[PJM] Last week, after months of uncertainty and conjecture, the Biden campaign finally broke its silence on the issue of participating in presidential debates. However, rather than going through the Presidential Debates Commission, Biden's team proposed direct negotiations with the Trump campaign for two debates: one slated for June and another for September, under terms that were transparently designed to benefit Joe Biden.
The funniest thing about the debate challenge was that Biden tried to flip the script by accusing Trump of ducking debates and acting all macho about it.
"Now he is acting like he wants to debate me again,” Biden said. "Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice. So let’s pick the dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays.”
Despite the challenge, I was skeptical. Think about it: Why would the Biden campaign, after months of indecision, now push for debates and act like it was their idea in the first place? Biden’s public appearances have been disastrous. Even with a teleprompter, he struggles to deliver a speech without embarrassing himself. When he strays from the script, it’s a spectacle of blunders. His video challenge to Trump was a debacle as well, requiring a jump cut roughly every two seconds for a video that was just 13 seconds long.
It's certainly possible it was a bluff because the conditions the Biden campaign proposed were ridiculously absurd. Unfortunately for the Biden campaign, Trump called their bluff and agreed to the debates.
My skepticism appears to have been well founded because, according to Cindy Adams of the New York Post, Joe Biden is already trying to avoid debating Trump.
"I’m filled with messages about a maybe floppola failure," she writes. "Mouths kvetch that the debate won’t debate."
If the Biden campaign is truly having second, third, and fourth thoughts about the agreed-upon rules, which his campaign proposed, that tells me the debate challenge was a bluff they never expected Trump to agree to, and now they're fishing for reasons Biden can back out and potentially save face.
#3
Why should our taxpayers pay for this? Israel should pay veteran benefits for those that fight for them, just as I wouldn't expect Israel to pay for our veterans benefits if they fought in our war.
#4
I have a lot less trouble with this than with my tax dollars paying Ukrainian civil servant wages and bennies.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/21/2024 15:22
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#5
More kabuki. Introducing a bill is easy, but I can’t imagine such a thing would pass in the Republican-controlled House, and no chance it Hell it would even get heard in committee in the Senate. Nor should it — only those who out on an American uniform should get American veteran benefits.
[Zero] 'You'll own nothing in retirement and be happy'...
Wit the organization he founded 50 years ago bringing in nearly $500 million in revenue in the year ending March 2023 (and sitting on a neat pile of 200 million Swiss francs cash), Klaus Schwab will own some things as he reportedly steps back from his role running the World Economic Forum has has headed since 1971.
Semafor reports that Schwab announced his intentions to step down as executive chairman in an email to staff on Tuesday that was shared with Semafor by a person connected to the organization.
The change in his role is pending approval by the Swiss government but should be finalized ahead of the WEF’s annual meeting in 2025.
Schwab, now 86, will be transitioning to a role as non-executive chairman.
#2
Bright (two doctorates — mechanical engineering and economics, plus a Master in Public Administration from Harvard’s JFK School of Gov’t), mentored by Henry Kissinger, and a professor in his own right. His Swiss father had moved to Germany to run a major Swiss manufacturing firm for the benefit of the Third Reich, then returned permanently after the war. Though all the rest of his family is determinedly Swiss, Klaus prefers German citizenship despite his professorial career being in Switzerland. Odd, that.
It sounds like the WEF grew willy-nilly out of an early conference that quickly became popular.
[TWZ] The price for Shahed-136 drones in reportedly leaked documents far exceeds previous estimates, but is that what Russia is really paying?
A hacking group claims to have stolen files from an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) front company in Iran that provides fine details about the Shahed-136 Kamikaze drones that Russia has been using to striking Ukraine for 15 months, The recent dump of leaked documents has called into question how much Russia actually paid Iran for the drones, and while we cannot confirm the authenticity of the documents or the general accuracy of the figures they state, they do prompt an important question — what does a Shahed-136 actually cost?
Media outlets like The New York Times and CNN have reported that the drones were costing Russia about $20,000 apiece. However, documents obtained through the claimed hack show vastly different figures.
Information appeared online that a hacker group Prana Network has hacked the servers of Sahara Thunder, the manufacturer of Shahed drones, and posted a large amount of documents, both technical and related to their supply to Russia. As of now, the leaked documents reveal that:…
The documents state that in 2022, Russia intended to produce 6,000 Iranian drones under license at its facilities within 2.5 years, according to the Ukrainian Militinaryi news outlet. The publication cites a website called Iran Cyber News. The Iranians initially asked Russia to pay $375,000 per Shahed, but that figure was eventually negotiated down to $193,000 per drone for 6,000 units or $290,000 each for 2,000 drones, the publication reported. The total value of the production contract, including the transfer of technologies, equipment, 6,000 UAVs, and software, was $1.75 billion, according to Militinaryi.
However, the documents state that there was a plan for full localization of production in Russia with minimal supply of Iranian components that could be executed in 2023, with the projected cost of each Shahed-136 dropping to about $48.800 each. The all-in 'transfer' price was at $165,500 per unit, Militinaryi reported. "This gap is probably due to the mortgaged payments for linear production, additional costs, and investments in the enterprise." In other words, this would be the all-in cost of the program, including infrastructure and licenses, amortized across the production run. The more you build, the less that number would be as fixed costs are further offset. This would give a total program cost of just under $1B.
Regardless, a unit cost of around $50,000 would seem quite realistic based on everything we know about the Shahed-136 and how they are made, with that price being further reduced, and substantially so, over time.
Russia transferred more than two million grams of gold to Iran as part of these deals, the publication says. Once again, we do not know the final terms of the deal for certain or what it actually included.
The per-unit cost figures released by the hackers do not seem out of line, the CEO of a Ukrainian drone manufacturer told The War Zone.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] …who was running gold mining and e-cigarette business with slain mission's leader
Benjamin Zalman-Polun was one of three American citizens detained in Congo
READ MORE: Son had been preparing for war before following father into coup
Malanga's American son Marcel and another unidentified American man were captured and paraded around after the failed coup. Zalman-Polun's passport was gleefully displayed by the victorious troops.
Zalman-Polun and Malanga were involved in gold mining in Mozambique together, according to several African news outlets. The business partners also reportedly worked together in the e-cigarettes industry in Mozambique.
In 2014, the DC native pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute 50 kilos or less of marijuana in DC between October 2011 and April 2012, per legal documents seen by DailyMail.com.
According to his wife Hannah Polun's social media, the family has been living in the affluent coastal town of Ballito, South Africa, for the last couple of years.
In the early hours of Sunday, a group of around 50 men armed in camouflage fatigues attacked the residences of the prime minister, the defense minister, and a senior politician tipped to become speaker of parliament, according to the army.
Chilling footage caught the moment two of the plotters were seized trying to flee the country across the Congo River before groveling for mercy to Congolese soldiers as they lay bleeding in the street.
Marcel Malanga was one of them. He accompanied his former refugee father to the central African country from their home in Utah to lead the coup against the autocratic government of President Felix Tshisekedi.
A Facebook page appearing to belong to Malanga posted a live-streamed video of what appeared to be the attack.
'We, the militants, are tired. We cannot drag on with Tshisekedi and Kamerhe, they have done too many stupid things in this country,' Malanga said in Lingala in the video.
Christian Malanga moved to Salt Lake City as a 15-year-old refugee with his family in 1998 but returned to Congo in 2006 where he served in the military, and stood for parliament in 2011 only to be arrested two days before the poll.
He attempted to build his United Congolese Party in exile after returning to the US in 2012 and was accused by Congolese intelligence of plotting the assassination of then president Joseph Kabila.
Eight years after arriving in the US, Malanga returned to his homeland in order to do military service, rising to the rank of captain by 2007. During this period, he had at least 235 soldiers under his command.
Following failed attempts at moving into politics in DRC, Malanga returned to the US in 2012 but continued to be active in the country's affairs while in exile.
Malanga, who had previously threatened on social media to overthrow Tshisekedi, first attempted an aborted coup in 2017, according to army spokesperson Sylvain Ekenge.
The army has shared a photo of his body sprawled on the grass in blood-stained fatigues.
In the ministry's video, a detained man described as a recruiter for Malanga's cause says Malanga had planned to proclaim himself president.
"He indicated he had the support of the Americans, but we realise that he didn't really have any," the detainee said.
The U.S. ambassador has said the United States will fully cooperate with the Congolese authorities and hold accountable any U.S. citizens involved.
Marcel appears to have ad a perfectly average upbringing in the US. He graduated from Copper Hills High School in the community of West Jordan, Utah, in 2020 where he was also a star football player.
After high school, he went on to play for the Utah Islanders, a team which helps to develop players to play college football.
However, his social media is filled with references to war and images of assault weapons.
Nearly a year ago Marcel shared a picture with his father and captioned it: 'honored to have you as my earthly father. I can’t wait to change the world with you.'
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] … at the last minute and organizers call on friends to meet there and rampage anyway.
A 400-man riot broke out at a Florida skate park after the venue canceled a planned after party at the last minute.
The large brawl erupted Saturday night in the parking lot at Astro Skate in the Tampa Bay Metropolitan area after frustrated party organizers put out a call online encouraging people to 'riot' and 'confront law enforcement' at the skate park.
The rampage saw more than 400 people, both children and adults, fighting, stealing and causing damage to local businesses.
One group of rioters caused $500 worth of damage to a convenience store and another beat a juvenile before throwing him through a glass window at a nearby barber shop.
Twenty-three youths and six adults were arrested in the violent outbreak, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office has confirmed.
Authorities were called to Astro Skate in Brandon, about 13 miles from Tampa, around 9.20pm Saturday after an off-duty deputy reported a large crowd fighting in the parking lot.
Investigators say the fight broke out after Astro Skate canceled a planned after party because the event hosts failed to hire an off-duty deputy to monitor the event, as per company policy.
Although the skate park refunded their money, the party-goers were seemingly angry and took to social media asking people to meet at the business and riot.
When deputies arrived at the scene, approximately 400 to 500 people were fighting and causing disturbances in the Astro Skate parking lot and at nearby businesses.
Deputies issued multiple warnings informing the crowd that they trespassing and needed to leave, but the group carried on the rampage.
Smaller groups broke away from the large fight and targeted nearby businesses.
From another article: after an off-duty deputy reported a “large crowd”.
From this article: Fight occurred because... canceled a planned after party because the event hosts failed to hire an off-duty deputy.
Seems like the Deputy who they were going to hire was there, and for whatever reasons declined the gig, and then called in backup b/c of a large unruly crowd getting pissed off that the event was canceled b/c of the deputy declined to provide the security - which had to be last minute b/c #1 the deputy was onsite, #2 the party go'ers never got a cancelation notice.
#3
Canceling an event at the last minute because of "security" issues is a time honored campus technique for shutting down, ie censoring, speakers who the delicate snowflake ears can't handle. If the off duty guy saw stuff that put up a red flag for him, so be it.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/21/2024 12:58
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#4
I suspect The Furies.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/21/2024 13:11
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#5
I'll go with Park monitored the reservation, saw that the number of attendees was going to go past occupancy and safety, saw that beefs were already going, and said nah.
Get the feeling one of the few diverse people there was thrown through the window?
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made a campaign promise to black farmers that will give them $5 billion in reparations should he win the 2024 presidential election. Kennedy, a one-time Democrat turned third-party insurgent, was speaking on a recent episode of his podcast with John Boyd Jr., founder of the National Black Farmers Association.
Boyd Jr. (pictured) is behind an effort to sue the Biden administration for watering down a proposed debt relief program aimed at helping people of color and 'socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers' in the agriculture industry. The farmers did not receive the relief package as the money was stalled in courts due to white farmers complaining the debt relief infringes on their constitutional rights.
Kennedy promised he will 'get rid' of the people who watered down the provision in the USDA and 'get that money' for black farmers 'when I'm in the White House.' 'That $5 billion is not money, that is an entitlement,' he told Boyd Jr. 'It's money that was a loan that black farmers were entitled to way back when and was stolen from them through discrimination.' Kennedy has several programs attempting to outflank Biden from the left on reparations.
#1
The 'Inflation Reduction Act; (yes, poorly named) authorized $2 Billion or so for this same thing.
I'm not sure what the requirements are for applying but the law was based on people being discriminated against during execution of farm loan programs. So applicants probably have to show or maybe affirm under penalty of perjury, that they applied for a loan and were turned down.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/21/2024 14:35
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#2
...sort of like the COVID applications. That worked out so well. /sarc off
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] …plot to retrieve stolen iPhone is jailed
Kevin Bui was 16 when he led his teenage accomplices on a botched revenge mission for a stolen phone in August 2020
They doused walls with gasoline after breaking into the Denver home where five adults and three children were sleeping
A six-month-old and a 21-month old were among the five dead found behind the locked front door
Bui was the last of the three to be sentenced and will serve 60 years in prison after his lawyers reached a plea deal
The leader of a teenage gang that incinerated two babies and three adults after targeting the wrong Colorado home in revenge for an iPhone theft will serve 60 years in jail.
Lawyers for Kevin Bui, 20, accepted a plea deal after he admitted torching the Denver home where eight innocent people were sleeping on an August night in 2020.
Bui and two accomplices broke into the Green Valley Ranch home and doused the walls with gasoline before setting it alight and leaving the family to its fate.
Three people jumped to safety from a second-story window, but the bodies of Djibril Diol, his wife Adja, 23, their 21-month-old daughter, Khadija, along with Diol's sister Hassan and her six-month-old daughter, Hawa, were found huddled together by the front door.
