Samidoun member and the wife of Khaled Barakat.
Doutaghi was scheduled to speak at a postponed October 2024 panel she organized titled “The Resistance Front and the New Global Order-Making,” which was sponsored by Samidoun. Khaled Barakat was also listed as a scheduled speaker.
[Rudaw] The Kurdistan Region Refugee Association says that migration rates have seen a decline with only 30,500 citizens migrating since 2023.
Head of the Kurdistan Region Refugee Association, Abubakir Ali, told Rudaw on Tuesday that "between 2023 and 2024, more than 21,000 people from across the Kurdistan Region migrated to European countries. Of this number, around 3,500 were from the Raparin area," northeast of the Region.
Ali further explained that between 2024 and 2025, nearly 8,000 people migrated from the Kurdistan Region, most of them young people. Of this number, 2,300 were from Raparin as well.
As for the migration recorded since the beginning of this year, the head of the Kurdistan Region Refugee Association said that "fortunately, the migration rate has significantly decreased this year."
Ali stated that according to preliminary and unofficial data, more than 1,500 people migrated from the Kurdistan Region during the first three months of this year.
He linked the decline in migration rates from the Kurdistan Region to a reduction in the attractiveness of European countries for migrants colonists, particularly due to their stricter policies to address illegal migration.
As the rest of American academia watches and worries about their own fates.
[IsraelTimes] Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil will remain behind bars in Louisiana at least until a US judge decides whether the Palestinian activist should challenge his imprisonment in a federal court there or in New Jersey.
US President Donald Trump’s administration argues that Khalil’s challenge should be heard in Louisiana where he is now detained and where any appeals would be heard by the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the most conservative in the country.
The Trump administration is defending the arrest of Khalil by immigration agents this month in a case that tests the government’s efforts to deport pro-Palestinian activists who have not been charged with any crime.
Khalil’s lawyers have asked Farbiarz to release him from jail in Louisiana while he challenges the government’s effort to deport him in a separate case in immigration court. They say Trump’s administration improperly targeted him for his political views and prominence in student protests.
They say Khalil, 30, should be with his wife Noor Abdalla, a US citizen who attended today’s hearing, for the birth of their first child in April. He spent several hours in a New Jersey detention facility after his arrest in neighboring Manhattan.
The government has asked the judge either to move the case to a federal court in Louisiana or to dismiss the proceeding so Khalil can challenge his arrest in Louisiana.
The Trump administration said it has revoked the visas of hundreds of foreign students it says took part in the protests that swept college campuses protesting the US government’s military support of Israel. The government says Khalil and other international students who take part are harming US foreign policy interests.
The government has accused Khalil of not disclosing in his application that he was what it called a “member” of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency known as UNRWA. UNRWA and his lawyers said Khalil completed an unpaid internship at UNRWA’s New York office as part of his Columbia master’s degree program, which was listed on his application.
The government also accused Khalil of failing to disclose what it described as his “continued employment” in the British embassy in Beirut “beyond 2022.”
Khalil’s lawyers say he correctly put on the application that he left the job when he left Beirut, and a spokesperson for Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said earlier this month that Khalil ended his employment with the embassy more than two years ago.
[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump’s administration has announced plans to effectively close the US international development agency USAID, formalizing widely criticized plans to dramatically cut foreign aid spending.
“Today, the Department of State and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) have notified Congress on their intent to undertake a reorganization that would involve realigning certain USAID functions to the Department by July 1, 2025,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says in a statement.
The State Department, he said, also plans on “discontinuing the remaining USAID functions that do not align with Administration priorities.”
“Unfortunately, USAID strayed from its original mission long ago,” he says. “As a result, the gains were too few and the costs were too high.”
After taking office in January, Republican President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing US foreign aid for 90 days.
Dramatic cuts to various USAID programs followed, with some exemptions granted for vital humanitarian aid.
The aid freeze has caused shock and dismay at the independent agency created by an act of the US Congress in 1961.
Prior to its closure, the agency managed an annual budget of close to $43 billion, accounting for more than 40 percent of the world’s humanitarian aid. Most of its staff were placed on administrative leave shortly after Trump took office.
USAID staff were informed in a memo on Friday of plans to eliminate all jobs not required by law, according to multiple US media organizations.
In the memo, Jeremy Lewin, the acting head of the independent agency, reportedly said the State Department also planned to retire most of USAID’s independent operations in the coming months.
2026 Congress passes new budget for USAID II.
Seeing a need to refill the DC political pockets and various NGO's that kick a % of the $$$$$ back as Campaign donations.
#2
Based on the new ability of Trump to transfer money from Dept to Dept at will, funding USAID or DOE further just gives Trump a slush fund he can use on the border. With USAID programs transferred to State, we are still likely continuing to fund the Taliban as State is full of Taliban supporters. Getting rid of those folks and those programs ought to remain a priority for us.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 8:48
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[IsraelTimes] Turkish authorities release a lawyer for jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival, after detaining him overnight, an attorney for the lawyer says.
Imamoglu, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), leads Erdogan in some polls. He was jailed pending trial over allegations of graft on Sunday, provoking the largest anti-government protests in more than a decade, which have led to mass arrests nationwide.
Mehmet Pehlivan, a lawyer who defended Imamoglu in the latest investigation, was detained “for fabricated reasons,” CHP lawmaker Turan Taskin Ozer says in a post on X, without giving details.
Pehlivan’s lawyer, Yigit Gokcehan Kocoglu, says on X that his client was detained “not for doing anything, but simply for being our Mayor Ekrem’s lawyer and for doing his advocacy job.” He says the detention was meant as a “warning.”
Kocoglu says Pehlivan had been asked during his questioning about a money transfer that Pehlivan had not carried out, as well as a donation to a charity. Pehlivan was barred from travelling abroad upon his release, his lawyer said, adding they would appeal.
The interior and justice ministries did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Imamoglu, who was replaced by an interim mayor on Wednesday, had demanded the immediate release of his lawyer.
“As if the coup on democracy wasn’t enough, they can’t stand the victims of this coup defending themselves,” Imamoglu says on X.
[IsraelTimes] Police stopped a bus carrying left-wing activists who were en route to a rally in the northern Arab down of Sakhnin in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
Footage from the bus shows officers boarding and searching the belongings of those present. Officers confiscated signs, Palestinian flags, Palestinian keffiyehs and t-shirts, according to Haaretz.
[IsraelTimes] The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has suspended its research partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank, the school’s Crimson newspaper reports.
The partnership between HSPH’s François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights (FXB) and Birzeit expired in recent months. HSPH decided not to renew the partnership after conducting a review of FXB, an HSPH spokesperson tells The Crimson.
The spokesperson says HSPH will decide in the spring whether to permanently halt the partnership.
The HSPH spokesperson claims that the review into FXB was part of its standard review of its various centers. But the review only came after a letter from 28 Republican lawmakers demanding that Harvard sever ties with Birzeit University, citing ties between members of the latter school’s student government and several West Bank terror groups.
There would have been much more to find, I imagine, had the IAF not been so busy in Syrian skies since 2011.
[IsraelTimes] Chemical weapons inspectors have been taken by Syria’s caretaker authorities to previously unseen production and storage locations dating from the rule of Bashar al-Assad, who was toppled three months ago, sources say.
A team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) visited Syria from March 12-21 to prepare for the task of locating and destroying remnants of Assad’s illegal stockpile. Five locations were visited by inspectors, some of which had been looted or bombed.
Among them were locations that had not been declared to the watchdog by the Assad government, they said. The team was given access to documents and detailed information about Assad’s chemical weapons program, the sources say, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential details.
“The Syrian caretaker authorities extended all possible support and cooperation at short notice,” the agency says in a summary of the visit posted online. The OPCW was provided with security escorts and had “unfettered access” to sites and people, it says. No additional details were made public.
The cooperation signals a dramatic improvement in relations from the past decade, during which Syrian officials under Assad stonewalled OPCW inspectors.
The visit illustrates that Syria’s interim authorities are making good on a promise to work with the international community to destroy Assad’s chemical weapons, said a diplomatic source briefed on the matter.
The destruction of any remaining chemical weapons was on a list of conditions the United States has provided to Syria if it wants to see sanctions relief, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Three inquiries – by a joint UN-OPCW mechanism, the OPCW’s Investigation and Identification team, and a UN war crimes probe – concluded that Syrian government forces under Assad used the nerve agent sarin and chlorine barrel bombs in attacks during the civil war that killed or injured thousands.
Assad and his Russian military backers always denied using chemical weapons in the conflict, which began in 2011 and left hundreds of thousands dead.
Assad-led Syria joined the agency under a US-Russian deal following a 2013 sarin gas attack that killed hundreds. Around 1,300 metric tons of chemical weapons and precursors were destroyed.
Experts at the OPCW believe there are still undeclared stocks and want to visit more than 100 locations where they are believed to have been made or stockpiled by forces under Assad. The OPCW is preparing to open a field office in Syria, where a recent surge in violence has triggered heightened security concerns.
The OPCW, a treaty-based agency in The Hague with 193 member countries, is tasked with implementing the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention.
[IsraelTimes] The United States has issued fresh sanctions aimed at Hezbollah that target five individuals and three entities.
The State Department says in a statement that the sanctions targeted Hezbollah’s finance team, “which oversees commercial projects and oil smuggling networks that generate revenue for” the group.
The sanctions’ targets included family members and close associates of prominent Hezbollah officials, the State Department says.
Not terribly informative — usually names are named.
[IsraelTimes] Hezbollah says it has canceled an event planned for later today in Beirut’s southern suburbs, a stronghold of the terror group, after an Israeli strike hit the area.
“In view of the Zionist aggression on the southern suburbs, it was decided to cancel the Quds Day event,” a statement says, referring to an annual commemoration launched by Iran in support of Palestinians. The site of the planned gathering, at which Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem was due to give a televised address, is located several hundred meter from where the strike
[IsraelTimes] Tehran will strike US bases in the region if Washington follows through on its warning of military consequences for Iran in the absence of a new nuclear deal, the speaker of the Iranian parliament says.
US President Donald Trump said earlier this month that he had sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warning that “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal.”
“If the Americans attack the sanctity of Iran, the entire region will blow up like a spark in an ammunition dump,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Qalibaf says.
“Their bases and those of their allies will not be safe,” Qalibaf says in a live speech at the annual Al-Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, that marks the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
Khamenei called Trump’s message deceptive, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday that talks would be impossible unless Washington changed its “maximum pressure” policy. Iran had thoroughly examined Trump’s letter and had sent “an appropriate response” through Oman, Araqchi said.
Earlier today, Araqchi was reported by state media as saying that while Trump’s letter contained threats, it also left the door open to diplomacy. He did not elaborate.
Western powers accuse Iran of having a clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its program is wholly for civilian energy purposes, although a UN nuclear watchdog report last month asserted that it is the only non-nuclear weapon state to produce such high quantities of nuclear materials.
[IsraelTimes] Demonstrators take to the streets of Tehran to take part in an annual Quds Day protest as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> urged the Iranian people to show support for Paleostinians and protest against "the enemies’ tricks."
Crowds wave Iranian and Paleostinian flags as well as those of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah and Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... ’s Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... rebels.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is in attendance, as well as Quds Force commander Esmail Qaani, Tehran Times reports.
Many hold placards demanding "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and are chanting anti-US and anti-Israel slogans, an AFP journalist says.
"Your march on Quds Day will nullify all the enemies’ tricks and false words," Khamenei said in a video message yesterday.
Quds (Jerusalem) Day commemorations were launched in 1979 by the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The marches call for Jerusalem to be returned to the Paleostinians and are traditionally held on the last Friday of the Moslem holy month of Ramadan.
[IsraelTimes] Members of minority groups including a Christian woman, a Kurd, and and an Alawite given cabinet positions as Damascus aims to convince West to lift crippling sanctions
Syria’s new transitional government was sworn in Saturday, nearly four months after the Assad family was removed from power and as the new authorities in Damascus work to bring back stability to the war-torn country.
The 23-member Cabinet, which is religiously and ethnically mixed, is the first in the country’s five-year transitional period and replaces the interim government that was formed shortly after Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now... was removed from power in early December.
The Cabinet does not have a prime minister since, according to the temporary constitution signed by interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa earlier this month, the government will have a secretary general.
The government includes new faces apart from the ministers of foreign affairs and defense, who have been kept in the posts they held in the interim government. Syria’s new Interior Minister Anas Khattab was until recently the head of the intelligence department.
"The formation of a new government today is a declaration of our joint will to build a new state," Sharaa said in a speech marking the formation of the government.
Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra said his main goal will be to build a professional army "from the people and for the people."
The government did not include members of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces or the autonomous civil administration in northeast Syria. Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi signed a breakthrough deal earlier this month in Damascus on a nationwide ceasefire and the merging of the US-backed force into the Syrian army.
Among those whose names were announced late Saturday night was Hind Kabawat, who became the first woman appointed to the new government.
Kabawat, a Christian activist and vocal opponent of Assad since the start of the civil war in 2011, was named minister of minister of social affairs and labor.
Raed Saleh, who for years headed the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, was named minister for emergency disasters, and Damascus-based Syrian Kurd Mohammed Terko was named minister of education.
Mohammed al-Bashir, who has headed Syria’s interim government since Assad’s fall, was named minister of energy. He will mainly be tasked with restoring the electricity and oil sectors that were badly damaged during the 14-year civil war.