Bui, and his friends Gavin Seymour, 16, and Dillon Siebert, 14, had spent weeks planning the attack on the home. Bui had wrongly identified it after using the 'Find My iPhone' app to track the location of his stolen device to the family's neighborhood. They bought hockey-style masks from a costume store and were recorded in ghostly surveillance footage approaching the house laden with cans of gasoline on the night of the fire.
Denver police officer Gordon King was among the first on the scene and heard someone trying to unlock the front door from inside with a keypad.
'Officer King kicked in the front door but was forced away from the door by the extreme heat,' the arrest warrant for Seymour recorded.
'Officer King was able to see a small human body approximately three feet inside of the front door.
'As Officer King attempted to get the person out it was apparent that the person was not alive and Officer King was forced back by the extreme heat of the fire.'
Investigators had little to go on until they ordered Google to hand over information on anyone who had searched online for the Truckee Street address in the two weeks before the fire.
The trio were arrested in January 2021 and charged with crimes including first-degree murder with extreme indifference, attempted murder with extreme indifference, burglary and assault with a deadly weapon.
Siebert was sentenced in February 2023 to ten years behind bars for his role in the crime.
Seymour pleaded guilty to second degree murder in March and was jailed for 40 years followed by five years of mandatory parole.
Bui's legal team announced a deal with the Denver District Attorney's Office on Friday in which he agreed to 60 years in a state correctional facility in exchange for the DA dropping an additional 60 criminal charges.
Bui's father, Thuan Bui, was in court to see the plea deal announced, telling reporters: 'We accept it.'
The murdered family were originally from Senegal and Diol had graduated in 2018 from Colorado State University with a degree in civil engineering. Diol was working for Kiewit construction, and his family were staying with friends at the house until they could get a home of their own.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Two high school students are believed to have leapt off a South Carolina bridge into a lake before drowning because they were apparently dared by friends in a group chat.
Ryan Al-Nasser, 16, and Zakaria Chaar, 15, were both students at Daniel High School in Pickens County, South Carolina.
Local police claim that the pair were in group chats with friends daring them to jump off Twelve Mile River Bridge into Lake Hartwell.
The lake was the site of a tragic accidental drowning death of an 18-year-old just this past July 4.
The boys, both sophomores, apparently took their friends up on the dare and jumped off the bridge Saturday.
Police were informed at around 10:30pm Saturday by a person calling 911 saying they had lost their friends.
According to the police, it appeared one of the boys made the jump while another attempted to rescue him before being dragged by the current of the water.
Officials searched for two days before the bodies were eventually taken out of the water on Monday morning at 11am by a local boater.
The bodies were found around eight feet from one another in the 15-feet deep water.
#1
Poor boys. The bridge is not high, and the river looks deceptively calm. Hubris.
Kayak website said this: As the Twelve Mile River enters Lake Hartwell, the channels become very clear and wide. Paddlers can use Madden Bridge Road as a beginning and end point, and paddle upstream or downstream at their own leisure.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up, they say. But really, it’s both.
Dr. David Morens, a senior advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci from 1998 until 2022
Some of Morens' emails have been obtained by congressional subpoena
He said he deleted his communications to avoid turning them over to the public
Some of Morens' emails have been obtained by congressional subpoena and were read out by House Oversight Chairman James Comer in a hearing Thursday, part of lawmakers' probe into the theory that covid came from a leak in a Chinese lab.
Morens, who works at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), wrote about deleting his communications to avoid turning them over to the public under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
He was writing to Peter Daszak, whose organization EcoHealth Alliance had its federal funding suspended this week for its role in contracting controversial coronavirus research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
'I learned from our FOIA lady here how to make emails disappear after I am FOIA'd but before the search starts,' Morens wrote to Daszak. 'So I think we are all safe. Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to Gmail.'
'We are all smart enough to know to never have smoking guns,' Morens wrote in a later message. 'And if we did we wouldn't put them in emails. And if we found them we would delete them.'
Fauci and his advisors at NIAID came into the spotlight after it emerged the agency funded EcoHealth Alliance to conduct research including experiments that altered coronaviruses to make them more dangerous.
EcoHealth subcontracted the work to the Chinese lab in Wuhan and, according to the Department of Health and Human Services which pulled their funding on Wednesday, failed to adequately oversee it – potentially leading to an accident causing a global pandemic in 2020.
Congressman Brad Wenstrup, chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, is now concerned that Morens and Daszak may have tried to cover their tracks following the scandal by deleting federal records.
His committee released emails last year showing Morens discussed using his personal rather than government email and deleting communications to avoid scrutiny.
The top official for NIAID, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), wrote in an email to Daszak in 2021 that he communicates on Gmail 'because my NIH email is FOIA'd constantly.'
'Just send to any of my addresses and I will delete anything I don't want to see in the New York Times,' Morens wrote, according to lawmakers.
Wenstrup has now issued two subpoenas to Morens: one for all his gmail correspondence about the origins of COVID-19, and another forcing him to testify to the committee on May 22.
DailyMail.com understands that Morens turned over about 30,000 emails to the committee on April 30.
[Hot Air] ALTOONA, Pennsylvania -- The oldest gas station in America still in operation, Reighard's here in this Blair County city, got its start in 1908 when a local blacksmith decided to sell gasoline out the back of his shop when the Model T was introduced.
It has been open ever since. While architecturally it is underwhelming, the service is good because the people who work there care about the work they do, whether it is pumping gas, washing your windshield or doing minor fixes on your car. It is important to them that you return.
While Reighard's holds the title of the oldest gas station in the country, it was another Altoona family that put a different kind of gas station excellence on the map. The Sheetz family story is one of struggles. This family-friendly service station struggled with a salmonella breakout in 2004, but it retained a deeply local customer base and expanded well beyond its western Pennsylvania roots.
Ask any traveler in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and North Carolina and they'll tell you when they see the cheery red and yellow stations along their drives, Sheetz means quality and comfort to their loyal customers.
One very loyal and vocal customer is Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), the Braddock Democrat who often posts on X his preference for Sheetz over Wawa, the other mega service station based in the state, with cheeky posts such as "Sheetz > Wawa."
With so much loyalty among residents in the state, it made sense for President Joe Biden to do a photo-op at a Sheetz in suburban Pittsburgh last week after his visit with local steelworkers. He wanted to demonstrate that he is no different than any other Pennsylvanian in his affection for the family-owned business.
[Breitbart] The Israeli rap duo "Ness and Stilla" has reportedly been denied a visa to perform in Miami, Florida, over false accusations that their hit song, "Harbu Darbu," promotes "genocide" by backing Israel’s war against terror.
The song, as Breitbart News reported in November, was written in reaction to the terror attack of October 7, and expresses the spirit of a nation mobilized for war. It calls out Hamas and Hezbollah — and celebrities who back them.
[Red State] In an incident underscoring the reality that guns work better than restraining orders, a woman in Monrovia, California, shot and killed a man who attempted to assault her with knives. The harrowing incident left the assailant dead and the armed woman physically unscathed.
The shooting occurred on Friday night, shortly after the man arrived at the homeowner’s residence armed with knives.
#2
Knew a dude in a rough neighborhood that had two circles painted on his driveway, based on distance to his front door. Red at 9 feet and yellow at 15 feet. Red is the "shoot them now" and yellow is the "warn them" line. It was all inside of his fenced front yard, with plenty of No Tresspassing signs. Local cops said it was copacetic.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
05/21/2024 18:33
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[Washington Examiner] The International Criminal Court again is proving itself a misbegotten menace, indeed an illegitimate body, as its top prosecutor, Karim Khan, seeks an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Actually, the two assertions here are separate, although the first helps demonstrate the second. First, the idea of warrants for the Israeli officials is outrageous. Second, even if it weren’t seeking to arrest the Israelis, the ICC is illegitimate in concept and design.
As for Khan’s request for warrants, it also includes ones for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and two other top Hamas officials. The simultaneous warrant requests apparently are supposed to indicate how neutral and evenhanded the ICC’s team is. Instead, the purported "balance" is offensive. It essentially puts a terrorist group on the same moral and legal plane as the fairly elected leader of a genuinely representative democracy. It all but directly equates the deliberate targeting and torturing of innocent civilians during an unprovoked act of terrorism, on the one hand, with, on the other hand, the "just war" response of the injured party, one that goes out of its way to warn civilians of impending military action and to help provide escape corridors for their safe passage.
Moreover, the specific accusations Khan made against the two Israeli officials are demonstrably false. He told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Israelis are guilty of "causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict. ... The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza."
[Washington Examiner] The Florida classified documents case against former President Donald Trump is not going well for special counsel Jack Smith, both in pace and in consistency.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of Trump, reprimanded Smith in a Sunday afternoon order relating to requests for redactions by parties in the criminal case. The judge suggested Smith is flip-flopping on his past claims of concern over grand jury secrecy and witness safety, a move that marks a blow to the special counsel’s consistency in a case that is already facing major setbacks as it moves toward an eventual trial.
[ZERO] In a regularly scheduled meeting with leftist activists and Democrat NGOs, Satan tries to to explain the value of subtlety. It does not go well. The Babylon Bee has become famous in a disturbing way - Their parodies often end up predicting future realities, proving that we now live in Clown World whether we like it or not.
The comedy sketch does bring up a valid question that needs to be addressed: Why has the political left put all their evil out in the open all of a sudden? They used to hide their intentions behind empty platitudes and declarations of "peace and love and equality." Today we have CRT, DEI, ESG and an intersectional hellscape saturating society with the mentally ill.
[Modernity] The freshly reelected Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has declared Donald Trump to be a "racist, sexist homophobe," urging the Labour party to "call him out" as you would do a "best mate."
Khan told POLITICO "I’m quite clear, I understand on Trump... He’s a racist. He’s a sexist. He’s a homophobe. And it’s very important, particularly when you’ve got a special relationship, that you treat them as a best mate."
"If my best mate was a racist, or a sexist or a homophobe, I’d call him out and I’d explain to him why those views are wrong."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[LB] In the Kharkiv direction, the line of battle is dynamic.
by Iryna Lysohor
During the week of May 13-19, more than 850 combat clashes took place, which means that the intensity of fighting compared to the previous week has increased. Russia launched 38 missile strikes and more than 680 airstrikes, conducted more than 810 attacks from rocket salvo systems on military positions and populated areas.
This was announced by the spokesman of the General Staff, Dmytro Lykhovii, on the air of the telethon. According to him, the enemy continues to focus on the Kharkiv, Kupyan, Lyman, Siver, Pokrovsky, Kramatorsk, Kurakhiv, Vremiv, Orikhov and Dnieper directions.
"Despite numerous losses in personnel and military equipment, the Russian aggressor is trying to push our troops out of their positions," he said.
The defense forces oppose the enemy's attempts, under favorable conditions - counterattack and, if necessary, maneuver.
In the Kharkiv direction , 83 enemy attacks took place in the area of Hlyboke, Neskuchne, Bugruvatka, Liptsi, Staritsa and Vovchansk settlements. The battle line is dynamic.
On Kupyanskyi, the enemy advanced in the area of the settlements of Sinkivka, Petropavlivka, Ivanivka, Pishchane, Berestov in the Kharkiv region and Stelmakhivka in the Luhansk region. The defenders repelled 93 Russian attacks.
On Lymanskyi, 59 attacks by occupiers were repulsed near Novoyehorivka, Makiivka, Nevsky and Serebryansky forests of Luhansk region, Terniy, Novosadovoy and Torsky - Donetsk region.
In the Siversky direction, the Defense Forces prevented 64 attacks in the directions of Bilogorivka, Luhansk region, Verkhnyokamyanka, Vyimka, Spirne, Rozdolne, Donetsk region.
In the Kramatorsk direction, defenders repelled 107 attacks by Russians in the area of Hryhorivka, Kalynivka, Novy, Ivanivske, Klishchiivka, Kurdyumivka and Andriivka settlements of the Donetsk region. The enemy tried to improve the tactical position there.
In the Pokrovsky direction, defenders repelled 228 attacks in the directions of Kalinovo, Novooleksandrivka, Sokol, Novopokrovsky, Umansky, Novoselivka Pershoya, Solovyo, Yasnobrodivka, and Netailovo.
In Kurakhivsk, the Defense Forces continue to hold back the enemy in and near Krasnohorivka, Pobyeda, Novomykhailivka, Slavny, Vodyany, Georgiivka, Paraskoviivka, and Kostyantynivka areas, where the enemy tried to break through the defenses 87 times.
In Vremivsk, defenders repelled 81 attacks in the area of Southern Mine No. 1, the villages of Kosnyatinovka, Vodyane, Urozhane, Staromayorske of the Donetsk region.
The enemy attacked the positions of the defenders in the Orichovo area ten times in Orichivskoye.
In the Dnieper direction, the occupiers launched 43 unsuccessful attacks, in particular near Krynyk.
During the week preceding the last one, the number of enemy attacks was several dozen less : there were 830 of them.
During that week, there was a higher number of missile strikes - 95, and the enemy also carried out 850 airstrikes.
[NEWARAB] US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. Former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body.... on Monday slammed the International Criminal Court prosecutor's application for arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling the move "outrageous".
"And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence - none - between Israel and Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... . We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security." Biden said in a statement. "Ironclad!" he mumbled Also says he was a truck driver.
His top aide, Secretary of State Antony Blinken ...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm... , also criticised the move, raising questions over the court's jurisdiction and process in making this application. He added that it could jeopardise negotiations to achieve a hostage deal and a ceasefire.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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Karim Khan: A personal appointment of Tony (The gutter mouth) Guterres as a United Nations Assistant Secretary-General and a brother of convicted sex offender Imran Ahmad Khan.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 22:15 The defense forces maintain control along the entire front line, including in the Donetsk directions and in the Kharkiv region, Zelensky said in an evening video message. According to him, Russian troops are actively using guided bombs: “This again and again returns to the need for air defense - for additional defense systems that could significantly reduce the difficulties for our soldiers and the threat to our cities and communities. And this also concerns the preparation of the transition Our Air Force for new combat aircraft. Unfortunately, the free world still lacks efficiency in these two tasks. But we still have promising work with several partners and are doing everything so that the day comes as soon as possible when we can add strength. "patriots" to our eastern regions, our cities, such as Khar'kov, Sumy and others."
21:58 The Netherlands will transfer YPR-765 armored vehicles to Ukraine, the country’s Ministry of Defense reported. These vehicles provide fire support in battle, they evacuate wounded military personnel and deliver ammunition to the front. The number of armored vehicles has not been disclosed. Previously, the Netherlands had already supplied 207 YPR armored vehicles of various types to Ukraine.
21:13 The Russian army attacked Belozerka, Kherson region, two people were wounded, the OVA reported.
20:46 Russia purchased from the DPRK more than 11 thousand containers of weapons for use in the war against Ukraine, said US Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Robert Wood. He emphasized that the Russian Federation would not have been able to continue its war in Ukraine without external support from the DPRK, Iran and China. Wood also added that the United States will supply Ukraine with everything it needs until the Russian Federation withdraws its troops.
20:40 Western countries are extremely slow in making decisions on military assistance to Ukraine, which complicates the situation of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Zelensky said in an interview with Reuters: “All the decisions that we, and then everyone else together, come to are about a year late.” So, according to him, the supply of air defense systems like Patriot is “one big step forward, and before that - two steps back.”
The president also explained that Ukraine is striking at Russian energy facilities “because it leaves us without energy.” At the same time, the head of state assured that Ukraine has never used Western weapons to strike Russia, since “we were not given the green light.”
20:37 Zelensky will continue to remain the President of Ukraine for the UN, despite the fact that his term of office is expiring, said the Speaker of the Secretary General Stephane Dujarric: “President Zelensky remains for us the head of state of Ukraine and the person with whom the Secretary General communicates when he needs to contact with the Ukrainian leader."
20:34 The United States opposes expanding the geography of the use of American weapons transferred to Ukraine, Pentagon head Lloyd Austin said after a meeting in the Ramstein format. He also said that Washington does not plan to send military instructors to Ukraine.
20:31 Lithuania is ready to return its military instructors to Ukraine as part of a coalition that could be led by France, said the country’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis: “We could again send instructors to Ukraine - those who were already present there. Lithuania is ready to join coalition to train the Ukrainian military, led, for example, by France."
At the same time, he added that Europe “should not count” on Beijing’s assistance in resolving the war in Ukraine on Kyiv’s terms. “Nothing is done for free; China will always demand something in return,” the minister noted.
20:28 In Ukraine there was not a single fact of the use of nuclear materials for purposes other than their intended purpose, said IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi: “When allegations of violations of nuclear safety arose, the IAEA conducted an impartial and scientifically based investigation. We established the facts that there was no use of nuclear material for other purposes, thereby dispelling the fog of war and defusing the tense situation."
19:52 The second batch of Leopard battle tanks from Spain will arrive in Ukraine at the end of June, Defense Minister Margarita Robles said. According to her, they will also come with various types of ammunition - 155-mm artillery, anti-aircraft missiles for Patriot, anti-drone systems, optical-electronic surveillance and tracking systems, etc.
19:39 On Tuesday, May 21, from 00:00 and throughout the day throughout Ukraine, hourly shutdown schedules will apply to industrial and household consumers, Ukrenergo reported. Schedules can be applied when certain consumption limits are exceeded.
18:44 The front line in the north of the Khar'kov region has been stabilized, fighting continues in Volchansk itself - the confrontation goes on almost every street, said the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov. At the same time, he added that the Russian plan to quickly capture the north of the Khar'kov region failed.
17:58 Factories in Ukraine are forced to hire women due to staff shortages, writes the Financial Times. Thus, at one of the metallurgical plants in Krivoy Rog, managers say that hiring more women is a matter of survival for the enterprise. Of the 18,000 men who worked for the company at the start of the war, about 3,500 men were mobilized, and many more are likely to be mobilized this year. If previously women worked mainly in administrative positions, now they take on more difficult physical functions.
17:12 The Austrian Ministry of Climate Protection announced that it will allocate 5 million euros to Ukraine for the restoration of energy infrastructure.
16:40 Countries participating in the Ramstein format have allocated $95 billion in military support to Ukraine since February 2022, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said.
16:14 The coming weeks and months will be decisive for Ukraine, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at the opening of the next meeting in the Ramstein format. According to him, now is the moment of challenge, when Russian troops have gone on the offensive and will try to create a buffer zone along the border in the Khar'kov region.
15:31 The Russians shelled the front-line Stepnogorsk, Zaporozhye region - one person was killed, said the head of the OVA Ivan Fedorov.
14:53 India will be represented at the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
14:37 Ukraine realizes that the war with Russia will end in negotiations, said NSDC Secretary Alexander Litvinenko in a video message to participants of the Baltic Sea Region Forum. According to him, Zelensky’s peace formula is being promoted precisely for this purpose. Litvinenko stressed that Ukraine does not need a truce, but a stable peace for decades, and for this we need security guarantees, and “real guarantees are NATO membership.” Litvinenko also said that the situation at the front is difficult, but “not catastrophic.”
14:19 290 foreign components were found in the North Korean ballistic missile with which Russia attacked Ukraine, said Alexander Ruvin, director of the Kiev Forensic Research Institute: “In only one object identified as a sample of the North Korean ballistic missile, 290 foreign-made microelectronics components were found. The vast majority of the elements provide rocket navigation; they are produced by more than 25 companies with headquarters in the USA, China, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan, etc.
13:24 The number of people killed as a result of a Russian strike on a recreation center in the village. Cherkasskaya Lozovaya, Khar'kov district, has grown to seven - today, while examining the bottom of the reservoir, divers discovered the body of a man, the State Emergency Service reported. Also, 28 people were injured as a result of the strike.
12:50 The Armed Forces of Ukraine control 60% of Volchansk, said Roman Semenukha, deputy chairman of the Khar'kov OVA: “The enemy does not abandon attempts inside Volchansk to push the Armed Forces of Ukraine out of the city. The city is approximately 60% controlled by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, that is, the assaults do not stop.”
12:37 Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said that some states have already sent their instructors to Ukraine to train the Ukrainian military. She stressed that NATO allies should not fear that sending troops to Ukraine to train its soldiers could drag the Alliance into a war with Russia. According to Kallas, if Russian troops attacked NATO training personnel in Ukraine, it would not automatically trigger Article 5: “I can’t imagine that if anyone got hurt there, those who sent their people, they will say: this is Article 5, let’s bomb Russia. This is not how it works. This does not happen automatically. Therefore, these fears have no basis.”
12:09 Since May 18, 260 thousand men have updated their data in the Reserve+ application, said Dmitry Lazutkin, spokesman for the Ministry of Defense. According to him, now men abroad can also update their data, which was impossible on the first day of the application’s launch. Within a month, an update is planned in the Reserve+ application, after which it will display a special code similar to the one that should be in a military registration document. This code will be valid for verification by employees of the TCC and SP, police, and State Border Guard Service.
11:58 The Russians attacked one of the enterprises in the Dnieper district of Kherson - one person was killed, one was wounded, said the head of the OVA Alexander Prokudin.
11:17 In the village of Novoandreevka, Zaporozhye region, the Russians dropped ammunition from a drone on rescuers who were putting out a fire in a house after the shelling. One of the rescuers was injured, the State Emergency Service reported.
10:36 During a drone attack on the night of May 19, at least three UAVs were not shot down and hit the territory of a military airfield in the village of Kushchevskaya, Krasnodar Territory, reports the opposition Russian publication Astra, citing sources in the region’s emergency services. As a result of the attack, a fire broke out and the Russian SU-27 supersonic fighter and airfield infrastructure were damaged.
10:20 Russian public pages write about the Ukrainian attack in the area of the Academy of Internal Affairs in Lugansk, where the Russian military was based. The “governor” of the occupied Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Balitsky, also announced a massive shelling of Vasylivka.
09:43 In the Kherson region over the past 24 hours, eight people were injured as a result of Russian shelling, said the head of the OVA, Alexander Prokudin. A high-rise building and 21 private houses, public utilities and agricultural infrastructure were damaged.
09:27 In the Donetsk region over the past 24 hours, three people were wounded as a result of Russian shelling - two in Severny and one in Yekaterinivka, said the head of the OBA Vadim Filashkin.
09:01 The number of victims as a result of yesterday's Russian attack with an Iskander-M missile on a recreation center in the village. Cherkasskaya Lozovaya in the Khar'kov region has grown to 28, six people have died, said Oleg Sinegubov, head of the OVA. Among the wounded are two ambulance workers. In Volchansk over the past 24 hours, one person was killed and one was wounded as a result of Russian shelling. In the village Two people were killed and five were injured in Novoosinovo, Kupyansky district. In the village Three people were killed and four were injured in Kovsharovka, Kupyansky district.
08:44 In the Zaporozhye region, one person was wounded as a result of an enemy attack in the Pologovsky district, said the head of the OVA Ivan Fedorov.
08:32 The General Staff announced the estimated losses of the Russian Federation as of the morning of May 20:
personnel - about 493,690 (+1400) people,
tanks - 7590 (+14),
armored combat vehicles - 14,665 (+35),
artillery systems - 12,737 (+50),
MLRS - 1076 (+2),
air defense systems - 807 (+4),
aircraft - 354 (+0),
helicopters - 326 (+0),
UAV of operational-tactical level - 10 236 (+81),
cruise missiles - 2205 (+1),
ships/boats - 27 (+1),
submarines - 1 (+0),
automotive equipment and tank trucks - 17,311 (+60),
special equipment - 2079 (+2).
08:07 Air defense at night destroyed all 29 attack UAVs of the Shahed-131/136 type, which Russia attacked from Primorsko-Akhtarsk and Kursk, the Air Force reported. Drones were destroyed in Odessa, Nikolaev, Poltava and Lvov regions. In addition, at night the Russians attacked the Khar'kov region with an Iskander-M ballistic missile.
07:48 In the Nikolaevsky district in the morning, debris from a downed Shahed-type UAV damaged a private home, one person was injured, said the head of the OVA Vitaly Kim.
05:55 The “most promising” idea for Ukraine is for the G7 countries to provide it with a loan, which will be secured by income and interest from frozen Russian assets in Europe, said US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Along with the announced option for using $300 billion of frozen Russian assets, several more remain under consideration. G7 finance ministers will meet in Italy this week with the intention of finalizing a plan that they can convey to heads of state before the group's leaders meet next month, The New York Times writes.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov
[REGNUM] Russian troops continue to build on their success in several directions in the Northern Military District zone. Fierce fighting continues in the Donbass, primarily in the area of the city of Chasov Yar. The Russian Armed Forces are also advancing in the Kharkov region to create a buffer zone and push the enemy away from the state border.
The main defense hub of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border zone has become the regional center of Volchansk, where powerful reserves of the Ukrainian army are concentrated. According to the authorities of the Kharkov region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces control 60% of the city's territory, while Russian sources say that Volchansk is actually divided in half.
Also, the command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces assures that the situation in the city and in general in the Kharkov direction is under the control of the Ukrainian army. Allegedly, the Ukrainian Armed Forces manage to push the enemy back to their original positions and even counterattack. In reality, the situation is different. Despite the fact that the pace of the Russian army’s offensive has slowed down somewhat, the Ukrainian Armed Forces continue to retreat.
The key issue in the assault on Volchansk is taking control of the bridges across the Volchya River, which divides the city into two parts, as well as high-rise buildings in the center, a source located in the Kharkov direction told IA Regnum.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine use high-rise buildings to adjust the fire of tanks and artillery, as well as to place sniper nests and observation points. Enemy artillery operates approximately 5-10 kilometers from the city - in the Bely Kolodez-Yurvenkovo area. Russian drones are working on identified targets, but the priority task is to deprive the artillery of its “eyes” in Volchansk itself.
Before the area is cleared, a frontal assault on the city could result in serious losses. Therefore, limited assault groups are still operating there, identifying pockets of defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
“The enemy is snapping back, using all resources, including aviation, which they usually try to save. They use French JASSM bombs, cluster munitions, and drones. They don’t want to lose the city, you can feel it,” said the interlocutor of IA Regnum.
The AGM-158 JASSM aviation ammunition, adapted for use by Soviet-made aircraft, has a penetrating warhead with a programmable fuse. The warhead penetrates the roof of the building, and the explosion occurs inside.
Despite regular supplies of missiles, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are experiencing an acute shortage of carrier aircraft and qualified pilots, so the command decides to use aviation only in critical cases. The next raid on Volchansk cost the loss of at least one aircraft, official sources of the Ukrainian Air Force reported.
“During the execution of a combat mission, the chief of staff of the aviation squadron, Lieutenant Colonel Denis Vasilyuk, died,” the official account of the 831st Tactical Aviation Brigade reported.
But even Ukrainian aviation cannot slow down the advance of Russian troops. According to Regnum news agency sources, fighting continues in the area of the bridge over the Volchya River, on Gagarin Street. The northern part of the city, including the suburbs and industrial zones, is under the control of the Russian army.