The new government’s main mission is to try and bring a decisive end to the war and bring stability to the country, which witnessed festivities and Dire Revenge killings earlier this month along the coastal region that is home to members of the minority Alawite sect, to which Assad belongs. The violence left more than 1,000 people, mostly Alawites, dead.
Most of Syria’s bad boy groups now running the country are Sunni Moslems, but the presence of members of minority sects including an Alawite, as well as a woman, is a message from Sharaa to Western countries that have been demanding that women and minorities be part of Syria’s political process.
The announcement of a religiously mixed government aims to try to convince Western countries to lift crippling economic sanctions that were imposed on Assad more than a decade ago. The UN says that 90% of Syrians are below the poverty line, while millions face cuts in food aid as a result of the war.
Hours before the government was announced, the US State Department cautioned US citizens of the increased possibility of attacks during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which it said could target embassies, international organizations and Syrian public institutions in Damascus. It added that methods of attack could include, but are not limited to, individual attackers, armed button men, or the use of bombs.
[IsrelTomes] Hamas has provided information to hostage-ceasefire deal mediators on the health situation of US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander, Egyptian sources tell the Saudi Al Arabiya network.
Alexander’s release has been put forth as a condition in proposals to renew the ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza.
[Clarice Feldman @ AT] While numerous federal district court judges have issued ill-conceived restraining orders against the administration, I have long believed that it will prevail in its efforts to place control of the state in the hands of the elected executive, away from the deep state bureaucracy and its black-robed judicial allies. As the litigation of these matters proceeds, I think my belief will be justified. We will return to a constitutional republican form of government. For a day-to-day look at the progress of these multiple cases, I urge you to go to X and follow Professor Margot Cleveland, who is (bless her) keeping track of them and providing links to the pleadings and orders.
In a sign that the Administration was prepared for this eventuality, the next day, the Solicitor General filed a motion to vacate the order in the Supreme Court. I concur with Bill Shipley’s take:
This is the third case this week where DOJ has raised this issue before the Supreme Court. Earlier it asked SCOTUS to vacate the Injunction issued by the federal judge in San Francisco ordering the reinstatement of approximately 16,000 employees who were terminated while still in their probationary period. The Court has ordered the plaintiffs in that case to respond to the DOJ motion by today.
Yesterday DOJ filed a motion seeking to vacate the order by a Judge in Massachusetts that the Administration restore $65 million in grants to states to address teacher shortages because the grants expressly required that DEI be used in the decision-making for hiring new teachers. The Administration demanded that the DEI conditions be removed, and the states refused.
At first glance these three cases may not seem to have much in common beyond the fact that single district judges in three different locations -- Washington D.C., Boston, and San Francisco -- have used their positions to obstruct the efforts of the Administration [snip] The California case, where it was ordered by a federal judge to reinstate 16,000 terminated employees, goes to its power over the Executive branch in making efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce and make it operate in a more efficient manner.
Taking up the case involving the grants for hiring teachers goes to its authority to reverse policies -- not laws -- of the Biden Administration requiring the consideration of DEI issues in hiring. The Trump Administration policy is the opposite -- if a state wants federal money, it must accept the strings that come attached.
Now taking up the Venezuelan TdA removal case is an expression of Executive power under Article II to deal with national security threats within our borders, involving citizens of quasi-hostile foreign countries who have been identified based on their dangerousness, not their nationality. The district judge has rushed in to assert that their individual rights -- to the extent alien enemies sent to unlawfully enter the United States by a hostile foreign government have any rights
Darn it — I want to write like that!
-- are elevated above the power of the Executive Branch to deal with the threat they pose.
The Executive’s default position is “We’ve identified them as alien enemies who pose a threat to the peace and safety of U.S. citizens and must be removed.”
This philosophy works for the 300+ pro-Hamas activists whose student visas and green cards have thus far been yanked, too.
In sum, as Shipley writes, the Department of Justice is telling the Supreme Court that these rulings by district courts have “become so commonplace that the Executive Branch’s basic functions are in peril,” and the Supreme Court needs to act, the sooner, the better.
Her next section is the meaning of DOGE at the CIA, which has me cheering.
The legal attacks are intended to sink DOGE before the DOGE team heads out to Langley and Deep State Central.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2025
10:26 ||
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#1
Not even remotely the end of the fight.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/30/2025 14:39
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[BBC] "I reckon my schoolfriends think I'm mad. They probably thought I would give up - but I haven't."
Bridgette Baker is a 24-year-old, fifth-generation farmer who farms alongside her dad and grandad in the gently sloping fields of south Somerset.
It's a beef and arable farm, with a few lambs and pigs for their meat business selling to local customers.
With some farmers angry with the government over inheritance tax rules and changes to farm payments, why would a young person want to stay in the industry these days?
"At school, we weren't encouraged to go into farming. It's such a shame," said Bridgette.
"Everyone thought: 'Oh, you're clever enough to do something else.'
"People don't think farmers are clever, but it's the most complicated job. You have got to be really intelligent to be a farmer."
#3
She's feeding her friends and a bunch of other folks.
She's a farmer because she wants to be. Her friends and the other "Cool" kids are lucky they don't HAVE to be farmers to stay alive.
[Red State] If you feel there’s something different about the second Trump administration, you’re not alone: many have noted that he and his team have brought a more focused, more effective, and frankly more seasoned effort than the first time the incredibly successful real estate mogul and reality television star was able to bring during his first go at the job.
He had four long years to study, and boy, did he learn. Not only did he come in with guns blazing—and a multitude of ready-to-go executive orders undoing the disastrous policies and anti-American vision of the Biden administration—but he had an all-star lineup of Cabinet members ready to be confirmed.
It’s been one of the most stunning political spectacles we've ever seen—or even read about.
Many of the people behind the scenes don’t get a ton of press, though, yet they've been crucial to his recent successes, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is one of them. She gave a rare interview to the president’s daughter-in-law and Fox News Contributor Lara Trump on "My View" on Saturday and described how she approached her role:
"I see my job as just sort of keeping the trains on the tracks and running on time here, so that the subject-matter experts — and particularly the president and the vice president — can do what they need to do to fix the country," she said Saturday on "My View with Lara Trump."
She added Trump was "ready to hit the ground running" after having four years to consider his agenda between his first and second terms.
And she’s not obsessing over her gender or her sexual identity the way it seems almost every Democrat candidate does: she’s here on her merits. She’s a human being doing her job, not a check on a form:
Mercury Public Affairs, where Wiles was co-chair, does have a history of lobbying for pharmaceutical clients, including Pfizer and Gilead Sciences, as well as other industries like junk food companies (e.g., Kellogg’s, Kraft-Heinz, and Nestlé). However, lobbying disclosure records do not list Wiles as the individual lobbyist for these specific clients.
Based on the concrete data available, no direct link ties Wiles to pharmaceutical companies as a lobbyist. The narrative appears driven more by her firm’s clientele than her personal actions.
Tut, tut, my good man! Junk food is so pejorative. They prefer to think of themselves as the fabricated snack industry.
Trump's big mistake first time around was thinking he was in charge. It is a common mistake with business people who go into politics. (see Ross Perot) When you are the boss, you tell people what to do and they do it. The size and recalcitrance of what we now call the Deep State was a surprise. This time around, Trump seems better prepared.
[Breitbart] Four people were injured, including two seriously, following a stabbing incident in the central Norwegian city of Trondheim.
Trondheim police said that there were two women and three men aged between 20 and 40-years-old involved in a mass stabbing in the city on Saturday. Four people, including the alleged attacker, were injured during the knife altercation.
A family fight or ethnic — probably Moslem colonist — gangs?
Police attorney Silje Flack Bergby told public broadcaster NRK that two of the four stabbing were injured seriously, however, they are no longer in life threatening condition.
“We have control over all those involved. There is currently one accused in the case. We will assess the others’ role continuously. It is a bit unclear the sequence of events now,” Flack Bergby said.
Police taskforce leader Lars Erik Aftret Nilsen said that it is likely that those involved had a previously relationship, likely indicating that terrorism was not the motivating factor behind the incident.
“We arrived quickly at the scene together with the ambulance and medical personnel. It is still early in the investigation phase, but we believe we have the situation under control,” he said.
At the time of reporting, police have not released any information concerning the background of the suspected perpetrator or the victims
The attack happened on this saturday in Møllenberg, a usually calm residential area. According to reports, the violence broke out between five people—two women and three men—all believed to be between the ages of 20 and 40. One of the injured is thought to be the attacker himself.
Authorities have also revealed that the man believed to be responsible is around 40 years old and has a previous conviction for serious assault.
[Jpost] It is paramount, therefore, that the current campaign be augmented and that the administration’s bite matches its bark.
The Trump administration’s renewed bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen features the correct rhetoric against the Iranian regime but, so far, appears short on translating that rhetoric into kinetic action.
If US President Donald Trump wishes to avoid yet another unsuccessful and costly failure – both financially and in terms of munitions expenditure – to restore freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, the current operation will need to be expanded. It must include a ground component using local Yemeni anti-Houthi forces,
<...based on the little I know on the subject — I’m not even an armchair private — I’d not trust that lot to accomplish anything useful…
a far more dedicated interdiction element, and strikes targeting the Iranian regime itself.
That’s the next step, after they’ve had their chance to proactively surrender. They were given a deadline…
Thus far, although the operation is clearly coercive rather than merely defensive or retaliatory and not calibrated to avoid casualties or reduce escalation risks – both steps in the right direction – it appears to be little more than a more aggressive version of the Biden administration’s Operation Poseidon Archer.
Does it really?
But no matter how intense the US bombing gets, it is very unlikely to force the Houthis to halt attacks. Any successful operation would have to involve substantial strikes against the Iranian regime, something the administration, at least rhetorically, recognizes.
President Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on March 17, “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” National Security Advisor Mike Waltz also emphasized that Iranian targets would be “on the table.”
To date, however, no such action has been taken.
THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE FOR TWO PRIMARY REASONS
First, the Houthis – more correctly known as Ansar Allah (“Partisans of God”) – are not independent decision-makers.
The organization is a direct outgrowth of the Islamic Revolution that conquered Iran in 1979 and is a veritable branch of the guardians of that Islamic Revolution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, much like its sister group in Lebanon, Hezbollah. Indeed, an IRGC Quds Force brigadier-general and his Hezbollah deputy sit on the Houthi “Jihad Council,” the group’s supreme decision-making body.
The de facto commander of its missile and drone forces is the infamous IRGC-QF commander in Yemen, Abdul Reza Shahlai, who ordered and directed the opening salvo in 2023 against international shipping. All Houthi attacks are planned, directly ordered, and overseen by IRGC commanders, including from Hezbollah, stationed in Yemen. All components, weapons, and nearly all targeting intelligence used in the attacks are from the IRGC.
Thus, Iranian assets in or near Yemen, particularly intelligence ships like the Behshad and Safiz, are critical targets to degrade the IRGC’s capacity to close the Red Sea or attack naval vessels. Furthermore, the actual decision-makers behind Houthi piracy are in Tehran, not Sanaa. It is they who need to face not only economic pressure but also targeted strikes that threaten their ability to control their regional Islamic empire, of which Yemen is but a satrapy.
Second, if the president is yet again blustering with no follow-through, it could be the coup de grâce to already severely eroded US credibility and deterrence. Another North Korean “fire and fury” moment with no action – especially after threatening Hamas multiple times with no action – will be seen by US adversaries as a green light to do whatever they want.
Unfortunately, Trump has made very clear in word and deed over the past decade that he’s not interested in getting involved in a serious overseas conflict, suggesting that the chances of serious strikes against Iranian regime targets are slim.
Or he could just get out of Israel’s way. They have plans…
An even worse outcome, however, would be a repeat of the disastrous deal with the Taliban, in which Trump loses patience with a protracted bombing campaign, as he did in Afghanistan. Trump could make a worthless agreement with the Houthis in which they promise not to target American ships and then claim victory, potentially even withdrawing US troops and assets from the region, something he tried and failed to do in his first term.
It doesn’t help that Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Trump trusts implicitly,
He does?
is a strategic ally of the Iranian regime and, aside from engaging in talks to provide the Houthis with anti-ship missiles and other materiel, has also provided targeting intelligence to the Houthis for their campaign against international shipping and Western navies. This even allegedly included Russian military intelligence advisers deployed in Yemen.
If the administration’s rhetoric reflects its actual intent and is translated into concrete action, then this campaign could eventually succeed where others have failed. The alternative, in which, despite the administration’s tough rhetoric, the US ineffectively bombs the Houthis for several days or weeks with no ground component, no increased interdiction campaign, and no strikes against the Iranian regime, is likely to dramatically embolden already-emboldened Western adversaries.
It is paramount, therefore, that the current campaign be augmented and that the administration’s bite matches its bark.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
03/30/2025
05:41 ||
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#1
...I'm wondering if going after Yemen isn't the point. That is, we turn the place into hopeless craters while telling Tehran - loudly and publicly - that there's not a damned thing they can do about it.
That would send the mullahs into a frenzy. There's a lot of chances for a strategy like that to go sideways, but it'll make a point.
#2
First things first. The Hooties are an immediate problem that needs to be dealt with. Doing so in a thorough and enthusiastic manner is bound to have a bit of "kill a chicken to scare the monkey" on Tehran. And if push comes to shove later on, our pieces are already on the board. Let the mullahs stew in their own juices for a while.
The Iran hostage crisis was an international crisis (1979–81) in which militants seized 66 Americans at the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 52 of them hostage for more than a year. It took place after Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1978–79 and poisoned U.S.-Iranian relations for decades.
#4
There is a lot of unfinished business between Iran and the US on both sides. Boomers in the US were very influenced by the hostage crisis - their counterparts in Iran lost family and friends to SAVAK
#5
No, you really wanna hurt Iran, hit the only to oil export facilities it has. In in the Persian gulf and the other newer one outside it. It also imports all of its gasoline so hit the couple harbors where ships offload it.
No more money for Iran, no gas to move things around. Check.
#6
Just crush Iran and Kabul economically. Drop the price of oil and stop funding the Taliban and the Syrian terrorists. Plug the Houti leadership and any Iranian boats helping with targeting.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 16:30
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#7
"Occupy Cha Bahar!" used to be a popular phrase or sumpthin
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2025 16:57
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#8
^i wonder if Irish Rage Biy is sailing there to seize it himself.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 21:22
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#9
^ Who wants to play Letters of Marque and Reprisal?
[Jpost] The IDF intercepted a ballistic missile that was launched from Yemen before it crossed into Israeli territory, the military said on Sunday.
Starting at 10:41 a.m., the launched missile triggered rocket sirens across central Israel, the Shfela, and Jerusalem areas.
Alerts sounded in Tel Aviv, Holon, and Yavne, ranging as far north as Herzliya and as far south as Telem in the West Bank.
Initially, Israel's emergency response service, Magen David Adom (MDA), said it had not received reports of injuries. However, it later noted its paramedics were providing medical treatment to two people who had been injured while running to a safe area.
[Jpost] “I know when I'm going to die because I'm going to plant a bomb in every synagogue in Toronto,” Waisuddin Akbari allegedly said.
Canadian Jewish groups and politicians expressed outrage last week over the threats made by a Toronto man who was convicted for threatening to plant bombs in every local synagogue and kill as many Jews as he could.
Afghanistan-born Shawarma restaurant owner Waisuddin Akbari confided in car salesman Cameron Ahmad about the plot last March, according to the November Ontario Court of Justice ruling. Ahmad notified the police about the threats, under the belief that Akbari was serious about the intention to commit a violent attack. "No, no, it was just a joke. Do you recommend synthetic oil? Kill the Jews"
The 41-year-old Akbari had come to 26-year-old Ahmad's dealership for an oil change and inquired about the possibility of upgrading to a new vehicle. Akbari allegedly expressed concerns about financing a new vehicle because he believed interest payments would be funneled to the Israeli government to finance a supposed genocide against Palestinians.
Akbari told the court that it was Ahmad that raised the issue, and went further by claiming that it was not just Canadian finance that flowed to Israel, but that Israel controlled all global finance -- a claim that Ahmed denied.
Akbari said that he had only raised the concern as a means to end the advances of the salesman, which Justice Edward Prutsch found to be "utterly bizarre" to claim considering that Akbari had admitted to seeking to discuss a new car and there were better methods to end the conversation than veering into a conspiracy theory.
The two discussed the ongoing Israel-Hamas War, regarding which Ahmad told the court he was “on the side of the Palestinian state and the innocent civilians.”
He had intoned as much to Akbari, but Ahmad reportedly became uncomfortable as Akbari allegedly went on to say that in response to a supposed genocide against Palestinian people, the Israeli state and Jewish people should also be subjected to genocide.
Akbari allegedly shared his belief that the Israeli government controlled the world and was trying to exterminate non-Jews, enslave the world, and poison it. He further equated Israelis and Jews to roaches and insects who should be exterminated. Akbari claimed to the court that he could not pronounce the words "roaches" and "insects."
Ahmad was reportedly shocked and scared about how calm, clear, and concise he was when making his comments.
“Before I go, I want you to remember my name and remember my face because the next time you see it, I'll be on the news.” Akbari allegedly said before they parted ways. “I know when I'm going to die because I'm going to plant a bomb in every synagogue in Toronto and blow them up to kill as many Jews as possible.”
AKBARI REPORTEDLY PROMISED TO FILM THE ATTACK
The suspect claimed to the court that he had been misheard and joked to Ahmad that he would blow up a casino because he couldn't afford a new vehicle due to a gambling debt.
Ahmad said there was no doubt what Akbari said and didn't think the customer was joking based on his serious tone, and he consulted with a colleague who was a former police officer and his older brother was serving in the Canadian military.
A day after the exchange, Akbari was arrested and charged for uttering threats.
Akbari claimed to the court that he didn't know what Judaism was, and while he knew Jews existed, he didn't have knowledge about the religion and its connection to Israel. He also claimed to be unfamiliar with the word “synagogue.”
Prutsch found Akbari’s testimony disjointed and vague, and the man was inconsistent, evasive, and confusing. The judge also found it unlikely that Ahmad, who was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, would manufacture detailed allegations about a mass murder threat against a customer who had been a complete stranger.
After a Global News report on the ruling, which hadn't received much coverage, York Centre MP Ya'ara Saks said that she was deeply disturbed by the antisemitic threats.
"It is unacceptable that Jewish communities continue to live in fear because of such hateful rhetoric and actions," Saks said in a Wednesday statement. "In recent months, we have seen an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents, from shooting and vandalized synagogues to online threats and violent plots. These are not isolated incidents -- they reflect a troubling increase in hate that we must confront together."
MP Kevin Vuong said on X/Twitter that it was important to stand with Jewish neighbors for the sake of all Canadians.
[ZeroHedge] The Trump administration ordered two Pentagon intelligence agencies—the NGA and NRO—to use spy satellites to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border in a broader effort to curb illegal immigration and drug trafficking., according to Reuters.
The involvement of spy agencies and troop deployments highlights the growing militarization of the southern border, where Trump declared a national emergency.
Though the extent of satellite surveillance over U.S. territory remains unclear, the NGA confirmed forming a task force for the border mission, while the NRO said it was working with the Pentagon and intelligence community to secure the border.
The Reuters report says that their role stems from Trump’s executive orders targeting illegal crossings, trafficking, and the deportation of up to 14 million undocumented immigrants.
Trump, who made immigration central to his 2016 campaign, is now expanding the use of military tools—originally designed for foreign conflict—to the U.S.-Mexico border.
While AI and drones have long been used for border surveillance, the new initiative taps battlefield-grade capabilities. AI could scan satellite imagery for people or objects of interest, sources said, much like it does overseas.
Though the full scope remains unclear, experts warned the administration must address legal limits on domestic surveillance. U.S. law bars spy agencies from targeting citizens, but immigration officials can operate within 100 miles of the border.
“If they follow the law, these agencies should only collect on the other side of the border in foreign territory,” said national security lawyer Paul Rosenzweig. “But how they implement that, and if they do, are legitimate oversight questions.”
An intelligence official insisted all surveillance is “legal and authorized” and respects Americans’ privacy. The NGA and NRO declined to detail their border operations, citing security concerns. The CIA, sources said, has no role in domestic enforcement: “Once foreign criminals are inside the United States, they are not within the purview of the CIA.”
Trump has elevated border security to a top national intelligence priority, channeling more resources to it. A recent U.S. intelligence report placed transnational crime above threats from Iran or North Korea.
Meanwhile, the National Security Council is reportedly receiving daily briefings on immigration arrests, including minors.
[Breitbart] The price of eggs has taken a sharp plunge as Americans have watched the cost of the grocery staple shift downward since mid-February, Axios reported Friday.
The drop in prices comes as the nation has been grappling with a bird flu outbreak that has affected egg prices and farmers, per Breitbart News.
According to the Axios report, “The average wholesale price of a dozen eggs was $3 Friday, down 8% from $3.27 on March 21, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data released Friday.”
“It’s down 63% from a record $8.15 in the Feb. 21 report,” the article reads. “Inventories are recovering amid a sudden and largely unexplained slowdown in bird flu cases. The Trump administration has also taken steps to boost egg imports to combat higher prices.”
Earlier this month, Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Breitbart News, “We have to protect our farmers,” when speaking about what the bird flu did to egg prices and farmers across the nation.
He also mentioned Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins:
“Again, you’re talking to somebody that just hates regulations, but well, because it’s here, because of some unreasonable regulations that allowed this to happen, we need to protect the people against this, and then again, be able to protect for eggs,” he said, calling for protections of American farmers as well.
“I saw Brooke Rollins, and I’m a big fan of hers, and we’re getting ready to import hundreds and hundreds of thousands of eggs, and you know, that’s fine, but it needs to be a short period of time, because we have to protect our farmers here,” he added.
When asked on March 21 what she would say to Americans struggling to afford eggs, Rollins said prices have been trending downward for approximately three weeks, per News Nation.
“We released a pretty massive, bold plan about three and a half weeks ago including biosecurity measures, repopulating the chickens much more quickly, deregulating, getting government off the back of our poultry producers, importing eggs. We’ve been bringing in eggs from Turkey and South Korea, we’ve got another couple of countries we talked to yesterday to try to get supplies back up while we repopulate the chickens that were affected by avian bird flu,” she explained:
#2
The 25 to 29 cents we are seeing around here is not a serious drop. @ $4.79 a dz. That is still up 125%+ from a year ago, when we were paying $1.99 to $2.49.dz.
Myanmar's military chief says 1,700 people have been killed following a huge 7.7 magnitude earthquake on Friday
A fresh earthquake, with a magnitude of 5.1, has been recorder near to Mandalay - the country's second largest city
The UN warns a severe shortage of medical supplies is hampering the response to the disaster, as the search for survivors continues in Myanmar and Thailand
Rescuers are working to find those trapped under rubble at the site of a collapsed high-rise in Bangkok, as the death toll across the city has risen to 17 with 83 people missing
In war-torn Myanmar, the National Unity Government (NUG) - which is in exile - announced a "two-week pause in offensive military operations" in areas affected by the earthquake
Self-deporting, as predicted. Just like last time President Trump was in office — but it happened much faster this time around.
[Breitbart] A growing number of illegal migrants are smuggling themselves out of the United States to avoid the legal penalties of government deportations, according to multiple witnesses.
“I’ve been a journalist for more than 25 years, but I never thought I would see this — ‘paquetes de retorno'” said Alfredo Corchado, an American journalist in Texas and Mexico and an executive editor at the Puente News Collaborative.
On March 26 he told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations:
[Coyotes] are now offering packages where [migrant] people can go back home …. [If] you want to go home, or you want to go back to Honduras, or maybe you don’t want to go back to Honduras because it’s too dangerous. [Or] you don’t want to go to Guatemala, but maybe you want to go to Costa Rica, and so they’re offering these [smuggling] packages where you can just go back home. Not all of them are taking it, I mean, many [are].
If migrants are deported by the United States government, they are separated from their families and detained in crowded jails, sometimes for many weeks. Once legally deported, migrants cannot visit for 10 years or longer, even when their relatives remain in the United States. They also lose possessions and easy access to their bank accounts.
Haitians “are self-deporting right now because they don’t want the worst thing … because [the government] does send them back to Haiti immediately,” Jeff Lamour, an American businessman in Albertville, Alabama, told Breitbart News on Friday.
Many Haitians have moved to Albertville for jobs once held by Americans in the chicken slaughterhouses. They got work permits from Biden’s deputies but are now losing them to Trump’s pro-American policies.
Lamour added:
This [self-deporting] industry with the coyotes, it has become a multi-million dollar industry over here now. You got those guys that are going from Indiana, from Alabama, in those vans where they’re smuggling people to New Mexico, to border states.
They’re making a ton of money. If they go deposit money at the bank, it’s going to raise a red flag. You know, I had a gentleman a couple days ago trying to buy a car with cash, straight cash. He just don’t know what to do with it because he has a lot of cash from the shuttle industry.
Smugglers “charge them $10,000 per head because a lot of people that are working are saving their money,” Lamour told told 1819News.com. “A lot of people are going back to Chile,” where they were living before Biden opened the border.
Other Haitians are going into hiding, for example, by selling their cars to minimize the chance of any interaction with local police, he said:
I sell cars for a living. I have my mechanic sitting next to me right there. He can tell you, as my witness — did we not have a guy come over here, return his car, because he’s scared to be deported? I had guys selling their car for $500 just so they won’t be deported. We see that every day.
One local migrant “crossed from Brazil all the way to the United States,” Lamour told Breitbart News, adding:
His wife and kids died in the [Darien Gap], and he had to leave them behind because he had to survive and save himself. Once he arrived in Mexico, he had to literally stay at the gay bathhouse [to avoid robbers, before he] made it over here through a Catholic charity.
So far, the exit numbers are small compared to the resident population of roughly 18 million illegal migrants, of whom roughly 9 million were invited by President Joe Biden’s deputies.
The New York Times acknowledged the trend:
Since arriving in Denver in 2023, Cristian, 29, has delivered meals and worked on construction sites. (Like other migrants I interviewed, he worried that immigration agents would find him and spoke on the condition that I identify him only by his given name.) He sends money to his wife and children in Venezuela. Cristian does not have any tattoos, a customary gang indicator, he said. He possesses a work permit and an active asylum application, which theoretically protects him from imminent deportation.
But the enforcement climate since Trump took office has changed Cristian’s calculus “360 degrees,” he told me. With the help of an American friend who escorted him to several immigration offices, he made an appointment to appear before a judge today so he could request a voluntary departure from the United States. (Immigrants who receive formal permission to leave have an easier time returning later.)