The key center of defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is organized in residential areas along Sobornaya Street and in the administrative quarter of the city.
Most likely, with the further advance of the Russian army, the Armed Forces of Ukraine will retreat to the other side of the Volchya River, where defense lines have also been created: primarily in the area of the Volchansk railway station and in the adjacent industrial zone. At the same time, Ukrainian troops are deliberately delaying urban battles, trying to have time to build new defensive structures.
This is actually recognized by the head of the military-civil administration of the region Oleg Sinegubov. According to him, “in the border zone in the Kharkov region, already built defense lines are being improved and new ones are being built.”
Regnum news agency sources reported that engineering equipment actually works at a distance of 20–30 kilometers from the border. But organizing defense “in an open field” will be much more difficult.
“Volchansk is the only relatively large settlement in the border zone, so both sides cling to it. As it is liberated from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, we should expect that the creation of a buffer zone will proceed faster and more confidently,” our interlocutor is confident.
In Donbass, the main hot spot remains the area of the city of Chasov Yar. It is noteworthy that the situation in Volchansk is almost completely repeated here: a regional center divided into two parts by a river (canal), with the defense of the Ukrainian Armed Forces organized around multi-story buildings.
But there are also differences.
On the left bank of the Severodonetsk Canal there is only one district - Kanal, while the main part of the city lies on the right bank. The Ukrainian Armed Forces units holding the area are surrounded on three sides. When Russian troops attempt to advance, they call in artillery support and drones.
Therefore, the key task here is to suppress observation posts in high-rise buildings. When these points are suppressed, assault groups advance and push back the enemy, sources tell IA Regnum.
“The line of defense is the high-rise buildings on Gorbatov Street. Assault groups enter and depart. There are fastenings. There was information that our forces had broken through into the depths of the area - it was too early to talk about this. But we manage to push through the enemy,” our interlocutor added.
In the northern part of the district, the main brunt of the fighting fell on the intersection of Zelenaya and Obraztsova streets in the northern part of the district, where the Ukrainian Armed Forces created a defense center. The enemy's crossing of the Severodonetsk Canal is also under constant attack.
Ukrainian sources write that Russian aviation and artillery are very active. This makes it difficult to transfer fresh forces to the city and prevents the formation of a new line of defense.
Another task of our aviation is to prevent the Ukrainian Armed Forces from retreating from the left bank of the canal to the right.
“There is information that they have already developed plans for withdrawal, but they will not give the order until the last minute. And the rumors were confirmed that part of the forces that were supposed to be sent in our direction are now traveling to the Kharkov and Sumy regions, where they are waiting for a breakthrough. So, maybe we should expect changes for the better in our sector if the enemy decides that this section is not so important for him,” says IA Regnum’s interlocutor.
Western media predict that the next couple of months will be decisive for the situation at the front: the Armed Forces of Ukraine are weakening, and Russian troops are picking up pace and pushing through the enemy’s defenses.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The cause of the crash of the helicopter carrying the Iranian President and Foreign Minister was a technical malfunction, the IRNA news agency reported on May 20.
IRNA: the helicopter crash from Raisi was due to a technical malfunction
As a result of the disaster, four leaders of the Islamic state were killed, as well as the head of Raisi’s security, pilots and crew members, the authors noted.
“Raisi died on Sunday, May 19, 2024, as a result of a helicopter crash due to a technical malfunction,” the publication said.
As Regnum reported, on May 19, a helicopter carrying several Iranian leaders crashed in the north-west of the country in the Verzegan region. The official Iranian delegation was returning on three helicopters after a visit to Azerbaijan. A rescue operation was carried out. A number of states, including Russia, have expressed their readiness to help Tehran in its search. Two special flights of the Ministry of Emergency Situations went to Iran. The location of the helicopter was established.
On the morning of May 20, Iranian Vice President Mohsen Mansouri confirmed reports of the deaths of the country's President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, and the Governor of East Azerbaijan Province Malek Rahmati as a result of the emergency. Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber will serve as acting president of the Islamic republic until elections are held. Raisi's funeral will take place on May 21.
The cause of the plane crash was probably extremely difficult weather conditions, Iranian Ambassador to Belarus Alireza Sanei told reporters on May 20. He noted that the flight took place over mountainous, inaccessible terrain in conditions of thick fog, snow, and minimal visibility. The exact cause of the accident will be determined by the commission, which will take time, Sanei added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to the leaders of Iran and emphasized that Raisi, as a true friend of Russia, made an invaluable contribution to the development of good neighborly relations between the countries and made great efforts to bring them to the level of strategic partnership.
Putin also held talks with Mokhber on May 20. The interlocutors emphasized that both sides are committed to further consistent strengthening of comprehensive Russian-Iranian interaction.
After the death of Raisi and other leaders of Iran, opposition forces in this country will try to destabilize the situation, but the authorities will be able to maintain control, political scientist, historian, expert on the problems of the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia Semyon Bagdasarov noted earlier in an interview with Regnum news agency.
#3
That, and the Bell 212 they were flying in was at least 30-40 years old. 'New' repair and maintenance parts might have been difficult to obtain, so might have been sourced from who knows where or cobbled together from who knows what.
And don't forget inshallah maintenance.....
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
05/21/2024 7:36
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#6
#2,3
(i) Iran lost a lot of face in April.
(ii) Iran may appear monolithic from the West, but there are actually several power groups contesting the rule.
[The Palestinians] seem confident that if the Biden administration is rewarding them for malign behavior, it is clearly working, so why not keep it up?
The Palestinians are hoping to scare the Americans and prevent them from cooperating with Israel on the future of the Gaza Strip after the war.
The Biden administration did not, it seems, even demand that, in return for the humanitarian aid, the hostages be released or that the terrorists stop launching rockets into Israel.
Apparently, the Biden administration did not even request assurances that the aid would not be seized and diverted by the terrorists.
Hamas has earned at least $500 million from the aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the war in October 2023, according Ehud Yaari, an Israeli expert on Arab and Palestinian affairs.
[The Palestinians] consider the presence of US troops in the region as another form of "occupation" and an unwelcome intervention in the internal affairs of the Arabs in the Middle East.
As long as supplies are getting into the Gaza Strip, Hamas will not stop fighting or free the hostages.
Because of the Gaza pier, the Biden administration has made it immensely harder to free the hostages and end the war.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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[State.gov] The United States expresses its official condolences for the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of their delegation in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran. As Iran selects a new president, we reaffirm our support for the Iranian people and their struggle for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Semenov
[REGNUM] On May 15, ISIS reported attacks on local soldiers and the Wagner Group (as they still call all Russian forces) in Mali and Niger, including the bombing of 20 people on mines in eastern Niger and the hijacking of a Red Cross ambulance in the western part of this country.
Thus, the local branch of the terrorist organization is trying to demonstrate its activity in the region and at the moment is probably the main opponent of the Afrika Korps of the Russian Defense Ministry, which was deployed in a number of countries in the Sahel - a region also called the “Greater Sahara”.
There is a whole mosaic of terrorist groups and organizations operating here that oppose local governments. But the main role is played by two terrorist organizations: in addition to the one indicated, Al-Qaeda. They have integrated smaller factions and are still present in many countries in the region, despite attempts to combat them (or imitate it) by anti-terrorist forces led by the United States and France.
Therefore, Western forces are leaving this part of Africa today, in many countries of which new governments have come to power.
AFRIKA KORPS, THE TURKISH FACTOR AND FIRST SUCCESSES
The Russians are acting in Africa not to impose enslaving agreements on local governments, as the Americans and French did, but only to ensure security from international terrorism, preventing its spread throughout the region and the world.
Just the sheer noble goodness of their pure Russian hearts, is it? Kewl.
The countries of the European Union and the United States are unable to provide such assistance. They make assistance programs for Africans conditional on compliance with a number of conditions. Firstly, from the promotion of “democratic reforms” and “human rights”, secondly, from the participation of local authorities in the fight against illegal migration in the interests of the EU, and thirdly, from obligations to counteract Russian influence in the region.
Russia does not make such demands and is ready to provide assistance to either a military or civilian government, democratic or Islamic, only in order to prevent terrorist leaders from taking the place of this government.
However, Western countries and Russia are not the only external players in the region.
For example, in Niger, the piquancy of the situation is added by the fact that, according to Syrian opposition sources, a group of 300 fighters of anti-government Syrian formations from the Sultan Murad, Al-Hamza and Suleiman Shah groups, operating under under the auspices of Turkey.
According to sources, they are in Niger to help the new government of this country in the fight against terrorism after it asked the Americans to “exit”.
In addition, Ankara supplies Bayraktar drones to Mali and Burkina Faso, where Russian units also operate. Therefore, it is possible that Africa will become a field of cooperation between Russia and Turkey in the counter-terrorism field.
Cooperation or opposition, given that those groups are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Turkish government. Interesting times, guys — do try to see the amusing side of this little project you’ve taken on after encouraging the locals to push out France and America.
Since the deployment of the Afrika Korps in the Greater Sahara, local armed forces have been able to achieve important successes in countering terrorists. Most notably, in April, Malian government forces killed Abu Huzeifa, a local ISIS affiliate commander, in a large-scale operation in the northern Menaka region.
And earlier this year, the Burkina Faso Air Force, where Russian forces and advisers are also deployed, killed the second-most senior leader of ISIS in the Greater Sahara, Abdulmalik Haroun Oulel, as a result of an air strike on a convoy. It is a major victory for Burkina Faso's army and a sign that the country's recent military-led modernization campaign, led by Russia, is allowing them to more effectively target jihadists.
FULANI, SAHRAWI AND TUAREG
It is significant that Abdulmalik came from the new generation of ISIS-BS leaders, since he was a native of the region and a representative of the local Fulani people, semi-sedentary inhabitants of the Sahel, who were discriminated against by local governments. Therefore, the Fulani often joined the ranks of terrorists and constituted the majority in their ranks. This applies to both ISIS and al-Qaeda.
The two previous ISIS leaders in the region with the corresponding surname al-Sahrawi (i.e. "Sahrawis") were from Western Sahara and Morocco and had previously operated in Algeria before retreating to the Sahel, where they led local Fulani militias.
In October 2015, Adnan Abu al-Walid al-Sahrawi, a jihadist fighter originally from Morocco, along with several supporters from the Mourabitoun group operating in Algeria and Mali and associated with al-Qaeda, pledged allegiance to " Islamic State".
However, at that time the activities of Abu al-Walid’s group in Africa went almost unnoticed. This was also related to the delay in recognition of this branch by the “headquarters” of the terrorists, which took place only in 2017. And when this group was nevertheless included in the “caliphate”, it was first reassigned to the branch of “ISIS - West Africa velayat”, from which “ISIS in the Greater Sahara” remains dependent to this day, despite recognition as an independent factions.
During those years, the dominant jihadist organization in the Sahel was Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It has carried out terrorist attacks as far away as Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, and Grand Bassam in Côte d'Ivoire.
Back in 1998, Hassan Khattab, the commander of one of the scattered extremist units during the “black decade” (civil war) in Algeria, formed his own organization called the “Salafi Group of Preaching and Combat.”
In 2006, its leadership joined the global al-Qaeda network and swore allegiance to Bin Laden. A few months later, they renamed themselves Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The group then moved its activities from Algeria to the Sahel, primarily to Mali.
AQIM was able to unite several disparate groups in the north and central part of Mali, including the remnants of the Mourabitun movement. Then, in early March 2017, an organization associated with AQIM, Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), appeared. In it, in addition to the Fulani, who make up the majority in ISIS, there are also Tuaregs, along with their Salafi-jihadist group “Ansar al-Sunna”.
"SAHEL PHENOMENON"
Unlike the Syrian-Iraqi conflict arc, where ISIS waged an irreconcilable fight not only with Iraqi and Syrian government forces, but also with its competitors from Al-Qaeda, in the Greater Sahara, the dominant JNIM tried to maintain friendly relations with ISIS -BS.
In the expert community, such relations between the two groups were defined as the “Sahel phenomenon” or “Sahel exception”: local factions of the two largest terrorist groups were able to move in parallel courses for some time without coming into conflict with each other.
The ideas of reconciliation with ISIS (contrary to the general course of Al-Qaeda) were promoted by three AQIM field commanders.
The first of them, al-Humam, was known for openly supporting the Paris terrorist attacks on November 13, 2015.
The second, Abu Iyad al-Tunisi, leader of the Ansar al-Sharia group and member of the AQIM Shura, believed that ISIS could be “returned to the right path.” A noticeable number of his yesterday's recruits from Ansar al-Sharia were already in the ranks of the organization in Syria, and some occupied important positions.
Both were killed by French troops on February 21, 2019 in Elak, north of Timbuktu.
The third AQIM commander who tried to get closer to ISIS, Abu Yahya al-Jazairi, was killed during an attack on Malian armed forces in Bamba on April 6, 2020.
After this, the two groups moved on to open confrontation.
In 2020, ISIS invaded JNIM-controlled territories, committed atrocities against civilians (potentially alienating locals from the jihadist movement itself), and demonstrated the ability to overshadow JNIM activities with terrorist attacks.
The weakening of JNIM and the strengthening of ISIS in the Sahel was also facilitated by the fact that the then government of Mali began negotiations with prominent Tuareg JNIM leaders and openly announced this. These negotiations split the ranks of AQIM/JNIM and pushed its most radical elements to join ISIS.