…
A family in Chicago recently left for Mexico, according to their lawyer. People have abandoned Springfield, Ohio — the town where Trump claimed Haitians were eating their pets — employers there told me. Others are contemplating leaving from elsewhere, like Houston.
South of the border, northbound migrants are also turning back homewards. “It is true that people are going different directions,” Caleb Vitello, a senior official in Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, told the Council on Foreign Relations. For example, the northward foot and boat traffic in the dangerous Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama has dropped “because people aren’t risking that walk or that dangerous journey through there,” he said.
[FoxNews] Organizers are calling it the Tesla Takedown Global Day of Action, and plan to hold rallies at over 200 Tesla locations
As Americans flock to the streets to enjoy the spring weather this weekend, protesters across the world are set to participate in the pre-planned "Tesla Takedown's Global Day of Action" on Saturday.
The protesters’ goal, according to the organization's website, is to send a crystal clear message that they are against Tesla CEO Elon Musk. The group describes itself as a decentralized grassroots movement that will "protest Tesla for as long as Elon Musk continues to shred public services." Organizers plan to hold rallies at over 200 Tesla locations across the U.S.
Fox News Digital spoke with Joshua Schirard, the director of Byrna Law Enforcement and a former Galveston, Texas police and SWAT captain, on how everyday Americans, as well as owners of the electric vehicles, can stay on high alert.
"This weekend, when we have this Tesla Takedown day, have extra situational awareness and put in a little bit more effort into planning what you're going to do, some routes you're going to take this weekend," he said.
The organization's website notes that the Tesla Takedown is a "peaceful protest movement."
"We oppose violence, vandalism and destruction of property," they wrote. "This protest is a lawful exercise of our First Amendment right to peaceful assembly."
Despite the organization's casting the weekend protests as peaceful, past actions have placed the demonstrations in an illegal light. From Oregon to Massachusetts, Tesla cars and facilities have been vandalized in at least 10 locations this year.
What began as protests against Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have escalated into violent incidents against the Trump ally's company, including shots fired at a building, destroyed dealership windows and charging stations set on fire.
The rise in incidents has caused the FBI to launch a task force to crack down on Tesla crime, and the Justice Department to announce charges against arson suspects with Attorney General Pam Bondi labeling the attacks "domestic terrorism."
POLICE ON "HIGH ALERT"
Schirard said that he is confident that law enforcement authorities across the nation are discussing how to approach and combat Tesla violence.
"Most police departments now are very intel-driven. We're constantly looking at what that future threat could be. And we have a lot of talk on social media, on mainstream media and from local sources about this Tesla Takedown," he said.
"It's very likely that we're going to see some diverted resources in police departments just to make sure that some of those bigger Tesla dealerships are covered, and that more public and commercial spots have some extra coverage as well."
Tesla’s share price has been cut in half due to a confluence of factors [including] pressure from a coordinated NGO-driven color revolution known as “Tesla Takedown,” aimed at crashing the stock to trigger loan repayment obligations tied to Musk’s pledged equity.
[FoxBusinessNews] $100B a year in EU investments in Texas in jeopardy, EU ambassador to US says
The tariff wars continued to snowball this week after President Donald Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on all imported automobiles and parts, on top of the existing tariffs already in place on the European Union, Canada, Mexico and China.
International leaders pushing back on the tariffs have repeatedly warned it will be not only be citizens in their nations that will pay the price, but American consumers, workers and small businesses.
And Texas could find itself the state most harmed by the emerging trade wars. I thought it was: "World ends. Women and Children hardest hit"?
"Texas is the biggest trading partner in the whole U.S. for the European Union. The European Union invested in Texas more than $300 billion," EU Ambassador to the U.S. Jovita Neliupšienė told Fox News Digital.
The ambassador confirmed that, in terms of trade in goods and services, the EU invests $100 billion a year.
"Because of this trade and investment, 300,000 people are employed only because of the EU," Neliupšienė said.
"And if we look even deeper, if you look at how much people are paid in those jobs, and if you compare other foreign investors in Texas or across the country, you would see that European companies, European-invested companies, usually produce better paid [jobs] on average."
It remains unclear what the broader effect will be after Trump imposed steel and aluminum tariffs on the EU, coupled with potential reciprocal tariffs.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and senators John Cornyn or Ted Cruz did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about how Texans could be among Americans most harmed by tariff wars.
The White House, however, told Fox News Digital, "Tariffs are a critical piece of President Trump’s America First economic agenda, but just one piece."
"The Trump administration is also slashing regulations, unleashing American energy and pushing tax cuts for everyday Americans, including the president’s call for a new tax deduction for American-made cars," White House spokesman Kush Desai said.
"Lower gas prices and a positive February jobs report, which included 10,000 new manufacturing jobs, are indicative of how President Trump is unleashing historic economic, job, wage and investment growth for the American people with no inflation – just as he did in his first term."
In the short term, Neliupšienė said Trump's tariffs will have an immediate effect on costs and pointed to one of the smallest and most affordable products found across the U.S. — nails.
The ambassador explained that when every single nail has a 25% increase in its price, that cost doesn’t just get passed on to consumers. It will raise construction costs across the board. The cost of development projects will then go up, which means the cost to rent office spaces, apartments or the purchase of a new build will increase, a factor that will have resounding consequences across multiple sectors.
Neliupšienė said a tariff battle that played out in 2018 during the first Trump administration on steel and aluminum meant the EU ended up importing nearly a third less of its products from the U.S.
🚨BREAKING: China just dropped a BOMBSHELL that could DESTROY foreign business in their country. New laws allow them to SEIZE foreign Intellectual Property at will.
#3
They were already doing it, they just passed a law to tidy things up.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
03/30/2025 8:40
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#4
Anytime a company builds something in China, they are choosing to enslave people and creating a competitor that will steal their designs and create a competing knockoff product to compete with them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 8:52
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#5
Anyone that does business with China aka the CCP deserves whatever they get at this point.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] In Dagestan, Eid al-Fitr will begin on March 31. The other regions of the North Caucasus have named March 30 as the holiday, but the Muftiate of Karachay-Cherkessia has not announced the date of the holiday.
As the "Caucasian Knot" reported, this year in all the republics of the North Caucasus the month of Ramadan began on March 1. In Chechnya, the days from March 30 to April 1 have been declared non-working in connection with the holiday marking the end of the month of fasting.
The authorities of Dagestan reported that the holidays are March 31 and April 1, in total the republic will have four days off, including the weekend. The exact date will be announced by the Muftiate of Dagestan, the administration of the head of Dagestan reported.
During Ramadan, Muslims must abstain from food and drink during daylight hours. Eid al-Fitr is the holiday of breaking the fast after a month of fasting. On the occasion of the holiday, it is customary to receive guests, visit loved ones, and also the graves of relatives. The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia announced on March 16 that Eid al-Fitr in 2025 will be held on March 30.
The Muftiate of the Republic of Dagestan announced on its official channels that the celebration of Eid al-Fitr will take place on March 31.
The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kabardino-Balkaria reported on its Telegram channel that due to the fact that they saw the new moon, March 30 is the holiday of "Uraza-Bayram".
The same date was also mentioned by the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Chechnya, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Stavropol Krai, and the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of North Ossetia in their Telegram channels.
"In Saudi Arabia, the new moon was visually recorded, therefore, following the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah, tomorrow - March 30 - we will celebrate the holiday of Eid al-Fitr," said the Mufti of Chechnya, Salah Mezhiyev.
The end of Ramadan was announced today by the head of Ingushetia, Makhmud-Ali Kalimatov, on his Telegram channel.
The Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Karachay-Cherkessia did not announce the date of the holiday on its resources, but in the prayer calendar published on the muftiate's website, March 30 is indicated as the day of Ramadan. Earlier, the head of Karachay-Cherkessia Rashid Temrezov declared March 31 a non-working day in connection with the celebration of Eid al-Fitr.
"Kavkazsky Uzel" also wrote that during Ramadan the prices of eggs, meat, butter, dates and other products increased significantly. The authorities are not taking measures to prevent the increase in prices before Eid al-Fitr, residents of Makhachkala indicated.
Residents of Kabardino-Balkaria also reported rising food prices. According to them, the price increase began before Ramadan.
In Chechnya, food prices have risen ahead of Eid al-Fitr. Residents are forced to buy food in neighboring regions, but fear that food will be confiscated at checkpoints under the pretext of supporting local entrepreneurs. The deputy mufti of Chechnya called on entrepreneurs not to raise food prices during Ramadan. These calls came too late, as prices have already risen significantly, the authors of comments on the social network indicated. They proposed introducing penalties for those who inflate prices. On March 17, Ramzan Kadyrov ordered raids to be stepped up, food with unjustified markups to be confiscated from sellers and distributed to those in need. The Grozny mayor's office then reported on raids in stores.
Kadyrov's threats to confiscate food from vendors come amid an existing practice: previously, they were confiscated from buyers of goods purchased before Eid al-Fitr outside the republic. Two residents of Chechnya spoke about the inspection of cars on the border with Dagestan before Eid al-Fitr in 2024 as part of the fight against violators of the "resolution on supporting local entrepreneurship," according to a report published on March 13 by the "Caucasian Knot." The police said that "they had orders to confiscate in favor of children's institutions," but one of those interviewed, an elderly driver, managed to persuade the security forces. In another case, the security forces "pulled two boxes of chickens and one package of 30 eggs from the car." Residents of Chechnya also spoke about similar inspections at the Gerzel post in 2023 . "They picked on the chickens, saying that we are not patriots of the republic, that in Chechnya they sell chickens everywhere, and you buy them in Dagestan. In short, they confiscated the chickens," a resident of Chechnya quoted her neighbor's story.
[Epoch Times] Of roughly 1,650 readers who completed the poll,
…so self-selected volunteers, a severely skewed sample which severely skews the results…
which was released on March 27, more than 1,200 individuals—75 percent—said they were weighing a move abroad.
“Ya know, Soozie, now would be a good time to do that sabbatical in Copenhagen that we were discussing during Covid…”
The responses, collected in early March through Nature’s website, social media, and newsletter, reflect growing unease across the scientific community following major changes to U.S. science funding, staffing, and research priorities, according to the survey results.
Anyone who leaves is someone we don’t want anyway.
Another respondent, a physician-scientist at a major U.S. university, said when his National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant was canceled, he reached out to colleagues in Canada. He and his wife, also a scientist, are now seeking positions there.
Good luck with that, guys, truly. The odds aren’t in your favour, given the relative sizes of the respective scientific/academic establishments, but if you are eminent in your fields — and highly connected — you might have a shot at a post-doc position on someone else’s team, especially if you’re good at getting large grants. Recall all the Soviet Jewish scientists who escaped to Israel, where many drove cabs and such to survive. You can drive, right?…
Institutions abroad appear to be responding to the wave of dislocation. The physician-scientist said universities in other countries are seeing the disruption in the United States as a "once-in-a-generation opportunity" to attract American talent.
Not all scientists expressed interest in leaving. Some respondents said U.S. institutions still offer the best research facilities. Others said they want to stay to support their students and labs for as long as possible. I suppose a lot of scientists left the country when the Superconducting Super Collider was cancelled. How did we ever recover?
Posted by: Bobby ||
03/30/2025
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#9
75% of the readers of Nature is not a representative sample of scientists, nor will the majority of the leftists actually leave. Celebrities “leaving” are either lying or announcing a vacation. Unlike Ellen, most “scientists” don’t have the option to ditch their tenured faculty positions to move to one of their many overseas properties, although some might have a retirement plan to move to someplace like Belize. It’s a win all around if they go. Cleaning up academia will not be quick or fun.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/30/2025 9:01
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#10
Forwarded this to a physicist friend of mine. You could hear the laughing/gagging from 5 states away.
I suspect the term "scientist" in this study includes those studying hamsters' ability to appreciate counter-cultural rap lyrics/
#11
The rubes aren't buying our global warming grift no more! Well the Euros sure are let's take them for some research funding!
Posted by: Regular joe ||
03/30/2025 14:01
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#12
They likely selected 1,650 based on liberal political leanings (College & Big Pharm) of the estimated 55,000+/-(2020 data), that exist in the USA.
As I interpreted it, NN2N1, a notice or brief article was inserted in that issue of the journal with a link to an on-line survey — possibly one of those something-Monkey ones — and 1650 unvetted, self-selected readers volunteered themselves and did it. There would have been no balancing of traits to get a representative sample even of Nature readers, since they would have come only directly from the website, unavailable to those reading the paper version unless they saw it on the page, turned on their internet access device, opened the website, and scrolled through to find the link —an awful lot of effort for an impulse activity.
And historically, this set-up attracts participation from those who feel strongest on the subject, and generally from only those for the proposition. Those against it won’t waste their time.
#13
The physicists I knew who were developing projects for the SSC generally started working on projects for the LHC the day word got out about the cancellation. (I don't know of any who tried to come back to Fermilab experiments, but there may have been some.) It wasn't ideal, but the LHC was going to get built (albeit behind schedule). They didn't leave the country--most of the development work was done at the university level, and the USA became a partner.
However.
I have observed that for happenings outside their fields of expertise, most physicists trust the same panic-mongering news sources as the rest of academia. (Call it rational ignorance if you like--you only get 24 hours in a day; do you want to spend a free hour on news sites or on spin glasses?) It would not surprise me to learn that some of the foreign-born researchers were worried.
The un-tenured, facing uncertainty, might think that a smaller but relatively secure prospect in Canada is better than a bigger and riskier (will the grant go away before the research is done?) task here. Family concerns play a role too.
But that a tenured physician scientist, whose wife is also a scientist, is looking to move? That's either an amazingly severe TDS case, or a leg-pull.
Posted by: James ||
03/30/2025 15:35
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#14
for happenings outside their fields of expertise, most physicists trust the same panic-mongering news sources as the rest of academia.
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
* You probably know him as the co-inventor of quantum chromodynamics (QCD
See also here for a facial recognition initiative that is also bearing fruit.
[IsraelTimes] A member of the faceless team using AI to expose ‘issues impacting the Jewish community’ answers questions about how the site picks its targets, why it’s not journalism, and how it’s funded
Earlier this month, a pro-Paleostinian activist named Helyeh Doutaghi was suspended from her job at Yale University and banned from campus over alleged links to a fundraising group that supports a Paleostinian terrorist organization.
The trigger, according to The New York Times
...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize... , was a report in an ostensible news site called Jewish Onliner.
The name was new to us here at the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, and to many others in Jewish journalism. And, as it turns out, the people behind the site don’t see themselves as journalists reporting the news, even if they are pleased to be making it.
That revelation came to us after following digital breadcrumbs to identify a person involved with Jewish Onliner, which was registered as a website on December 12.
The website’s registration shields the identity of its owner. And the site does not disclose its staff or have bylines on its articles, which it says uses AI to focus on "combating antisemitism, exposing anti-Israel movements, and dissecting the radical forces undermining the values of the Western world." But we tracked someone down.
The person affiliated with the site, who confirmed their involvement, is a recent immigrant to Israel from an English-speaking country with training and experience in open-source intelligence and counter-terrorism. The person said the team is multinational and not affiliated with the Israeli government.
And the person agreed to answer questions via email on condition of anonymity, citing the threat of antisemitism.
The subsequent exchange addresses questions about how Jewish Onliner picks its targets, the role artificial intelligence plays in its work, why its content should not be considered journalism, the cost of anonymity and how the initiative is funded. The person said they drafted their responses in consultation with the rest of team behind Jewish Onliner.
At a time when small groups are having an outsized impact on US policy — as Betar and the similarly anonymous Canary Mission have done when it comes to identifying pro-Paleostinian student protesters whom the Trump administration subsequently seeks to deport — the exchange offers unusual insight into how one of those groups says it operates. We are publishing it here, lightly edited for length and clarity.
I include key questions and answers. The rest can be read at the link.
Would you consider what you do journalism? I ask because journalists rarely conceal their identities while reporting on issues that could put them at risk. The theory is that anonymity would hurt the credibility of the reporting. What do you think about that?
That’s a fair and thought-provoking question you raised.
After discussing with the rest of the team, we agreed that what we do doesn’t align with traditional journalism, nor would we characterize the initiative as a media outlet. The team is intentionally trying to carve out a different lane altogether.
What feels unique about our model is that it isn’t structured like a typical newsroom — there are no rigid roles like reporters or editors. Instead, each person handles every part of a project: conducting OSINT [open source intelligence] research, analyzing the findings, and writing the piece. AI tools also play a significant role in enhancing and accelerating the work (we’re also constantly working to improve our technology and add new abilities).
The reports we’ve produced often don’t fit neatly into conventional journalism. They are almost entirely based on verifiable OSINT and include in-depth analyses as well. Much of the content connects directly to US-designated terrorist organizations, some of which continue to operate freely on American soil. Given that the same individuals who conduct the research also publish the findings, the team ultimately decided that anonymity was the best approach to mitigate the added risks.
We’re fully aware that anonymity may cause some to view our work with skepticism — that’s a tradeoff we’ve considered carefully.
Ultimately, the team felt the work should speak for itself. And for those willing to engage with it, we believe the value is clear.
What can you say about who runs and funds Jewish Onliner? The reason you cited for anonymity is the safety of the individuals involved — that doesn’t sound like a reason to keep the identity of any institution that may be behind the initiative anonymous.
It might surprise you to learn that JO is actually a pretty low-cost initiative, so saying that it has “funders” might be a stretch.
We’re a small group of tech-savvy OSINT experts who decided to take action for the Jewish community and broader Western values. The minimal support we’ve received comes from a few concerned individuals who wanted to help us get started, but they’re busy with their own lives, jobs, and families.
Also, for what it’s worth, since we’ve seen this silly rumor floating around: No, we are not affiliated with, connected to, or supported by any government.
I also want to challenge you on that. The rumors that you are supported by the Israeli government hardly seem “silly.” The Israeli government has publicly said that it is spending millions on online influence campaigns, which reportedly make use of AI technology. Jewish Onliner would seem to fit the bill. Do you really fault people for concluding that you might be a government outfit?
As for the Israeli government, we have no idea what they may or may not be doing with any technology — and frankly, we don’t much care.
Not every civilian-run initiative addressing antisemitism using AI is tied to the Israeli government. Sometimes, believe it or not, people just care about these issues and want to try and help.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas said to agree to Egyptian proposal to free 5 living hostages for a 50-day ceasefire, which is reported to fall short of Jerusalem’s demands.
None of the details matter until the thing is signed and delivered. and then it will only matter until Hamas breaks it yet again.
Aerial crowd shot and matching video, for those who would like to estimate for themselves.
[IsraelTimes] After controversial arrest of Istanbul’s mayor, week of unrest culminates in giant demonstration in Turkey’s largest city, with some estimates putting crowd size in the millions
Waving flags and chanting slogans, hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators rallied in Istanbul Saturday calling for democracy to be defended after the arrest of mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... ’s worst street unrest in over a decade.
Under a cloudless blue sky, huge crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which starts Sunday, marking the end of Ramadan.
Ozgur Ozel, leader of the main opposition party CHP which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but AFP was unable to independently confirm the figures.
"I’m not scared. I’ve only got one life, I’m ready to sacrifice it for this country," said an 82-year-old woman in a headscarf, carrying a picture of Imamoglu and the Ottoman Turkish flag.
She did not want to give her name "in case they come knocking at my door."
"He’s an honest man, he’s the one who will save the Ottoman Turkish republic," she said of the mayor who was arrested then jugged anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not over a graft probe on charges widely believed to be spurious.
The mass protests, which began with Imamoglu’s March 19 detention, have prompted a repressive government response that has been sharply condemned by rights groups and drawn criticism from abroad.
Widely seen as the only Ottoman Turkish politician capable of challenging President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... at the ballot box, Imamoglu was elected as the opposition CHP’s candidate for the 2028 presidential race on the day he was jugged anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not He was resoundingly re-elected mayor last year for the third time. The anger over his arrest quickly spread from Istanbul across Turkey.
Nightly protests outside Istanbul City Hall drew vast crowds and often degenerated into running battles with riot police, who used teargas, pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse the protesters.
"We are here today for our homeland. We, the people, elect our rulers," insisted 17-year-old Melis Basak Ergun, vowing the protesters would never be cowed "by violence or tear gas."
"We stand behind our mayor, Imamoglu."
’KEEP FIGHTING!’
Heading for the rally, protesters on board ferries crossing the Bosporus could be heard chanting: "Everywhere is Taksim, resistance is everywhere!"
It was a reference to Istanbul’s iconic Taksim Square, the epicenter of the last massive wave of protests in 2013.
"I joined the rallies outside City Hall for four days together with university students. I told them not to give in," protester Cafer Sungur, 78, told AFP.
"There is no other way than to keep fighting," he said.
"I was jugged anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not in the 1970s but back then there was justice. Today we can’t talk about justice any more."
Among those at the protest were Imamoglu’s wife Dilek and their children, along with his parents, an AFP correspondent said.
Opposition chief Ozel told French newspaper Le Monde the Saturday rallies would from now on be a weekly event in cities across Turkey, alongside a weekly Wednesday night demo in Istanbul.
"If we don’t stop this attempted coup, it will mean the end of the ballot box," he said.
Student groups have kept up their own protests, most of them masked, in the face of a police crackdown that has seen nearly 2,000 people arrested.
The authorities have also cracked down on media coverage, arresting 13 Ottoman Turkish journalists in five days, deporting a BBC correspondent and arresting a Swedish news hound who flew into Istanbul to cover the unrest.
Eleven journalists were freed Thursday, among them AFP photographer Yasin Akgul.
Swedish journalist Joakim Medin, who flew into Turkey on Thursday to cover the demonstrations, was jugged anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not on Friday, his employer Dagens ETC told AFP.
Reporters Without Borders’ Turkey representative Erol Onderoglu said Medin had been charged with "insulting the president" — a charge often used to silence Erdogan’s critics.
"The judicial pressure systematically brought to bear on local journalists for a long time is now being brought to bear on their foreign colleagues," he told AFP.
Ottoman Turkish authorities held BBC journalist Mark Lowen for 17 hours on Wednesday before deporting him for posing "a threat to public order," the broadcaster said.
Ottoman Turkish officials said it was due to "a lack of accreditation."
Baris Altintas, co-director of MLSA, a legal NGO helping many of the detainees, told AFP the authorities "seem to be very determined on limiting coverage of the protests."
He added: "We fear that the crackdown on the press will not only continue but also increase."
Posted by: trailing wife ||
03/30/2025
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#1
for some reason Trump seems to like Erdogan or at anyway thinks Erdogan can be usefull in settling the Ukraine-Russia conflict
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
03/30/2025 14:00
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#2
Yippy can be played, but not trusted
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/30/2025 16:52
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Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 18.27 Russians lost thousands of soldiers in the battles for Toretsk: the number of missing in action alone exceeded 13 thousand. This was reported by the speaker of the OTU Lugansk Dmitry Zaporozhets on the air of Yedinye Novyny.
17:46 US Defense Secretary Pete Gagset
…clearly Hegseth is meant...
took his wife, former Fox News producer Jennifer Gagset,
…she goes by Jennifer Rauchet Hegseth since their wedding in 2019. It is possible that as a professional news producer she knows something about current events as related to this nation’s wars and not-wars…
and his brother Philip
...Mr. Philip Hegseth’s official title is senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the Defense Department, so quite possibly he ought to be there. His resumé includes founding a podcast production company, and doing social media and podcasts for The Hudson Institute. He also did media relations for Secretary Hegseth’s NGO, Concerned Veterans for America, back in the day. SOFREP describes his career as media production and policy analysis…
to several meetings with foreign military colleagues where confidential information was discussed, The Wall Street Journal reports, citing its sources.
Jennifer Hagseth attended the February meeting of defense ministers at NATO headquarters, which also included a meeting of the Contact Group on Ukraine's defense.
16:54 The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has updated its baseline forecast, which suggests that the war in Ukraine could end in the last months of 2025. At the same time, the fund acknowledges that "risks remain exceptionally high."
14.48 Washington is completely satisfied with the developments in Ukraine. They believe that the "energy ceasefire" is in effect and that a ceasefire in the Black Sea will soon begin to operate. This was stated the day before by US Vice President J.D. Vance during a speech at the US military base Pituffik in Greenland.
13.50 Russians launched a missile attack on Krivoy Rog. The number of injured has risen to seven. Photos of the aftermath have been released, the State Emergency Service and the Prosecutor General's Office reported.
13.01 Ukraine has returned five more children from the temporarily occupied territories (TOT) and Russia. This was reported by the head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak.
12.21 Russian aggressors launched a missile strike on the city of Krivoy Rog. Five people were injured, reported the head of the Dnipropetrovsk OVA Serhiy Lysak.
11.35 The aggressor country Russia is dragging out the war in Ukraine because it has not yet experienced real pressure. The Russians are laughing at the world's peacekeeping efforts. President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote this on Facebook, commenting on the Russians' night attack on the Dnieper and other cities of our country on Saturday.
10.01 Ukrainian partisans set fire to a Russian base in Mariupol. Several vehicles burned, Mariupol mayoral adviser Petro Andryushchenko reported .
9.19 On Saturday night, the Russian army attacked Ukraine with 172 drones of various types. Most of them were destroyed or affected by electronic warfare, the Ukrainian Air Force reported .
9.00 As a result of an attack by Russian drones, a recreation center in the Akhtyrsky district of the Sumy region was destroyed. This was reported by the National Police.
8.42 Over the past 24 hours, 183 combat clashes were recorded at the front in 12 directions. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the morning report. The greatest activity of the Russian invaders is recorded in the Pokrovsky direction - 73 assaults in the areas of 14 settlements.
8.02 Over the past 24 hours, the Russian army lost 1,740 soldiers killed and wounded on the front in Ukraine. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the morning report. Ukrainian soldiers burned 23 Russian tanks, dozens of armored vehicles and artillery systems.
7:44 Large-scale fires have been extinguished in the city of Dnipro after yesterday's attack by Russian drones. According to the latest data, four people have died and 21 have been injured, said the head of the Dnipropetrovsk OVA, Serhiy Lysak.
01.01 As a result of the evening attack on the Dnieper, four people were killed and 19 were injured. Several multi-story buildings were damaged. Fires broke out in almost a dozen private houses. A hotel and restaurant complex, garages and service stations also burned.
00.04 Explosions were heard in the temporarily occupied Luhansk in the evening. Russian media reported a major fire in the industrial zone in the north-east of Luhansk. Social networks write that a UAV hit the Transmash plant. It is engaged in the production of railway locomotives and rolling stock, as well as the processing of metal products, the production of electrical equipment, etc.