A significant part of the Tuaregs also left the JNIM, moving to the more moderate group “High Council for the Unity of Azawad”, which does not share the jihadist views of Al-Qaeda.
As a result, the Mali government refused to negotiate not only with radical jihadists, but also with Tuareg rebel groups and moderate Islamists. This caused great displeasure in Algeria, which actively lobbied for the peace process and blamed “the machinations of the UAE” for its failure.
As a result, the failure of the negotiation process led to certain groups of the local population calling on the “jihadists” to unite with each other again.
UNITY ON ETHNIC GROUNDS
The combination of ISIS and AQIM/DNIM could create new risks not only for local governments, but also for the Russian military present in the Sahel countries. Let us recall that it was Russian PMCs (Wagner) that played the main role in the capture of Kidal in Mali in November 2023.
After this, they started talking about the possibilities of restoring ties between ISIS and AQIM/DNIM. Then a new group appeared on the scene: Wahdat al-Muslimin (Unity of Muslims), which called on warring terrorist organizations to unite against common enemies “to preserve the blood of Muslims.”
Wahdat al-Muslimeen is not a jihadist group per se, but rather a pro-jihadist (or simply anti-government) propaganda group that seeks to unite ISIS and AQIM/JNIM to fight local armies and their allies, including those from Russia.
This group is associated with local Fulani communities in the triangle between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. As already noted, representatives of this nationality feel alienated and stigmatized by the armies of the three countries in which they live. The local military often baselessly accuses all Fulanis of having links with terrorists, bringing down repression on them and thereby facilitating the transition of many Fulanis to these organizations.
Therefore, as both JNIM and ISIS-BS become more and more “Fulani” in their ethnic composition (Tuaregs, on the contrary, tend to move into more moderate groups), the threat of unification of the two groups on an ethnic basis remains.
This is an important example of the fact that any actions of the Russian military in Africa must be provided with appropriate expert and diplomatic support, taking into account all regional specifics and ethnic diversity.
The argument that since a certain group has raised this or that terrorist flag, it must be destroyed is not always adequate to local conditions. In reality, such a group can go through a whole chain of “ideological rebirths,” pursuing not religious, but purely tribal goals and objectives, and simply looking for allies among those who are able to protect this tribe or ethnic group from repression and discrimination.
This applies not only to the Fulani, but also to the Tuareg.
Terrorism in the Sahel is still identified with the Tuareg movement. Indeed, jihadist groups and Tuaregs fighting against states in the region are sometimes forced to cooperate with each other. However, jihadists and Tuaregs still should not be identified. They are temporary fellow travelers, sharply diverging in their ultimate goals.
Previously, jihadists had repeatedly knocked out the Tuaregs from their bases, and the Tuaregs, as noted, moved into more moderate movements.
In this regard, information about the nature of certain groups and factions coming from local authorities and the military must be carefully checked. Often, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, groups that are not related to terrorist activities can also be “purged.”
Instead of gaining new supporters in the fight against terrorism, this may lead to increased support for the terrorists themselves from ethnic groups subject to various forms of discrimination.
[SUDANTRIBUNE] The Ministry of Health in North Darfur reported today that the corpse count from the ongoing conflict between the Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... ese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has risen to 345, with over 2,600 injured since the fighting began a year ago.
El Fasher, the state capital, has been particularly hard-hit in recent days, with over 40 civilians killed and more than 500 injured in the past ten days alone.
Ibrahim Abdullah Khater, the Director General of the Ministry of Health, confirmed to Sudan Tribune the grim statistics and expressed deep concern over the shelling of El Fasher Women’s and Maternity Hospital on Sunday, which injured nine people and caused extensive damage.
He emphasized the critical need to restore entire operations at the hospital, the region’s only facility of its kind. He condemned the targeting of civilians and healthcare facilities by the RSF.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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#1
Wonder if that's what happened to our
Darfurian moslem?
[AFRICANEWS] The US and Niger have agreed that American troops will leave the country "no later" than 15 September, they announced in a joint statement on Sunday.
They said the two countries had "reached a disengagement agreement to effect the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which has already begun".
The US has relied on Niger as its primary base for monitoring regional jihadist activity.
The military junta which seized power last year has already ordered French troops to leave, while moving closer to Russia.
The statement commended the "joint sacrifices of Nigerien and U.S. forces in the fight against terrorism", adding that the withdrawal would not affect the continuation of US-Niger relations.
"The United States and Niger are committed to ongoing diplomatic dialogue to define the future of their bilateral relations," it read.
The deal was reached after marathon talks between the two countries in Niamey.
In March, Niger announced the end of its military agreement with the US. Military spokesperson Col Amadou Abdramane accused the US of raising objections about the allies that Niger had chosen.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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[SUDANTRIBUNE] Negotiations to deliver humanitarian aid to conflict-stricken regions in Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... have hit a roadblock, as the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) insists on the involvement of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the Juba talks, according to the Sudanese Defence minister Yassin Ibrahim.
In statements after his turn to Port Sudan from Juba, Ibrahim accused the SPLM-N of insisting on the participation of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group involved in the ongoing conflict, and of rejecting the government’s proposed aid delivery plan.
He criticized the SPLM-N’s intransigent stance and accused the group of aligning with the RSF, which he referred to as a "terrorist militia." He expressed regret over the breakdown of negotiations and emphasized the government’s commitment to prioritizing humanitarian needs over political or security objectives.
The Minister, who is also the head of the government negotiating team, further highlighted the SPLM-N’s refusal to sign any agreement or consider the government’s proposals, including a plan for securing specific aid routes in conflict zones. He also noted the SPLM-N’s suggestion for unilateral agreements with the UN, a proposal he deemed contrary to international principles of state illusory sovereignty.
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The UN Security Council (SC) did not support the draft resolution proposed by Russia on preventing an arms race in outer space.
Of the 15 countries, seven representatives voted for the resolution, including Russia and China. The same number of states were against it. Switzerland abstained from voting. To adopt a document, nine votes of Security Council members must be obtained and none of the permanent members must veto.
As Regnum reported, in April at the UN Security Council, Russia vetoed a draft resolution prepared by the United States and Japan on the non-deployment of nuclear weapons in outer space. During the voting, the resolution was supported by 13 out of 15 countries, China abstained.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova explained that Russia was forced to block the draft UN Security Council resolution on banning the deployment of weapons in space, proposed by the United States and Japan, due to the refusal to accept amendments initiated by Moscow and Beijing, as well as because of Washington’s attempts to create new ones through the resolution obligations in this area.
Russia, according to the diplomat, proposed to abandon any type of weapon in space, and not just weapons of mass destruction. They also discussed guarantees of non-use of force or threat against space objects. Zakharova noted that the adoption of the resolution would allow the United States to legitimize any views on international security that are beneficial to them.
[FoxNews] A 23-year-old man who ran away from a mental health clinic in Florida on Sunday was critically wounded in a police shooting after officers encountered him armed with pepper spray and a knife, authorities said.
The man, whose name was not immediately released publicly, had been taken to The Vines Hospital by family members to be admitted just before 12:30 p.m. when he began "acting erratic" and ran from the clinic, the Ocala Police Department said.
Officers found the man about 10 minutes later near the 5500 block of SW 27th Avenue.
When officers approached the 23-year-old, he was determined to be "an immediate threat," prompting officers to use deadly force and shoot the man, according to the department.
Preston Bare told WESH-TV that he was heading home when he witnessed the encounter between the man and police.
"The cop was holding the gun, and there was another cop holding the Taser on him, and he was patting on his chest, pleading with the man to please drop whatever he had in his hands," Bare told the station. "Then he got tased, and he started to immediately run toward the cop that had his gun drawn on him, spraying him while he's running with the knife in his hand, and then he got shot."
The man was rushed to a local hospital and underwent surgery. Police said he is in serious condition and has further medical procedures pending.
[Breitbart] Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, 88, will receive medical treatment for a “lung infection,” according to a news report from the country’s official news agency.
The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) revealed in a post on X on Sunday morning that the king would be going through medical tests after he had been suffering “from a high temperature and pain in the joints.
After completing the medical tests, it was discovered that King Salman had a “lung infection.”
“The medical team decided that he — may God protect him — should undergo a treatment program consisting of antibiotics until the inflammation went away, God willing,” the SPA wrote in another post.
News of King Salman’s lung infection comes after he was admitted to the hospital in April for a routine checkup, the SPA said at the time, according to Fox News.
King Salman took the throne in January 2015 after the death of King Abdullah. Years after taking the throne, the king appointed his son, Mohammed bin Salman as the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
At the time, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince was Mohammed bin Nayef, who had also served as the deputy prime minister and interior minister. However, Nayef was stripped of these positions.
"Touching camels or being around infected camels or their body fluids (milk, feces/poop, urine/pee, saliva/spit, etc.) can increase a person’s chances of becoming infected with MERS-CoV."
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, is a legitimate military target for Russia, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said on May 20, Gazeta reports.
Zelensky's loss of legitimacy as the head of the Ukrainian state does not change anything because Zelensky heads a political regime hostile to Russia, "and the leaders of countries waging war are always seen as a legitimate military target," Medvedev said.
Zelensky is a war criminal, noted the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council.
As Regnum reported, Medvedev also said on May 20 that the cancellation of the presidential elections in Ukraine means the transformation of this country into a failed state and the death of this project. In addition, he suggested that Zelensky canceled the elections because he was afraid of competition, including from the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valery Zaluzhny and his own predecessor Petro Poroshenko.
On May 16, the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council called Zelensky’s trip to Kharkov a “farewell visit ” and reminded the head of the Kiev regime about the fate of the executed Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, publishing a corresponding photograph. Mussolini was executed in 1945 as a war criminal, he was hanged in Piazza Loreto in Milan.
On May 4, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs put Zelensky, Poroshenko and a number of other former and current leaders of Ukraine on the wanted list after the 2014 coup. Russia actually delivered an ultimatum to the United States: either people not associated with the Maidan come to power in Ukraine, or the North Military District will continue until the complete dismantling of the Ukrainian state, followed by direct negotiations between the Russian Federation and the United States, noted IA Regnum columnist Gevorg Mirzayan in his article.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Nine people were arrested in Poland due to suspicions of sabotage and sabotage allegedly committed by order of Russia. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced this on May 20on TVN24.
“At the moment, we have arrested nine suspects who have been charged with direct participation in sabotage in Poland at the request of Russian services. This applies to beatings, arson and attempted arson,” the Polish Prime Minister said.
Tusk explained that we are talking about mercenaries, and in some cases they are representatives of the criminal world. The Prime Minister of Poland added that among the accused are citizens of Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.
In particular, Tusk mentioned a “high-profile incident” in Wroclaw, where an attempt to set fire to a paint factory, next to which there was a chemical plant, was stopped. According to Tusk, the arson “was ordered by Russian services.”
“We are dealing with sabotage in Lithuania, the arson of an IKEA warehouse. The same people detained there may also be involved in attempts at sabotage, mainly arson, in Poland,” the Polish Prime Minister noted.
Earlier, IA Regnum reported that on February 6, 2024, the Polish prosecutor's office charged a citizen of the country with “espionage” for Russia. He was also suspected of drug trafficking and document forgery. The man faces up to 15 years in prison.
The official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, in July 2023, speaking about spy scandals in Poland, said that Russophobia and spy mania reign in the republic. The diplomat clarified that because of this, the Polish authorities stopped fulfilling their obligations under international law.
[FOXBUSINESS] Former Chrysler and Home Depot CEO Bob Nardelli warned that the fault lines of the economy are "about ready to crack" on Monday, adding that the Biden administration's alleged policy missteps could leave a cumbersome mess for the next person who sits in the Oval Office to clean up.
"What I've seen over the past three-and-a-half years is that a series of debacles and missteps have created a tremendous pressure on the fault lines of our economy, and they're about ready to crack," he told FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo.
"Whoever gets the next stint in the White House is going to be hit with a wrecking ball in trying to correct the missteps and the overspending of this current administration, so we're in for a rough time, I would say."
Nardelli's comments came in response to questioning about the green climate agenda that has been echoed in policy since President Biden took office in January 2021. The often-described "war on fossil fuels" has led some economists and commentators to call out the administration for hindering U.S. oil production and contributing to higher energy costs.
At the same time, Americans are taking hits from other elevated necessity costs, including groceries and rent.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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#1
"Whoever gets the next stint in the White House is going to be hit with a wrecking ball in trying to correct the missteps and the overspending of this current administration, so we're in for a rough time, I would say."
I think the Market is poised for change. If Trump picks the correct running mate, it will likely be an astonishingly rapid recovery. Someone with business, energy knowledge and connections will be key.
One such possibility:
Doug Burgum was born on August 1, 1956, in Arthur, North Dakota. He received a bachelor's degree from North Dakota State University in 1978 and an MBA from Stanford University in 1980. After graduating from business school, Burgum worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company from 1980 to 1983. He founded Great Plains Software in 1983, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2001. He then worked at Microsoft as a senior vice president from 2001 to 2007.
Burgum also served on several boards before being elected governor, including the Arthur Companies, Avalara, Atlassian, the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and Intelligent InSites.
#3
How much mischief would Qatar fund if oil were $40/bbl?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/21/2024 8:17
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#4
Cue the Mylie Cyrus.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/21/2024 9:01
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#5
I thought theorists saying its a set up to make the next pres a fall guy got you called names and cancelled. Or worse, center ring during prog month.
[SUDANTRIBUNE] The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) face widespread condemnation after video footage surfaced showing the execution of retired Lieutenant Mohammed Siddiq following his capture. Siddiq had gained prominence during the 2019 sit-in at army headquarters for defying orders and supporting protesters.
The RSF fighters announced in a first video the killing of the revolutionary officer, but a second video emerged showing Siddiq alive in captivity, being slapped after his defiant response, "From which side?" to a question about his opinion on the RFS.
The incident has sparked significant outrage on social media, given Siddiq’s role in the protests that led to the ousting of former President Omer al-Bashir.
The execution has been labelled "a war crime" by Yasir Arman, a leader in the Coordination of Democratic Civil Forces "Tagaddum." Arman also noted that the army has committed similar atrocities, emphasizing that "No one should bear the burden of another’s wrongdoing."
Hala al-Karib, regional director of the Network for Women of the Horn of Africa (SIHA), mourned Siddiq as "a symbol of the Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... ese revolution" and one of the first military to defy Bashir by refusing to shoot at protesters.
In 2020, Siddiq was forced into retirement by the Sudanese army for insubordination and military misconduct, along with other officers who sympathized with the protesters.
However,
there's more than one way to skin a cat... after the eruption of the war, he rejoined the army as a volunteer after denouncing the human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... violations committed by the paramilitary forces.
The RSF has not issued any official comment regarding Siddiq’s death. The incident highlights the ongoing brutality and human rights abuses in the conflict between the RSF and the Sudanese army.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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#1
both sides in the Sudan Civil War (RSF vs SAF) have committed many atrocities
and the atrocities have become more numerous in the past few weeks
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/21/2024 11:39
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[NEWARAB] Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
...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 Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start... held its first fashion show featuring swimsuit models on Friday, an envelope-pushing step in a country where less than a decade ago women were required to wear body-covering abaya robes.
The poolside show featuring the work of Moroccan designer Yasmina Qanzal included mostly one-piece suits in shades of red, beige and blue. Most models had exposed shoulders and some had their midriffs partially visible.
"It's true that this country is very conservative but we tried to show elegant swimsuits which represent the Arab world," Qanzal told AFP.
"When we came here, we understood that a swimsuit fashion show in Saudi Arabia is a historic moment, because it is the first time to have such event," she said, adding it was "an honour" to be involved.
The show took place on the second day of the inaugural Red Sea Fashion Week at the St Regis Red Sea Resort, situated off Saudi Arabia's western coast.
The resort is part of Red Sea Global, one of the so-called giga-projects at the heart of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 social and economic reform programme overseen by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
...Crown Prince and modernizer of Saudi Arabia as of 2016. The Turks hate him, so he must be all right, despite the occasional brutal murder of Qatar-owned journalists... Prince Mohammed, who became first in line to the throne in 2017, has initiated a series of dramatic social reforms in a bid to soften Saudi Arabia's austere image stemming from its historical championing of a purist form of Islam known as Wahhabism.
Those changes have included side lining stick-wielding inquisitors religious police who used to chase men out of malls to pray, re-introducing cinemas and organising mixed-gender music festivals.
They have coincided with ramped-up repression targeting dissent, including from conservative holy mans who might protest such moves.
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Dozens of Russian oil tankers subject to US sanctions have been idle for several months, Bloomberg reported on May 20.
According to the publication, the restrictions affected tankers for transporting shipments of Russian oil at a price above the ceiling of $60 per barrel. The US Treasury has added 40 vessels to the sanctions register since October 2023. At the same time, only one tanker (SKF Primorye) was able to pick up the cargo and set off for its destination in Asia. If it unloads, other ships may follow its example, the article indicated.
Of the 40 tankers, 21 belong to the Russian state shipping company Sovcomflot. Eight vessels are located near the ports of Vladivostok and Nakhodka. Most of the remaining tankers are controlled by UAE-based Hennesea Holdings Ltd.
According to ship tracking data, other sanctioned tankers are idle and empty around the world, the authors clarified.
As Regnum reported, on May 7, Bloomberg, citing its existing draft of future EU sanctions, noted that the European Union proposed introducing restrictions on 11 vessels, including tankers, which allegedly help Russia circumvent sanctions. The ban is expected to apply to insurance and technical assistance, including the acceptance of liquid fuels, ship servicing, crew changes, loading and unloading services, fendering and towing services.
Numerous anti-Russian sanctions introduced by the West have brought the opposite result; the country’s economy is growing. President Vladimir Putin announced this on May 6 at a meeting with the Russian government. According to him, in 2023 the Russian economy grew at a rate above the world average. Russia’s opponents tried to destroy it from the inside, they wanted to lead the country to unemployment and the closure of enterprises, but these plans were not successful, Putin emphasized.
[PJMedia] The globalists' plan to conquer the West is, sadly, quite simple and has been exceedingly successful. Part of the Pinko plan includes:
taking over the news media
selling victimization to minorities and blaming "colonizers"
convincing white people that any criticism of a minority makes that person a "racist"
gavaging minorities, especially Muslims, into Western nations full of white people who have been trained to believe that criticizing Muslims, even after they've raped thousands of Western women, is a sign of "Islamophobia"
taking over courts, law enforcement agencies, and every institution possible
[SUDANTRIBUNE] Sudan ...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans... ese activists reported the deaths of 11 civilians in Omdurman on Saturday due to artillery shelling by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF, in turn, accused the Sudanese army of bombing the Khartoum oil refinery with explosive barrels, causing significant damage.
The attack on Omdurman, described as indiscriminate by local resistance committees, targeted civilians waiting for transportation and residents in the al-Manara neighbourhood. The shells were reportedly fired from RSF positions in Khartoum North.
The RSF also claimed that the army bombed the al-Gaili oil refinery, the largest in the country and under RSF control since the conflict began in April 2023. The RSF condemned the alleged attack as "systematic destruction and sabotage of public facilities."
Meanwhile,
...back at the shouting match, Bart was wondering if fisticuffs would be appropriate at this point... the Sudanese army conducted Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on RSF targets in El Fasher and Nyala, the capitals of North and South Darfur states, respectively. These cities have seen intense fighting in recent days, with El Fasher particularly under siege by the RSF.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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[DAILYCALLER] At the intersection of E. 12th Street and 16th Avenue in Oakland, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, drivers are now greeted with four-way stop signs hanging overhead where traffic lights used to hang.
The City of Oakland replaced the traffic lights with stop signs in response to months of recurring copper thefts and tampering with the lights’ electrical power boxes, CBS the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... reports.
"It’s just telling us that the city is giving up on us," Tam Le, owner of Le’s Auto Body & Engine Repair at the intersection corner, told CBS San Francisco. "The city did try to fix the traffic light at least a few times. But once they fixed it, normally within a week or so, it will go out again." (RELATED: Copper Wire Thieves Cost Blue City Hundreds Of Thousands Of Dollars: REPORT)
"Neighbors say the [stop] sign is a sign and a reflection of the city’s condition. They say the city’s inability to clear a homeless encampment next to the intersection is leading to this kind of issue," Da Lin, who discovered the city’s action, reported on a KPIX broadcast.
The homeless encampment, which stretches for three blocks of the neighborhood, illegally connects to the city’s power and causes disruptions to the traffic lights, according to CBS San Francisco. The city reportedly tried to counter the electrical tampering with heavy cement blocks over the electrical boxes, but the encampment members simply moved them and continued to steal the power.
Violent crime in Oakland increased 22% this year, according to the most recently available police data, which also show a nearly 10% increase in commercial burglary.
In September, over 200 business owners shut down their stores to strike against the government's handling of public safety amid rising crime. The protest was held days after city officials admitted to missing a deadline to apply for state funding to fight retail theft.
That same month, Oakland city leaders launched a grant program to provide funding for small business owners to hold events — like workout classes, musical performances and movie nights — to draw customers to local shops that have seen a decrease in patrons due to crime.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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Prob nobody in that area stops to wait their turn anyway.
[GEO.TV] At least 18 Paleostinians were killed in Israeli strikes on different areas of 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 an 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... , Al Jazeera reported quoting its correspondent and Wafa news agency.
As per the report, at least 13 people were killed in Israeli strikes on northern Gaza’s ravaged Jabalia refugee camp, while five other Paleostinians were killed in an attack that targeted a residential home in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia.
GEO.TV] Israeli forces’ attack killed at least 26 members of the Assalia family and took down six houses, a witness told.
Willing/unwilling human shields or miscreants? There’s no other reason for the IDF to bomb Gazan properties at the moment.
Ibrahim Assalia, 46, a media lecturer originally from Gazoo who has been living in the United Kingdom since 2006, was talking to his brother on phone amid the attack.
"Pray for me, they are heavily shelling the area," Assalia recalled his brother as saying as the attack on Jabalia and his family took place
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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#1
Ibrahim Assalia, 46, a media lecturer originally from Gazoo who has been living in the United Kingdom since 2006, was talking to his brother on phone amid the attack.
[REDSTATE] It's not quite time for closing arguments in the New York-based criminal case against Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... , but the crescendo is building.
On Monday, disgraced felon Michael Cohen ...sleazy lawyer who worked for Trump as his ''fixer,'' then turned on him after the Stormy Daniels shakedown. Mikey told about six hundred different stories, most of them contradfictory and some physically impossible. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. As Alvin Bragg's star witness against Trump, he admitted on the stand to enbezzling from the Trump Organization... retook the stand as he continued to serve as the prosecution's star witness. The problem? Cohen is a proven liar and total scumbag, and Trump's legal team got him to admit that on the stand in no uncertain terms.
In a moment that set the internet on fire, Cohen admitted to stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the Trump organization.
I can't claim to know what the jury will ultimately decide in this case given how absurd and overly-politicized it is. I can say with some certainty that in any normal situation, having the prosecution's star witness admit to being a dishonest thief would be a death blow to the case's credibility. Remember, everything revolves around Cohen, who is now claiming to be a patsy who was just doing the bidding of Trump in cutting the check to Stormy Daniels.
That wasn't the only gut punch to Bragg's prosecution, though. Trump's legal team later highlighted that Cohen had repeatedly told the press and others that Trump did not know about the payment. It wasn't until after the FBI raided Cohen's home and office that he changed his story. Again, the lack of credibility of Bragg's star witness is simply astonishing.
#3
#2 He certainly has the basic congressional qualifications down, serial lying and theft. I just don't know if he can be trained to not admit so much of it.
#4
He will run … right back into jail. The chances of him not committing egregious campaign finance violations is slim to none. After this trial Cohen is of no use to anybody. It doesn’t sound as if he is even welcome on Jake Tapper’s show.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/21/2024 8:09
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#5
Has he been disbarred? If not, why?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/21/2024 8:15
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Posted by: Frank G ||
05/21/2024 8:31
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#7
So he can only make money on TikTok and teevee appearances, maybe books.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/21/2024 8:33
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#8
Somewhere, someone has the complete set of proggy bobbleheads or plush pillows: Cohen, Tish James, Bragg, Jack Smith, Merchan, Chutkan, Fauci. Fanone, Willis, etc.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/21/2024 8:37
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#9
@#6 - Next up for disbarment, hopefully, Fani Willis.
[NEWARAB] Israel has denied any involvement in a helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi on Sunday, following finger-pointing on social media about alleged culprits.
Hardliners Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and other senior Iranian officials perished when their helicopter crashed into a mountainside in bad weather with search-and-rescue efforts hampered by thick fog.
While there has been no confirmation about the cause of the crash, some people on social media have accused Iran's regional enemy, Israel, of being behind the incident with the two countries clashing in recent weeks.
"This is the footage of the crash of the chopper that killed the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, yesterday. The hand of Israel is strongly being discussed in Iran. Are we staring at World War 3?" one person speculated on Twitter.
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... itself has not accused Israel but the incident came amid heightened tensions between the two countries related to 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 an 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... and Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... , where Tehran supports Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... and Hezbollah.
The fact that the helicopter was returning from Azerbaijan - an Israeli ally - when it plunged into the remote wilderness of northern Iran did little to stop the finger-pointing.
"It is noteworthy that the last meeting of the Iranian President was with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Israel has established an intelligence base, an airfield, and an agreement to develop two new surveillance satellites from Azerbaijan. All of that is about Iran," wrote British-Iraqi rapper Lowkey.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/21/2024 12:50
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#5
Was there thick fog? They said there was thick fog. But when I checked the weather data over iran on the day the helicopter crashed, the weather day was missing.
Why would they scrub the weather data, that piques my interest.
[THEHILL] Pope Francis
...Argentine liberation theologist, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He was elected pope in 2013. Rather than setting up shop in Avignon, where he belongs, the first Jesuit Pope chose to reside in the Domus Sanctae Marthae guesthouse instead of the papal apartments. He is big on climate change, against consumerism, and in favor of throwing a blanket over homosexual activity within the clergy. He's not real sure about the Resurrection, about Christ's divinity, and a few other things that would have gotten him burned at the stake a few hundred years ago, but he's hot for a certain South American Earth Mother Goddess... denounced efforts to limit migration at the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday, calling out a Texas effort to shut down a Catholic charity "madness."
The Catholic leader said in a "60 Minutes" interview with Norah O’Donnell that American leaders should instead embrace forgiveness toward migrants colonists entering the country.
"Migration is something that makes a country grow," he said. "They say that you Irish migrated and brought the whiskey, and that the Italians migrated and brought the mafia. Migrants sometimes suffer a lot. They suffer a lot."
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) in February attempted to subpoena Annunciation House, a Catholic charity that acts as a temporary boarding house for migrants colonists from Mexico. He accused the group of "alien harboring, human smuggling, and operating a stash house."
"That is madness. Sheer madness," Francis said. "To close the border and leave them there, that is madness."