#1
I saw a comment somewhere, so I looked up the Wall Street Journal article, which MSN has here. The thing is, the entire article is based on anonymous stories, in paragraph after paragraph undescribed.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is facing scrutiny over his handling of details of a military strike, brought his wife, a former Fox News producer, to two meetings with foreign military counterparts where sensitive information was discussed, according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions.
…The group that met at the Pentagon, which included Adm. Tony Radakin, the head of the U.K.’s armed forces, discussed the U.S. rationale behind that decision, as well as future military collaboration between the two allies, according to people familiar with the meeting.
attendees are typically expected to possess security clearances given the delicate nature of the discussions, according to defense officials and people familiar with the meeting. There is often security near the meeting space to keep away uninvited attendees.
Etc. Given that the Wall Street Journal is decidedly anti-Trump — and the news room is a liberal as the generality of the Mainstream Media, whereas the editorial page is more along the country club Republican end of the spectrum, what odds nobody they “quoted” was anywhere near the rooms in question?
#3
...according to multiple people who were present or had knowledge of the discussions.
...according to people familiar with the meeting.
...and people familiar with the meeting.
I'm not a lawyer, but I believe the legal term for that is hearsay. Us commoners would call it gossip.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Russian troops received the first batch of Su-35S fighters this year. This was reported on March 29 by the press service of Rostec.
“The planes were manufactured by our United Aircraft Corporation and have already flown to their home airfield,” the corporation said in a statement on its Telegram channel.
Rostec added that the fighters had undergone a full cycle of factory tests, were accepted by the technical staff, and tested in various operating modes by Defense Ministry pilots.
The state corporation said that the Su-35S is a multifunctional 4++ generation fighter with two engines, a digital navigation system and a controlled thrust vector. The aircraft has improved flight and technical and maneuverability characteristics. It is designed to destroy ground and surface targets during the day and at night in simple and difficult weather conditions. At the same time, the machine is capable of operating at a large distance from its base airfield.
"Pilots highly appreciate the characteristics of the Su-35S. The fighters are equipped with advanced weapons and long-range information and targeting systems," said Vladimir Artyakov, First Deputy General Director of Rostec.
UAC CEO Vadim Badekha added that for each aircraft type — Su-34, Su-35, Su-57 — an increase in production volumes is planned for this year. To achieve this, Badekha said, the corporation will continue to expand production.
As reported by Regnum News Agency, at the end of December, UAC manufactured and transferred new batches of Su-57 fighters and Su-34 frontline bombers to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Rostec CEO Sergei Chemezov noted that the state corporation's aircraft manufacturing enterprises are rhythmically supplying the Russian army with aircraft equipment, and the Su-57 and Su-34 aircraft transferred to the troops will soon take their place in service.
He called the Su-57 the only fifth-generation fighter that has proven its breakthrough characteristics in all combat scenarios. According to the head of Rostec, the Su-57 is a formidable weapon with advanced means of destruction.
In November, the corporation delivered a new batch of fifth-generation Su-57 aircraft and multifunctional 4++ generation Su-35S fighters to the troops. Chemezov also spoke about the world premiere of the Su-57 in the export version.
In early October, UAC delivered another batch of new Su-34 frontline fighter-bombers to the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS).
[Epoch Times] A prominent Wall Street law firm has struck a deal with the White House to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services.
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP will dedicate the services to causes supported by both the firm and the Trump administration, including assisting veterans and other public servants, ensuring fairness in the U.S. justice system, and combating anti-Semitism.
The firm also committed to funding at least five law graduates under a fellowship dedicated to supporting the causes each year and employing merit-based hiring practices, vowing not to deny representation to members of politically disenfranchised groups.
A White House statement explained that Skadden had approached Trump about its "strong commitment to ending the weaponization of the justice system and the legal profession." Jeremy London, the firm’s executive partner, said the two parties worked "constructively" to reach an agreement.
#3
A good lawyer knows the law and a great lawyer knows Justice. The fact that Trump has to strong arm, threaten and pressure a law firm to actually meet the basic values of a legal professional is a sad reflection of the swamp.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[ColonelCassad] Destruction of a wall with a mural of George Floyd in the USA.
Earlier in Washington, a huge Black Lives Matter sign was removed from the city center.
The issue of tearing down two monuments to George Floyd is being seriously discussed.
Now all that remains is to release police officer Derek Chauvin and dig up Floyd's golden coffin.
Also today, it is reported that the Trump administration is demanding that European companies providing services to the US government abandon racial and gender programs as part of the previously implemented agenda. Those who persist are threatened with excommunication from American contracts.
Perestroika. Glasnost. New thinking. Rozhin subscribes to the notion that the USA is undergoing our own Glasnost, a bit of revenge for the 1990s. I'd have to agree with Rozhin. Perestroika (restructuring) definitely applies. Glasnost (transparency) seems like a pretty good fit after the Obama-Biden dictatorships. The rampant corruption of both, plus the political slime tactics that characterized the Dems' "сопротивление" (Resistance) during the first Trump administration gave us sixteen years of political nightmares and has pretty much given Trump a free hand, just like the August '91 coup attempt by the old guard generals pretty much a.) discredited Gorbachev because it almost worked, b.) gave rise to Yeltsin and the democratization movement and finally c.) gave us Putin to deal with because Yeltsin was a drunk and a piss poor administrator even when he was sober. Putin wanted to reestablish the "normality" of the Soviet era. Notice that General Aleksandr Lebed, who was a genuine hero (Moldova and Chechnya), tragically perished in a "helicopter crash" (sound familiar?) in 2002, like so many subsequent pains in the Putin underwear. Lebed grew up in Novocherkassk, where 23 people, including the requisite women and kiddies, were killed and disappeared in the suppression of food riots (the Новочеркасский расстрел) that were hidden until Glasnost kicked in.
[Breitbart] Concerns over the breakdown of social cohesion, increasing violence, and the rise of Islamism have reached an “unprecedented level” in France, according to a survey which found over four in ten believe the country is heading towards civil war.
A survey from Ifop published in Le Figaro to coincide with the 120th anniversary of the passing of the Secularism Act of 1905 and the 10th anniversary of the Bataclan Islamist terror attacks in Paris in 2015, has found that the French public is increasingly sceptical of the multicultural project foisted upon the nation, with many fearing that their society may devolve into full-on chaos.
According to the poll, a record eight in ten people in France believe the country is at risk of experiencing a “social explosion” in the coming months.
While the “explosion” could come in the form of riots such as the ones experienced in 2023 following the police killing of an Algerian-heritage teen, or like the Yellow Vest or farmers’ protest movements, a staggering 42 per cent are concerned that it could come in the form of an outright civil war. The survey also found 39 per cent could envision an attack on the Élysée Palace (the residence of the French president) or the National Assembly.
In any event, the French public appears to be losing faith in their public institutions’ ability to withstand the growing turmoil, with six in ten expressing doubt over the government’s ability to maintain stability in the country. This comes as the National Assembly remains mired in a three-way split and in the wake of three governments collapsing since the start of last year.
One of the key drivers of the growing feeling of instability found by the survey was the spread of Islamist ideology throughout France. The poll found that 72 per cent were concerned about growing Islamism in working-class neighbourhoods, 70 per cent about it in prisons, 63 per cent in schools, 56 per cent in universities, and 52 per cent in sports clubs.
Islam in general was by far seen as the religion most likely to harbour radical positions at 63 per cent, compared to Judaism at 23 per cent and Catholicism at 16 per cent.
While the public was mostly tolerant towards some practices of the Muslim faith, such as praying five times a day and abstaining from alcohol, others, such as forcing young girls to wear veils or refusing to shake the hand of a person of the opposite sex, are seen as signs of radicalisation.
Other major factors seen as contributing to the breakdown in social cohesion surrounded issues of multiculturalism, with 88 per cent citing the “evolution of delinquency” on the streets of France, 82 per cent the “concentration of populations of the same culture or origin in neighbourhoods,” and 75 per cent pointing to the public spaces becoming “occupied by religions”. Outside of multiculturalism, only income inequality, at 77 per ent, was seen as playing a meaningful role in the cultural decay.
The growing concern over Islamism and multiculturalism appears to be having an impact on the political sphere. According to the survey, over eight in ten see the far-left La France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party of Jean-Luc Mélenchon as contributing to societal divisions.
Perhaps influencing this perception, supporters of the LFI, which has been an outspoken proponent of Gaza in the conflict with Israel, were the most likely to hold a positive perspective on radical Islam, with 36 per cent saying they would support Islamism.
Conversely, while the legacy media and the political establishment have long attempted to deride the National Rally as divisive and outside the bounds of acceptable politics, 39 percent of the public now sees Marine Le Pen’s anti-mass migration party as beneficial to France’s cohesion.
[EngMilRu] The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the special military operation.
In Belgorod direction, the Sever Group of Forces inflicted fire damage on manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, an assault regiment of the AFU, a naval infantry brigade, and two territorial defence brigades close to Krasnopolye, Ugroyedy, Prokhody, and Miropolskoye (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 185 troops, two armoured fighting vehicles, four motor vehicles, three field artillery guns, an Israeli-made RADA radar, and a Nota electronic warfare station.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. The Russian Armed Forces inflicted fire damage on manpower and hardware of three mechanised brigades and two assault brigades of the AFU close to Novoye, Yampol (Donetsk People's Republic), Nadiya (Lugansk People's Republic), and Krinichki (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 210 troops, a tank, two armoured fighting vehicles, six motor vehicles, and four field artillery guns including two of Western-made. Two electronic warfare stations and one ammunition depot were eliminated.
The Yug Group of Forces liberated Panteleymonovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
Russian troops engaged formations of two jaeger brigades, two mechanised brigades of the AFU, a territorial defence brigade, and a special forces brigade near Starayaya Nikolayevka, Novoolenovka, Ulyanovka, and Seversk (Donetsk People's Republic).
The enemy lost up to 300 troops, a tank, a U.S.-made HMMWV armoured fighting vehicle, and five motor vehicles. One ammunition depot was destroyed.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Russian formations damaged formations of two mechanised brigades two assault brigades and an assault regiment of the AFU close to Zelenoye, Kotlino, Yelizavetovka, Novoaleksandrovka, Krasnoarmeysk, Kotlyarovka, Petrovskoye and Novosergeyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The Ukrainian losses amounted to more than 480 troops, two tanks, six armoured fighting vehicles, five motor vehicles, and three field artillery guns including a U.S.-made 105mm M-101 howitzer.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces continued advancing into the depth of enemy defences. Russian troops engaged manpower and hardware of a tank brigade, a mechanised brigade, an airmobile brigade of the AFU, and two territorial defence brigades near Yalta, Otradnoye, Voskresenka, Novopol (Donetsk People's Republic) and Gulyaypole (Zaporozhye region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 150 troops, three motor vehicles, and three field artillery guns. One ammunition depot was destroyed.
The units of the Dnepr Group of Forces liberated Shcherbaki (Zaporozhye region).
Russian troops hit formations of a mechanised brigade, a mountain assault brigade of the AFU, and a territorial defence brigade near Novoandreyevka, Kamenskoye, Stepnogorsk (Zaporozhye region), Dneprovskoye, and Nikolskoye (Kherson region).
Over 70 troops, a motor vehicle, and an electronic warfare station were neutralised.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces have engaged the infrastructure of military airfields, a workshop, storage areas and control posts of unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition depots as well as clusters of enemy manpower and hardware in 148 areas.
Air defence systems have shot down a U.S.-made JDAM guided aerial bomb, HIMARS MLRS projectile as well as 73 fixed-wing UAVs.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, 660 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 48,952 unmanned aerial vehicles, 601 anti-aircraft missile systems, 22,569 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,532 MLRS combat vehicles, 23,064 field artillery guns and mortars, and 33,499 units of support military vehicles have been neutralised.
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue the operation to neutralise AFU formations on the territory of Kursk region.
The Sever Group of Forces liberated Veselovka (Sumy region) during the offensive.
Moreover, strikes were delivered at a mechanised brigade, two air assault brigades, the president's brigade, and a territorial defence brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine close to Gornal, Guyevo, and Oleshnya.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, and Artillery strikes engaged AFU manpower and hardware close to Gornal, Guyevo, and Oleshnya as well as Basovka, Belovody, Varachino, Velikaya Rybitsa, Veselovka, Vladimirovka, Vodolagi, Grunovka, Zhuravka, Zapselye, Kiyanitsa, Loknya, Mogritsa, Novonikolayevka, Obody, Sadki, Khrapovshchina, Yunakovka, and Yablonovka (Sumy region).
For the past 24 hours, the AFU losses amounted to more than 190 troops, two infantry fighting vehicles, an armoured fighting vehicle, eight motor vehicles, an artillery gun, three mortars as well as six UAV command posts, and an ammunition depot.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses amounted to more than 70,890 troops, 402 tanks, 329 infantry fighting vehicles, 290 armoured personnel carriers, 2,234 armoured fighting vehicles, 2,569 motor vehicles, 590 artillery guns, 53 MLRS launchers, including 13 of HIMARS and seven of MLRS made by the USA, 26 anti-aircraft missile launchers, one self-propelled anti-aircraft system, ten transport-loading vehicles, 123 EW stations, 18 counter-fire radars, ten air defence radars, 56 units of engineering and other materiel, including 23 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five bridge launchers, one engineering reconnaissance vehicle as well as 15 armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Eyewitnesses shared footage of a partial solar eclipse in different regions of Russia, including Moscow, Kaliningrad, Kazan, Murmansk and Apatity, on social networks.