"The migrant has to be received," he continued, advocating against GOP efforts to close the southern border. "Thereafter, you see how you are going to deal with him. Maybe you have to send him back, I don’t know, but each case ought to be considered humanely."
A Texas judge blocked Paxton’s subpoena against Annunciation House in March, though his office filed a similar complaint against the charity again Friday.
The Pope’s comments come as Congress is again at a standstill over discussions on border reform. After a previously negotiated bipartisan deal fell apart in February, few attempts have been made to start negotiations again on an issue that Republicans have dubbed a "crisis."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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#1
How many of those "dreamers" is the Holy See willing to give refuge to?
#2
The Vatican walls are 39 feet high. The Vatican refuses to abide by Italian law, it's host country. Instead, it abides by "Fundamental Law of Vatican City State" which a penal violation can carry a sentence of 30 to 35 years of incarceration penalty for illegal activities.
[Breitbart] While the Islamic world expressed their condolences for the death of the Iranian President called by critics the “butcher of Tehran”, the European Union stood out among the democratic West by joining in.
Several political leaders of Iran were killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, apparently as their aircraft got into difficulty in bad weather as it returned to the country from neighbouring Azerbaijan. Among those onboard the downed helicopter was Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and the governor of one of Iran’s northern provinces Malek Rahmati, as well as other members of their entourage and crew, Anadolu Agency states.
Breitbart News reported on Ebrahim Raisi in 2023 when he was welcomed to the United States by the Biden White House to attend the United Nations in New York, despite the then-Iranian President being subject to U.S. sanctions for “complicity in serious human rights violations”. Raisi had long before earned the nickname the “Butcher of Tehran” and put on the sanctions list for having “participated in a so-called ‘death commission’ that ordered the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.”
The U.S. sanctions order also noted Raisi had been “involved in the regime’s brutal crackdown on Iran’s Green Movement protests that followed the chaotic and disorderly 2009 election”. As reported, Raisi had: “an extensive record of ordering mass executions of opponents of the Islamic regime and is accused of involvement in a range of egregious human rights abuses, including the execution of thousands of political prisoners, including pregnant women and teenage girls.”
While Iranian allies were quick to send condolences, Western states have been more circumspect. Nevertheless, European Council President Charles Michel, a Belgian centrist-liberal, was quick to make an expression on behalf of the whole European Union, he said.
Michel wrote on Monday morning: “The EU expresses its sincere condolences for the death of President Raisi and Foreign Minister Abdollahian, as well as other members of their delegation and crew in a helicopter accident. Our thoughts go to the families.”
Theo Francken, a Eurosceptic Member of Parliament also from Belgium who formerly served in that country’s government as immigration minister and who is active in NATO’s middle east group expressed concern at the European message. Responding first to the announcement that the EU was acting in “solidarity” with Iran to help it in the immediate aftermath of the crash, the politician stated: “Are you totally crazy? This guy is a first class mass murderer.
“What’s next? Saving [Putin]? What a club of geopolitical dwarfs is this EU commission”.
On Monday after Michel’s message of sympathy was broadcast, Francken responded again, calling it hypocritical for European leaders to express condolences to Iran while the regime is holding a European diplomat and aid worker hostage. He said: “Oh boy, European condolences for the death of a butcher and cruel mass murderer.
“Where are all those fake tears for Olivier Vandecasteele and Johan Floderus your EU diplomat who is still been kidnapped by the regime. You don’t speak in my name.”
That Michel did not speak in the name of all Europeans gained some traction, and shortly after Geert Wilders, the right-populist presently working to form a new government in the Netherlands joined the call. Decrying “EU solidarity with evil”, he wrote Monday morning: “not in my name”.
The earliest expressions of sympathy for Iran came from its allies worldwide, with statements published by the Chinese and Russian Presidents, India, Pakistan, and even OPEC. The Hamas terror group and Yemen’s Houthi militia, both militarily backed by Iran in their wars against the West, also sent “deepest condolences”, reports the Jerusalem Post.
Condolences from Western government leaders are harder to come by, so far. Indeed, Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni referred onto to it on Monday morning in the context of expressing hope the next generation of Iranian leadership would commit itself the stability and peace in the region.
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[EngMilRu] Units of the Sever Group of Forces continue advancing to the depth of the enemy's defences.
Losses were inflicted on manpower and hardware of the AFU 42nd Mechanised Brigade near Glubokoye (Kharkov region).
In addition, two counter-attacks launched by the enemy's assault detachments were repelled near Volchansk and Staritsa (Kharkov region).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 380 Ukrainian troops, eight motor vehicles, three 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled artillery systems, and one Bukovel electronic warfare station.
Units of the Zapad Group of Forces improved the tactical situation and inflicted losses on formations of the AFU 63rd Mechanised Brigade and 1st National Guard Brigade near Chervonaya Dibrova and Kuzmino (Lugansk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 60 Ukrainian troops, one tank, one armoured personnel carrier, three motor vehicles, one 152mm D-20 howitzer, and one 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled artillery system.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces completely liberated Belogorovka (Lugansk People's Republic) and took more advantageous lines and positions.
Losses were inflicted on the enemy's manpower and hardware near Spornoye, Razdolovka, Kleshcheyevka, and Konstantinovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 340 Ukrainian troops, three tanks, and three motor vehicles.
In the course of counter-battery warfare, two 122mm D-30 howitzers, two UK-made 105mm L-119 howitzers, one U.S.-made 105mm M119 howitzer, and one Bukovel-AD electronic warfare station were neutralised.
Four AFU ammunition depots were destroyed.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation and inflicted losses on formations of the AFU 47th Mechanised Brigade, 25th Airborne Brigade, and 142nd Infantry Brigade near Umanskoye, Netaylovo, and Ocheretino (Donetsk People's Republic).
One counterattack launched by an assault detachment of the AFU 143rd Infantry Brigade was repelled near Solovyovo (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to more than 330 Ukrainian troops, one tank, three infantry fighting vehicles, including one German-made Marder and one U.S.-made Bradley, as well as two motor vehicles.
In the course of counter-battery warfare, one U.S.-made 155mm M109 Paladin self-propelled artillery system, one U.S.-made 155mm M777 howitzer, one 152mm Msta-B howitzer, and one 122mm D-30 howitzer were neutralised.
Units of the Vostok Group of Forces inflicted losses on the enemy's manpower and hardware near Urozhaynoye and Staromayorskoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
One counter-attack launched by an assault detachment of the AFU 72nd Mechanised Brigade was repelled near Vladimirovka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses amounted to up to 120 Ukrainian troops, two armoured personnel carriers, three motor vehicles, and one 152mm D-20 howitzer.
Units of the Dnepr Group of Forces inflicted losses on manpower and hardware of the AFU 65th Mechanised Brigade, 141st Infantry Brigade, 128th Mountain Assault Brigade, and 108th Territorial Defence Brigade near Stepnoye (Kherson region), Stepnogorsk, Rabotino, and Novopokrovka (Zaporozhye region).
One AFU sabotage and reconnaissance group was eliminated on the Pereyaslavsky island.
The AFU losses amounted to up to 30 Ukrainian troops, one tank, nine motor vehicles, one 152mm 2S3 Akatsiya self-propelled artillery system, and one 152mm D-20 howitzer.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, and Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces neutralised one German-made IRIS-T air defence system radar station and one S-125 SAM system.
A meeting place of command of the AFU 92nd and 95th Assault brigades were hit, as well as the enemy's manpower and hardware was engaged in 138 areas.
Air defence units shot down 45 unmanned aerial vehicles, one French-made Hammer guided aerial bomb, four U.S.-made HIMARS and Olkha MLRS projectiles, and one Neptune anti-ship missile.
In total, 601 airplanes and 274 helicopters, 24,419 unmanned aerial vehicles, 523 air defence missile systems, 16,097 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,305 combat vehicles equipped with MLRS, 9,700 field artillery guns and mortars, as well as 21,843 units of special military equipment have been destroyed during the special military operation.
[Jpost] For several months now, there has been a heated debate between the US and Israel about whether it would take four weeks (Israel’s view) or four months (the US’s view) to evacuate the Palestinian civilians taking refuge in Rafah so that the IDF could operate there — an estimated 1.2 to 1.4 million people.
Another heated debate was regarding whether that sheer volume of civilians in such a tiny area could be moved without a mass loss of civilian life; Israel wagered "yes," and the US said "no."
The IDF resolved this debate on Monday in its announcement that it had moved somewhere between two-thirds to 80% of the Palestinian civilian population out of Rafah — with a minimal number of casualties — in under two weeks.This was the first shocking swing of fate, due largely to extraordinary IDF achievements. Nothing succeeds like success...
Posted by: Grom the reflective ||
05/21/2024
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#1
The US is committed to whining about civilian casualties.
So whatever the IDF comes up with the US will, at best, say nothing and probably say 'too much force'.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
05/21/2024 16:13
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[Breitbart] President Joe Biden delivered a bleak commencement address this weekend, characterizing America as a racist place that does not love black people.
Biden gave a commencement speech at Morehouse College in Atlanta on Sunday where he appeared to characterize America in the harshest light in terms of race relations.
“You started college just as George Floyd was murdered,” Biden proclaimed. “And there was a reckoning on race. It’s natural to wonder if the democracy you hear about actually works for you.”
What is democracy if black men are being killed in the street?” he openly wondered. “What is democracy with a trail of broken promises leaving black communities behind? What is democracy if you have to be ten times better than anyone else to get a fair shot? Most of all, what does it mean, as you’ve heard before, to be a black man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?”
The crowd applauded him.
As Breitbart News reported on Sunday, students were seen turning their back on the president due to his support for Israel:
At least three Morehouse graduates could be seen in photos with their backs turned, according to an X post by a pro-Trump super PAC. One of them wore a keffiyeh scarf to signify solidarity with Palestinians.
The press pool traveling with Biden acknowledged seeing one student who stood at the back of the ceremony with his back turned and his right fist raised. According to the pool, a “few” graduates and faculty staff were wearing keffiyeh scarves.
While Biden called Hamas’s attack on Israel on October “vicious,” and mentioned “hostages” from the attack, he focused more on the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” called for an “immediate ceasefire,” and told students their “voices should be heard,” in reference to the pro-Palestinian protests breaking out at college campuses.
Biden also touched on issues of voting rights during his speech, sentiments he echoed in a later speech to the NAACP in Detroit.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] During the May offensive, the Russians planned to partially cordon off Khar'kov
The Russians continue to attack along almost the entire front line. They focus their main efforts on the Pokrovsky and Kupyansky directions.
The Russians planned to partially encircle Khar'kov and put pressure east of the Pechenezh reservoir. The Economist writes about this on Monday, May 20, with reference to “received military plans.”
According to the publication, the operation was allegedly planned by the invaders for May 15-16, but it was postponed by almost a week for unknown reasons.
The Russians seem to have “identified two directions” of attack from both sides of the reservoir. In particular, the offensive in the western direction was supposed to be aimed at bringing Russian troops within artillery range of Khar'kov near the village of Borshcheva.
However, as the publication points out, they were stopped by the 92nd brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, which pushed the invaders back 10 kilometers from the initial target.
The Economist adds that in the Volchansky direction the occupiers’ plan was to break through to the Pecheneg city.
Earlier, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that Russian troops are seeking to attack Kha'rkov, although they understand that it will be “very difficult.”
Let us remind you that on May 17, Russian troops also dropped guided bombs on Khar'kov - on the Kholodnogorsk district of the city. According to the latest data, four civilians were killed and another 29 were injured.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 23:59 Official summary of the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC from 00:00 05/20/2024 to 00:00 05/21/2024.
A total of 18 facts of armed attacks by the UFU were recorded by the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC over the past 24 hours.
Nine civilians were reported injured.
DAMAGED:
One car,
One residential building,
Two civil infrastructure facilities.
A total of 16 artillery attacks in the Donetsk direction,
Two artillery attacks in the Gorlovka direction,
A total of 41 units of various ammunition were fired.
23:50 Dnipropetrovsk region. Explosion!
It is reported that as a result of today's daytime missile strike on Ukrainian Armed Forces facilities, a military workshop for assembling equipment for Armed Forces armored vehicles and a warehouse with parts were hit.
22:45 SITUATION IN KHAR'KOV REGION AS OF 20.05 22:40.
“We notice that the enemy is accumulating his reserves with all his strength and capabilities. We are confident that even despite their not so impressive forces, they will try to hit our flank to distract attention and create media noise. Perhaps these will not be large sabotage groups, but maybe a tank fist with 2-3 platoons, or maybe an imitation of an attack on the state. border in Sumy region,” –writes"Front Bird"
21:04 Our soldiers from the 2nd Artillery Brigade of the Southern Group of Forces destroyed part of the positions of Ukrainian Armed Forces militants in the Belogorovka area
19:10 Attack aircraft of the 11th Air Force and Air Defense Army applies strikes on positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
18:30 UAV operators using an FPV drone destroyed the artillery of the Ukrainian Armed Forces –video.
18:00 The number of those wounded during the rocket attack on Makeyevka by Ukrainian troops has increased to five, said the head of the DPR Denis Pushilin.
17:40 Consequences of artillery attack of a gas station in Makeyevka, where a pregnant woman and four other civilians were injured.
17:14 Explosions between Sumy and Poltava regions.
16:55 The Armed Forces of Ukraine at 15.50 dropped an explosive object from an unmanned aerial vehicle on the Petrovsky district of Donetsk, the JCCC reported.