It is noted that the eclipse began at 11:52 Moscow time at sunrise in the central zone of the Atlantic Ocean. In the Russian Federation, this phenomenon was best seen in the northern and northwestern regions. The peak of the astronomical phenomenon occurred between 14:00 and 15:00 Moscow time.
In Moscow, the Moon covered the Sun by only 2%, in St. Petersburg - by 15%. The eclipse was best seen in Murmansk - there the Sun hid by almost 30%, TASS quoted Lyudmila Koshman, head of the Moscow Planetarium's methodological support department.
Previously, a total solar eclipse was observed on April 8, 2024. For some residents of the Earth, the Moon completely blocked the Sun and cast a shadow on the surface of the planet, the width of which was 198 km. Residents of Mexico were able to observe the peak of the eclipse - for them, the sunlight dimmed for 4 minutes 28 seconds. This happened at 21:17 Moscow time in the north of the country.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in August 2024, the Earth began a supermoon period. The Moscow Planetarium published footage that captured the shades of the August full moon. The peak of this phenomenon was at 21:29 Moscow time on August 19. The supermoon is a period that coincides with the full moon and the maximum proximity of the moon to the Earth, it lasts up to three days.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 23:59 Official summary of the Office for Documentation of War Crimes of Ukraine from 00:00 03/29/2025 to 00:00 03/30/2025.
Seven facts of armed attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
There were reports of six civilians being injured, including a child born in 2012.
DAMAGED:
Seven residential buildings,
Two civil infrastructure facilities.
Seven armed attacks in the Gorlovka direction.
A total of 22 units of various ammunition were fired.
21:52 Russian fighters storm a hideout of Ukrainian militants —video.
20:51 Destruction of a "Motolyga" with two Ukrainian Armed Forces militants using an FPV drone in Sumy Oblast —video.
20:26 Special forces "Anvar" covered Ukrainian occupiers hiding in farms in Demidovka, Belgorod region —video.
19:34 Kherson direction:
Beautifully captured destruction of enemy UAVs using FPV drones. The work of UAV operators of the 61st Separate Guards Kirkenes Red Banner Naval Infantry Brigade —video.
18:57 Operation of combat helicopters of the army aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the area of the SVO —video.
18:25 Over the past 24 hours, the Kyiv regime continued attacks on energy infrastructure facilities of the Russian Federation.
– On March 28 at about 5.30 in the Belgorod region, as a result of a UAV attack on a facility of the branch of PJSC Rosseti Centre – Belgorodenergo and a wire break, the 35 kV high-voltage line Aidar – Bely Kolodez was disconnected.
– At 10:34 in the Belgorod region, an attack by a Ukrainian UAV on the 110 kV Krasnaya Yaruga substation of the branch of PJSC Rosseti Centre – Belgorodenergo was recorded, as a result of which a transformer was significantly damaged.
– At 13:45 in the Belgorod region, as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian UAV and damage to a transformer, a complete transformer substation of the branch of PJSC Rosseti Centre – Belgorodenergo was disconnected, with the cessation of electricity supply to consumers.
– At 17:03 in the Belgorod region, as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian UAV on the power facility of the branch of PJSC Rosseti Centre – Belgorodenergo, a 10 kV high-voltage line was disconnected and more than 1,100 household consumers in the Grayvoronsky district were de-energized.
– At 18:07 in the Belgorod region, as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian UAV, the 110 kV high-voltage line Borisovka – Krasnaya Yaruga of the branch of PJSC Rosseti Centre – Belgorodenergo was disconnected, followed by the cessation of power supply to more than 8 thousand household consumers in the Borisovsky district.
– In addition, as already reported, on March 28 at about 10:20 the Sudzha gas measuring station (GMS) was attacked using HIMARS rockets, which resulted in a strong fire. The Sudzha GMS as an energy facility was effectively destroyed.
Thus, regardless of Zelensky’s statements about the Kyiv regime’s alleged cessation of the deliberate destruction of Russian energy facilities, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have only increased the number of attacks on energy infrastructure in the Kursk and Belgorod regions of the Russian Federation.
17:27 UAV operator of the North group of forces destroyed an ATV of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Khar'kov region —video.
16:40 Geran attack drones attacked the deployment site of the 80th Airborne Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the village of Basy in Sumy Oblast at night —video.
16:05 Russian operators of the kamikaze drones "Prince Vandal Novgorodsky" destroy an abandoned Ukrainian tank in the Chasovoyarovsky direction -video.
15:28 Geran-2 drones hit the temporary deployment point of the airborne assault battalion of the 80th Separate Airborne Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The settlement of Basy in Sumy region —video.
14:46 The BMP-3 driver-mechanic with the call sign "Ufa" spoke about the tasks that the crew of his combat vehicle performs as part of a special military operation —video.
13:51 Units of the North group of forces during offensive operations released settlement Veselovka, Sumy region.
13:21 From 10:00 to 12:00 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the territory of the Belgorod region.
13:10 Criminal Kyiv regime continues to shell civilian infrastructure of populated areas of the left bank of the Kherson region, yesterday during the day the Ukrainian Armed Forces released:
– Nine rounds to the village of Aleshki;
– Three rounds in the village of Golaya Pristan;
– Five rounds in the village of Gornostaevka;
– Four rounds in the village of Dnepryany;
- according to n.p. Kakhovka three Rounds;
– Two rounds to the settlement of Novaya Mayachka.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces shelled the village of Aleshki, as a result of which two women were injured. Golaya Pristan was also shelled, after which it was partially de-energized.
In addition, Kyiv militants shelled the Aleshki Central District Hospital. Due to the impact of two large-caliber rounds, the building of the medical institution received serious damage, windows and doors were broken, the facade and roof of the hospital were damaged.
During the night, the Kiev regime continued to shell civilian infrastructure in the settlements of Proletarka, Novaya Mayachka, Novaya Kakhovka, Aleshky, Kakhovka, and Korsunka, firing a total of 20 rounds from cannon artillery.
12:23 Footage of the destruction of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel and Starlink kits by drone operators of the 39th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 68th Army Corps of the Yug group in the area of the settlement of Pokrovskoye —video.
11:46 Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers threw down their weapons and retreated from their shelters; those who did not have time raised the white flag.
During the storming of the stronghold in Malye Shcherbaki, Zaporizhia Oblast, 17 Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers tried to leave, but they were noticed by a "birdie". While they were loading into an infantry fighting vehicle, they were destroyed along with their equipment -video.
11:27 Russian drone operators work on Ukrainian soldiers using drone drops —video.
10:52 Destruction of Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment in the Pokrovsk direction —video.
10:15 Ten days of fighting on the border - Analysis «Fisherman»
The Ukrainian Armed Forces' offensive on the Krasnoyarsk region Ukrainian formations did not stop their attacks in the Belgorod region and already on Monday, March 24, they increased pressure on Demidovka. At the same time, special forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were able to jump into neighboring Popovka on light wheeled vehicles, another group entered on foot from Miropolskoye through ravines.
More details about the chronology of events on the site:
- Heavy fighting broke out in Popovka, the enemy was able to occupy the entire village for some time and block the Russian border guards in the stronghold. The border guards called fire on themselves, the enemy was forced to retreat, and reinforcements of Russian troops from Goptarovka broke through to the area.
– Despite this, it was not possible to completely liberate the settlement due to the terrain features: Popovka is cut off from Goptarovka by a wide ravine.
- In addition, both the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Russian troops continue to isolate the combat zone with drones, cutting off approaches and destroying each other's equipment. The enemy has not made any significant attempts to advance towards Grafovka, although it has struck two bridges over the Gryazny stream.
In Prilesye, Russian troops managed to regain control over the settlement, pushing the enemy back into nearby gullies.
- Ukrainian formations continue to maintain large forces opposite the Krasnoyarsk region, and new attempts to attack the Russian frontier are being made daily. Russian troops have also transferred reinforcements here, and therefore the battle on the Russian border will continue, regardless of the negotiations.
09:54 FPV Operator GV "North"discoveredin the sky over the Sumy region (in the area of the state border) a reconnaissance drone "FlyEye" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, after which it quickly caught up with and destroyed it.
08:45 Destruction of the M-777 howitzer of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by an FPV drone of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of the settlement of Shiykovka in the Kupyansk direction, –video.
07:54 During the past night, air defense systems on duty intercepted and destroyed three Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were over the territory of the Belgorod region.
07:36 Changes to map over the past 24 hours:
- Gogolevka was liberated;
- Advance in the Guevo area;
- Veselovka was liberated;
– Advance in the direction of Bogdanovka;
– The Russian Armed Forces entered Bogdanovka;
– Expansion of the control zone west of Dzerzhinsk;
– Advance in Dzerzhinsk;
- Krasniy Perviy was liberated;
– The Russian Armed Forces entered Razliv.
07:33 Russian Armed Forces are advancing near Makeyevka, Novolyubovka and Katerinovka, –MAP.
05:08 Crews of 122mjm D-30 howitzers of the 25th Combined Arms Army of the "West" group destroyed military equipment, pickups and manpower of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Stanislav Smirnov
[REGNUM] In 1907, the decadent poet Konstantin Balmont, who suddenly realized he was a revolutionary and went into European “relocation,” published the arch-radical “Songs of the Avenger ” in Paris. The most scandalous poem began like this: “Our king is Mukden, our king is Tsushima, our king is a bloody stain…”
The insults directed at Nicholas II escalated (the poet seemed not to suspect that he would be forgiven on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov) and ended with the promise of the scaffold.
One can argue whether the symbolist prophesied the massacre of the royal family in the Ipatiev House. But it is obvious that both the liberals who carried out the coup in February 1917 and the Bolsheviks who overthrew the liberals in October were united in their attitude towards the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.
And the battle of Mukden, and Tsushima, and all the previous and subsequent battles on the hills of Manchuria and at sea are nothing more than “a bloody stain, the stench of gunpowder and smoke, in which the mind is dark.”
To this day, there is a perception, “blessed” by Vladimir Lenin’s article “The Fall of Port Arthur,” of the war of 120 years ago as a series of failures. After all, in Ilyich’s opinion, the tsar’s “generals and commanders turned out to be mediocrities and nonentities.”
The Bolshevik leader also got his share of criticism from the ordinary soldiers of the Russian army: “The darkness, ignorance, illiteracy, and oppression of the peasant masses came forward with terrifying frankness when confronted with a progressive people (the Japanese. — Ed.) in a modern war, which just as necessarily requires high-quality human material as modern technology.”
This ideologically distorted optics still prevents us from understanding the real balance of power in the Far Eastern war, the course of the campaigns, and the heroism of Russian soldiers and sailors, which was evident in the first months of the war.
If earlier we looked at the details of the key episode of the war - the Battle of Mukden in February 1905, now we will pay attention to the initial stage of the war - the campaign of 1904.
THE WEST HELPED
In essence, the Russo-Japanese War was also a proxy war of Russia against the hegemonic power – the British Empire and the growing United States. Formally, the Anglo-Saxons maintained neutrality. But London and Washington feared our military and political strengthening in East Asia and the capture of Asian markets. It is not surprising that Theodore Roosevelt – the US President who opened the era of American globalism – openly “rooted” for Japan.
It is also not surprising that the British not only supplied the army of Emperor Meiji with the necessary amount of weapons, but also essentially created a modern Japanese fleet. All four squadron battleships and 11 destroyers were built in English shipyards. In addition to the British and Americans, France also participated in the production of cruisers.
By the beginning of the open clash with Russia, the Japanese army, including thanks to Western assistance, had a significant advantage in the future theater of military operations. An advantage more than sufficient to implement plans to “zero out” our presence in the Chinese northeast, in Manchuria, and to seize the ice-free Port Arthur built by Russia on the Liaodong (Kwantung) Peninsula leased from China.
If the Russian army group in the Far East by January 1, 1904 numbered only 98 thousand people (united into eight rifle brigades), and also dispersed over a vast area from Vladivostok to Port Arthur, then the Japanese invasion army had four field armies numbering 350 thousand people.
Serious Soviet military historians, writing on behalf of the party leadership and for the education of army and navy officers, also reported on this imbalance of power. For example, Major General Alexander Sorokin, author of the 1952 work “The Defense of Port Arthur. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905,” cites the figures mentioned above.
FLEXIBILITY OF ARMY LEADERSHIP
Just like the Second World War and the Great Patriotic War, the Russo-Japanese War began with a treacherous attack, preceded by a political crisis and a negotiation process – behind its façade, the enemy was accumulating and deploying forces. The decision to start a war against Russia was made by Emperor Meiji after a meeting of the Privy Council on January 22 (February 4), 1904. The next day, two tasks were set – to invade Korea (where Japanese influence was weakening and Russian was growing) and to attack our ships in the Port Arthur roadstead.
On January 24 (February 6), units of Tamemoto Kuroki's 1st Japanese Army landed in Korea. Three days later, Rear Admiral Sotokichi Uryu's squadron, consisting of six cruisers (two armored and four armored deck) and two destroyers, blockaded the cruiser Varyag and gunboat Koreets, which were moored in the Korean port of Chemulpo. The sailors' feat, celebrated in the song, is worthy of a separate story, but for now we will only note that the unequal 50-minute battle ended with the greatest possible "loss" for the Japanese: the Russian sailors, as is well known, sank the Varyag and blew up the Koreets, leaving the enemy without a trophy.
But the rest of the Japanese plan seemed to go according to plan. Simultaneously with the attack on Chemulpo, on the night of January 26-27 (February 8-9), 1904, Japanese destroyers attacked Russian ships in the outer roadstead of Port Arthur.
By this time, the Japanese were deploying an occupation force in Korea. By early March, the armies were "concentrated," after which the enemy advanced to the Yalu River (Amnokkan), which separates Korea and Manchuria, and prepared to invade.
The Russian plan envisaged an initial concentration of troops in two detachments - the Southern and the Eastern. The first, numbering 22 thousand people, was tasked with defending Southern Manchuria. The second, with 20 thousand bayonets and sabres, was moving towards the Yalu River to block the Korean border. At the same time, part of the troops, up to 30 thousand fighters, occupied positions in the Vladivostok region and in the Ussuri region.
The further development of the campaign showed that, in unequal conditions, the Russian command, represented by the Emperor's Viceroy in the Far East, Admiral Yevgeny Alekseyev (whom Soviet historiography labeled a warmonger) and the commander of the Manchurian Army, General Aleksey Kuropatkin, demonstrated sobriety and flexibility.
The maneuvering of army units allowed them to escape from a crushing blow time after time. Throughout the 1904 campaign, our Manchurian army was never surrounded or suffered serious damage. On the contrary, the Japanese did not achieve a blitzkrieg.
WITH A CROSS FOR A BREAKTHROUGH
On the night of April 18 (May 1), 1904, the main forces of the 1st Japanese Army of General Kuroki, having a six-fold numerical superiority over our Eastern Detachment under the command of General Mikhail Zasulich, crossed the Yalu River. In the battle near the village of Tyurenchen, three Japanese divisions were opposed by only five Russian battalions.
However, the enemy failed to destroy the Eastern Detachment. The attempt to encircle was thwarted by a stubborn defense and, in particular, the dedication of the soldiers of the 11th East Siberian Rifle Regiment under the command of Colonel Vladimir Laiming, who stopped the advance of two divisions. "The heroes of the 11th Regiment, who covered their neighbors who were leaving the battle, showed the greatest heroism and tenacity," wrote the Soviet historian Sorokin.
In the Battle of Tyurencheng, 60 officers and 2,130 lower ranks were killed and wounded, while the Japanese lost 1,036 officers and soldiers.
The issue of losses is debatable, and we will dwell on it in more detail later. For now, we will note that most works on the history of the 1904-1905 war use predominantly Japanese data on the losses of their army.
There are no sufficient grounds to consider these data reliable, and the point of view that the Japanese deliberately underestimated both the number of their troops and the size of their losses in order to convince the world of the obvious superiority of their strategy, the art of their military leaders and the combat effectiveness of their army seems quite convincing.
Here and below, information is given about the losses of the parties, taken from a major study that was published by the military-historical commission of the General Staff of the Russian Army in 1910-1912 and which experts consider a reliable source.
The Battle of Yalu went down in history, among other things, thanks to an episode that, unlike the feat of the Varyag, was not publicized in Soviet times. At the most difficult moment of the battle, when the regimental commander was wounded and the Siberian soldiers almost wavered at some point, a 29-year-old regimental priest, Stefan Shcherbakovsky, a native of Odessa, came out in front of the soldiers. He blessed the soldiers with the cross and said, “Christ is risen!” and then, clutching the cross, rushed forward, toward the Japanese chains.
As Father Stefan himself said:
"I put on the epitrachelion, took the cross, blessed the soldiers and, singing "Christ is risen," went at the head of the riflemen of the standard company... Without the slightest hesitation, the glorious riflemen went to certain death, into the hellish fire, among the exploding shells... Some ran forward, some fell killed or wounded. I felt a strong blow to my arm and leg and fell backwards, losing consciousness."
Father Stefan was seriously wounded (he was carried off the field by soldiers) and miraculously survived. He became the fifth Orthodox priest in Russian history (and the first since the Crimean War) to be awarded the Order of St. George. In 1918, Father Stefan, who served in one of the parishes of Odessa, was arrested by the Cheka and shot.
LOSS OF SHIPS
Three days after the Battle of Tyurencheng, the vanguard of the Japanese army on 36 ships left the Korean port of Qingampo (Nampho) and on April 22 began landing in the south of Manchuria, in the area of the city of Biziwo, 150 kilometers north of Port Arthur.
In eight days, up to 200 transports were unloaded - divisions, rear services and services of the 3rd Army of General Yasukata Oku, numbering 60 thousand people.
From the sea, the landing was supported by a detachment of six Japanese battleships, four cruisers and 30 destroyers, called upon to block the exit of the Russian squadron from Port Arthur. And during this operation, the enemy again suffered significant losses. Two Japanese battleships, the Hatsuse and the Yashima, were blown up and sank by mines laid by the sailors of the minelayer Amur.
Overall, as the historian notes, “in a relatively short time, the Japanese fleet lost two first-class battleships, a cruiser and several other warships. This was tantamount to a major defeat.”
The next unpleasant surprise for the Japanese was the battle near the city of Jinzhou on May 13 (26).
After landing at Bitsiwo, General Oku's army rushed to Port Arthur. The few Russian screens retreated to a fortified position at the isthmus of the Kwantung Peninsula. Here, at the city of Qinzhou (Kinzhou), the Japanese army was confronted only by the 5th East Siberian Rifle Regiment under the command of Colonel Nikolai Tretyakov. Further on, the path to the fortress was blocked by the 4th Division of Siberian Riflemen under Major General Alexander Fok.
The battle on the isthmus, where the enemy had a tenfold numerical superiority, lasted until late at night, after which the defenders abandoned their positions.
THE ACQUITTED GENERAL
The losses of the Siberian riflemen amounted to 20 officers and 770 soldiers killed, 8 officers and 626 soldiers wounded, a total of 1,424 people.
The Japanese lost, according to their data, 33 officers and 716 soldiers killed, 100 officers and 3,355 soldiers wounded, a total of 4,204 people. The losses of the 5th Regiment, from which 37% of soldiers and 51% of officers dropped out, testified to tenacity and heroism, as noted by Soviet historians.
At this price, the enemy approached Port Arthur and was able to occupy the port city of Dalniy (Dalian), which Russian troops abandoned due to the threat of encirclement.
It should be noted that the battle at Qinzhou is assessed critically in Russian historiography. It is believed that General Fok was obliged to come to the aid of the 5th Siberian Rifle Regiment and defend the strategically important Kwantung Isthmus, the loss of which resulted in the surrender of the port of Dalniy. Subsequently, the Japanese used this to supply their troops. However, an objective analysis allows us to assess the situation differently.
Alexander Fok was not a "parquet" general - he had experience in the Russo-Turkish War and the Chinese campaign of 1900-1901. But "here and now" in the Kwantung Fortified Region, the enemy had a huge numerical superiority. It was defended mainly by two rifle divisions. The 7th Division of Lieutenant General of Engineering Troops Roman Kondratenko (the future hero of the defense of Port Arthur) was dispersed among the forts and fortifications of the Port Arthur fortress.
Phocas' 4th Division represented practically all available field troops. Its defeat would have accelerated the capture of Port Arthur, which the enemy was striving for at any cost.
By the way, General Fok was put on trial for his participation in the fortress's capitulation, but the court acquitted him of all charges. And later the military leader showed himself worthy during the defense of Port Arthur.
IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE TO DEFEAT THE RUSSIAN TROOPS
The enemy, taking advantage of its superiority in manpower and equipment, meanwhile continued its assault on the Kwantung Peninsula. General Oku's army was joined by two more units that had landed from the sea. These were General Maresuke Nogi's 3rd Army, which had the goal of taking the fortress of Port Arthur, and Marshal Michitsura Nozu's 4th Army, which advanced north against our group near the city of Liaoyang.
The enemy landing force interrupted the connection between the Port Arthur garrison and our other units. Therefore, the Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Alekseyev, demanded decisive action to unblock it.
The task was assigned to the 1st Siberian Corps of Lieutenant General Georgy Shtakelberg, consisting of the 1st and 9th Siberian Rifle Divisions and a brigade of the 35th Infantry Division (Morshansky and Zaraysky Regiments), reinforced by the Primorsky Dragoon Regiment. The battle unfolded south of the Vafangou station and proceeded with varying success.
The First Siberian Corps was confronted by the main forces of the 2nd Japanese Army of General Oku. Having numerical superiority, the Japanese launched a frontal offensive and simultaneously tried to envelop our positions, but they failed to defeat the Russian troops. Our losses in killed, wounded and captured amounted to 3,300 soldiers and officers, the enemy, according to Japanese data, lost 1,190 people.
"IF WE HAD A RAILROAD..."
Most historians agree that the forces assigned to strike Oku's army were insufficient. This can be agreed with, but the actions of the Manchurian army commander become understandable if we take into account the complexity of the situation. There was a huge advantage in infantry and artillery for the Japanese.
On the one hand, the enemy was supported by “our Western partners”, on the other hand, the Russian army faced logistical problems.
The theater of military operations was located 8 thousand miles away from the regions and provinces that supplied the army with manpower and supplies.
The communication routes were not developed, the Siberian route remained single-track, its carrying capacity at the beginning of the war did not exceed three pairs of trains per day, and for the rapid delivery of new divisions and the complements needed to replenish losses, no less than 14 pairs of trains were needed daily. Increasing the capacity of the road required enormous and coordinated efforts from the financial, railway and military departments.
And these efforts have been made in recent years: new sidings were built to allow oncoming trains to separate, repair depots, platforms, staff houses, locomotives were replaced with faster ones... It was not possible to do all this quickly.
General Kuropatkin wrote in his memoirs:
"If we had a railway prepared for the beginning of military operations for at least 6 military trains, we could have had not one 1st Siberian Corps at Vafangou, but three corps: 1st and 4th Siberian and 10th Army. The outcome of the battle would have been different, which would undoubtedly have affected the course of the entire campaign, because we could have taken the initiative in the actions."
But the army command had to proceed from the "current reality" - in it, our army was faced with circumstances of insurmountable force. Which Russian officers and soldiers nevertheless managed to overcome. But the most difficult trials were ahead - the siege of Port Arthur and the Battle of Tsushima, which will require a separate story.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] An earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 occurred 19 km from the capital of Myanmar, Naypyidaw. This was reported on March 29 by the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center.
The tremors were recorded at around 12:20 Moscow time. They occurred at a depth of about 10 km.
There were no reports of damage to buildings or casualties from the new earthquake.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, a strong earthquake occurred in Myanmar on the morning of March 28. Its magnitude was between 7.7 and 7.9. Eleven minutes after the first, a second earthquake occurred with a magnitude of 6.4.
The tremors were also felt in Thailand, China, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Vietnam. The earthquake in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, was classified as a major disaster. In particular, a skyscraper under construction in the city collapsed. There were no reports of injured Russian tourists.
In Myanmar, an earthquake has caused destruction across almost the entire country. Many residential buildings, administrative buildings, schools and hospitals have collapsed. People are still being searched for under the rubble. Underground oil pipelines and power lines have also been damaged. Authorities have reported that more than 1,000 people have died and over 2,300 people have been injured as a result of the earthquake.
Local doctors reported on March 28 that the wounded continue to arrive, while medical facilities do not have enough doctors and nurses to provide care to all the victims.
On the evening of March 28, on the instructions of President Vladimir Putin, two planes with Russian rescuers flew to Myanmar to help eliminate the consequences of the earthquake. Putin expressed condolences to Myanmar Prime Minister Min Aung Hlaing.
[IsraelTimes] Toll likely to be far higher in civil war-ravaged country; military junta issues rare appeal for international assistance; death toll at 10 in Bangkok.
[IsraelTimes] Ahead of protests, hostages’ families urge ‘all Israelis, from every background and political viewpoint’ to attend demonstrations in cities across the country.
Some undefined number less than 10,000, probably slightly more than 2,000 to make the plural true.
Update: A subsequent Israel Times article on the subject estimates the number of protesters at tens of thousands, adding:
While the events passed mostly without incident, some protesters clashed with police toward the end of the night, and law enforcement officers were filmed violently dragging and detaining demonstrators.
[RedState] A limousine in the personal fleet of Russian President Vladimir Putin has reportedly exploded and burned in Moscow. Details are sketchy as of this writing; it is not known if this was an attempt on President Putin's life.
[X]
🚨 #BREAKING: POSSIBLE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT ON PUTIN?! 🚨
⚡A luxury limousine from Vladimir Putin’s official motorcade EXPLODED in the streets of Moscow, just blocks from FSB HQ.
🔥 The Aurus Senat — a £275,000 armoured beast — was engulfed in flames, fuelled by a violent… pic.twitter.com/I71B8afDHE
❓Who was inside?
❓Was it sabotage?
❓Was this a targeted hit on Russia’s most protected man?
This comes amid reports of intensified security around Putin: 🔎 Ceremonial guards searched head to toe
🕳️ Sewers inspected for bombs
💥 A real threat emerging?
The Kremlin is silent.
Speculation is NOT.
📢 If this was an assassination attempt, the global consequences will be seismic.
Speculation - and speculation only - is circulating that this was an attack and that it may have been ordered by Ukraine's President Zelensky.
Nothing as yet has been confirmed except the fact that the explosion and fire have taken place. In the videos attached to the X posts presented here, you can see the flames, and unidentified personnel throwing water on the blazing limousine.
The limo was near the Moscow headquarters of the Federal'naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii, or FSB, Russia's primary security agency and successor of the Soviet-era KGB. There is no news as to whether the limousine was going to or coming from the FSB, or who (if anyone) was inside.
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.
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