16:47 Night strike on the positions of Ukrainian formations using TOS "Solntsepek" in the village of Chasov Yar -video.
15:55 Soldiers with the Russian flag in the northern part of Volchansk -video.
15:35 In the DPR, from May 14 to May 19, seven people were killed and another 14, including one child, were injured due to aggression on the part of Ukrainian troops, the office of the regional ombudsman Daria Morozova reported.
14:48 Ukrainian drone reset in the Kirovsky district of Donetsk, ammunition hit a minibus and a car, a civilian was wounded.
14:45 Assault detachments of the “Southern” group of troops occupied stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donetsk direction.
The fortifications of Ukrainian militants were discovered during aerial reconnaissance. The coordinates of enemy positions were immediately transmitted to the assault troops on the front line.
With the support of operators of unmanned reconnaissance and strike aircraft, assault groups quickly attacked the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from several directions.
Having broken the enemy's resistance, our fighters occupied and completely cleared the strong point.
14:40 In the skies over Donetsk, Makeyevka, Avdeevka and Gorlovka in the DPR over the past week, the Russian FSB intercepted 215 Ukrainian drones, the press service of the regional headquarters of the department reported
14:31 The Russian Armed Forces destroyed the 152mm 2S4 Akatsiya self-propelled guns of the Ukrainian Armed Forces using the Lancet -video.
14:26 A private gas station came under fire from the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the north of Makeyevka, three people were injured, the DPR Ministry of Coal and Energy reported.
13:50 Six people received shrapnel wounds as a result of massive artillery attack of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Vasilyevka and the Vasilievsky district of the Zaporozhye region, Governor Balitsky said.
13:10 The main thing from the new briefing of the Russian Ministry of Defense:
The Russian Armed Forces liberated the village of Belogorovka in the Lugansk People's Republic;
Russian troops hit the site of a meeting of the command staff of the 92nd and 95th Assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces;
Units of the North group of troops continue to advance into the depths of the enemy’s defense;
During the day, the Russian Armed Forces repelled two counterattacks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the areas of the settlements of Volchansk and Staritsa, Khar'kov region;
The group of troops “West” improved its tactical situation within 24 hours; the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 60 soldiers;
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 340 military personnel and three tanks as a result of the actions of units of the Southern Group of Forces;
Russian troops destroyed the radar of the IRIS-T complex and the launcher of the S-125 air defense system of Ukraine;
During the day, air defense shot down 45 UAVs, a Hammer bomb, 4 HIMARS and Alder rounds, and a Neptune missile from the Ukrainian Armed Forces;
The Vostok group of troops repelled a counterattack by the assault group of the 72nd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the enemy lost up to 120 soldiers;
The “Center” group of troops improved the tactical situation within 24 hours; the total losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine amounted to more than 330 military personnel, a tank, three infantry fighting vehicles;
Units of the Dnepr group of troops destroyed a sabotage and reconnaissance group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Pereyaslavsky Island.
12:58 UAV operators 36 Army FPV drone destroyed artillery of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
12:27 The Mirgorod airbase in the Poltava region was hit by ballistic missiles. The 831st Tactical Aviation Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces is based at this airfield.
12:05 As a result of shelling, French SCALP-EG missiles started a strong fire in the village of Yubileiny - a residential building was engulfed in flames, dozens of other buildings were cut by shrapnel, glass was broken by the blast wave, said the head of the LPR Leonid Pasechnik.
Five victims are preliminary known. They are now receiving all the necessary medical care. Employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Investigative Committee are working on the spot.
11:57 The head of the LPR, Pasechnik, said that the attack on Lugansk was carried out using Western weapons.
“Suffering defeat at the front, Ukrainian armed forces are hitting civilian homes and civilian infrastructure. Employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and law enforcement agencies are working on the spot. Details about the victims and destruction are being clarified,” Pasechnik noted.
11:47 Information is received that Russian troops, breaking through enemy resistance, have reached the center of Paraskovievka. The 79th Airborne Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, part of which was transferred to Volchansk, are unable to hold back our offensive.
11:30 Explosions in Krivoy Rog.
10:37 Explosionin Lugansk local Telegram channels report.
10:20 Ukrainian Telegram channels report heavy artillery attack by KABs in the Khar'kov region
10:07 A minibus driver was wounded in the Kirovsky district of Donetsk due to a shell being dropped from a Ukrainian drone, said the mayor of the city of Kulemzin.
10:01 Explosions in Mirgorod, Poltava region.
09:44 Statement of Head of the press center of the “West” group:
As a result of active actions, the group’s motorized rifle units improved the tactical position and defeated manpower and equipment of units of the 63rd Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Torskoye area.
During the counterbattery fight, artillery units destroyed: two 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled artillery mounts, three M777 towed howitzers, a 152mm Msta-B howitzer, and five mortar crews.
The group's air defense systems destroyed six aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles. Enemy losses amounted to up to 440 troops, two pickup trucks and five UAV control posts.
08:19 Destruction of ammunition depot and howitzer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the Russian "Gyacinth" in the Kherson region.
08:14 The Russian kamikaze drone “Lancet-3” destroyed the German Gepard self-propelled gun in one of the directions of the Northern Military District zone –video.
08:10 Soldiers of the 26th TP in one of the directions in the Northern Military District zone “landed” the Ukrainian drone “Baba Yaga” with small arms -photo.
08:06 Russian military of the 1st Guards Tank Army using the Lancet-3 kamikaze drone destroyed enemy 152mm D-20 howitzer in the Kupyansk direction.
08:01 Russian troops launched a series of attacks on enemy targets in the Odessa region.
08:00 Personnel combat work of crews of 2S7 203mm self-propelled artillery systems "Malka".
[FoxNews] ISIS-K can enter US through Biden's open border. The scary part is they have already done it
The world first saw what the al Qaeda offshoot ISIS was capable of in 2014, when it began beheading Americans and committing genocide against Christians and Yazidis in Iraq. Today, the terror group’s descendant, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K), is growing and strengthening its ability to kill innocent civilians across the globe.
In the face of this danger, the U.S. government should be working day and night to uphold our national security. Instead, President Biden’s illegal immigration policies are giving ISIS-K clear access to the homeland, raising the threat of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Just look at recent press reports of ISIS-K affiliates crossing the southern border.
In February 2022, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) apprehended an illegal Uzbek immigrant named Jovokhir Attoev. Following Biden’s protocols, CBP then released Attoev — a single, military-aged male who had traveled thousands of miles through multiple countries — into the country.
Last May, however, the Uzbek government published a global notice that Attoev was wanted for ties to ISIS-K. The Biden administration only tracked him down last month, which means he flew under the radar inside the United States for two years.
It doesn’t end there. Per the press, illegal Afghan immigrant Mohammad Kharwin was suspected to be on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) terror watch list for being a member of Hezb-e-Islami, a terrorist organization that has killed American service members.
But when Kharwin crossed the border illegally in March 2023, officials couldn’t verify his identity, so once again, they let a single, military-aged male who had traveled thousands of miles through multiple countries, roam the homeland freely. It took 13 months for law enforcement to confirm his presence on the FBI’s watch list and arrest him.
These examples are disturbing enough, but they are just a drop in the bucket compared to the threat posed by terrorists who have entered the United States and remain undetected.
Since Biden took office, CBP has recorded more than 9 million encounters with people who have entered the United States illegally, virtually none of whom have been detained or expelled, and the vast majority of whom we know nothing about.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, more than 6,000 of these illegal immigrants hail from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan, in each of which ISIS-K has an active recruiting presence. There is no telling exactly how many affiliates of ISIS-K or other terror groups are now living among us.
Things look even grimmer when you consider the public reporting that foreign smugglers with ISIS ties have facilitated illegal immigration at the southern border. In short, our soft underbelly is ripe for exploitation by fanatical killers.
The answer to this problem is simple: secure the border and enforce America’s immigration laws. Yet, aside from dropping idle hints about executive orders, Biden has done nothing to reverse the open-border policies he campaigned on and spent the last three years enacting.
This is unacceptable and places American lives in jeopardy. ISIS-K is no longer a distant threat hiding in the Middle East. It may already be here, just waiting for the right moment to inflict mass destruction.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
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#1
Rubio is a midget version of Nikki.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/21/2024 8:15
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] Ukrainian soldiers courageously repulse enemy attacks.
Russian troops continue active offensive and assault operations in the Kupyansky, Kurakhovsky, Kramatorsk and Pokrovsky directions.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces published operational information about the Russian invasion as of 20.00 Monday, May 20.
“The Russian occupiers continue active offensive and assault operations in the Kupyansky, Kurakhovsky, Kramatorsk and Pokrovsky directions. Enemy aircraft are also operating with high intensity in the last two - in total, the occupiers dropped 15 KABs, and also used about three dozen unguided aircraft missiles,” the statement says. message.
In the Khar'kov direction, the number of today’s clashes has increased to four. During the day, the enemy attacked twice near Volchansk and once each in the direction of the villages of Staritsa and Liptsy. The General Staff assures that the situation is under control.
“Starting from May 10 and as of this time, in the Khar'kov direction, the Russian invaders have already lost 1,974 people killed and wounded in manpower and 342 units of weapons and military equipment!” - says the construction of the General Staff.
In the Kupyansk direction, three clashes continue in the Stelmakhovka and Sinkovka areas. In just these 24 hours, the enemy tried to break through our defenses in this direction 11 times.
There are no changes in the Seversky direction.
“In the Kramatorsk direction, in the second half of the day, the enemy became more active near Chasov Yar and carried out three attacks. There is also a battle going on now near Andreevka. The situation is under control. The invaders launched another airstrike, this time in the Druzhba area,” the General Staff reports.
It is reported that the enemy continues to concentrate efforts in the Pokrovsky direction, where he has already made 32 attempts to advance forward.
“24 attacks have been repulsed, eight are ongoing. The invaders carried out another five airstrikes in the areas of Novoaleksandrovka, Vozdvizhenka, Umansky, Karlovka and Elizavetovka. Our soldiers are responding harshly to the enemy. Today, as a result of the actions of Ukrainian units, the invaders have already lost 366 people killed and wounded in this direction. Also 22 units of enemy military equipment were damaged and destroyed, including six tanks,” the General Staff added.
11 enemy attacks were also reported in the Kurakhovsky direction, three of them are ongoing, the situation is under control. In other directions - without any significant changes.
“Thanks to the flexibility of our defense system, Ukrainian soldiers confidently hold their positions. Units of the Defense Forces keep enemy actions under fire control, perform maneuvers, and, under favorable conditions, carry out assault operations to dislodge enemy troops from occupied lines,” the Prosecutor General’s Office reports.
Let us remind you that on the night of May 19, the Ukrainian military destroyed the Russian sea minesweeper Kovrovets.
It was also reported that the Russian Navy ship Cyclone, which carries Caliber missiles, was likely hit during a missile attack in temporarily occupied Sevastopol.
[GEO.TV] As 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... mourns the unfortunate death of its president, Ebrahim Raisi — a potential successor to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> , in a helicopter crash on Sunday, the state-run Islamic Theocratic Republic News Agency (IRNA) has reported that the chopper faced an accident due to "technical failure". i.e.: Its elevation was lower than the ground
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, Friday Prayer leader of the city of Tabriz Mohammad Ali al-e Hashem and others including pilots and flight crew also died when the ill-fated aircraft crashed in mountain terrain amid poor weather on its way back from the East Azerbaijan province.
All passengers, including Raisi, were declared dead when charred wreckage of the Bell 212 helicopter was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.
The funeral procession for President Raisi will be held in Tehran on Tuesday.
Khamenei, who holds ultimate power with a final say on foreign policy and Iran's nuclear programme, announced a five-day mourning period while naming Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber as interim president and directing him to ensure the election of a new president within 50 days, as per the country’s constitution.
Though the crash came at a time of growing dissent within Iran over an array of political, social and economic crises, with Iran's holy manal rulers facing international pressure over Tehran's disputed nuclear programme and heightening tensions with Israel in the backdrop of war 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 an 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... , any indication of foul play was ruled out by Iran’s state TV.
However,
there's more than one way to stuff a chicken... former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif ...Persian foreign minister, Mouthpiece of Mullahs, good friend of John Kerry and similar exemplars of Merkin values... has held the United States responsible for Raisi’s death and "his entourage because of its sanctions on the country’s aviation industry".
"The Iranian nation has faced great events in these 45 years, and according to the Supreme Fearless Leader of the Islamic Revolution ...Iran's doddering head theocrat... , they will overcome this tragic event," the state-TV quoted Zarif as saying
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
05/21/2024 10:34
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Top||
#7
The 1981 Panamanian Air Force Twin Otter crash occurred on July 31, 1981, when a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter of the Panamanian Air Force, with identity code FAP-205, crashed at Marta Hill, in the community of Coclesito, in adverse weather conditions while on its final approach to the airport. All seven people on board, including General Omar Torrijos Herrera, who led the country's military dictatorship between 1968 and 1981, were killed.
[AFRICANEWS] The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash will be a "big loss" to the country, especially as it comes amid a "domestic legitimacy crisis" and Tehran's "contested relationship" with Israel, an analyst said Monday.
Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and several other officials were found dead on Monday, hours after their helicopter crashed in a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported.
Sanam Vakil, the director of the North Africa and Middle East Programme at the London-based think-tank Director, Chatham House said the country's political establishment will now "put on a brave face, show functionality as usual, present this as business as normal of a system and life will go on".
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> announced Monday that Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, would serve as the country’s acting president until elections are held.
Under the Iranian constitution, Iran’s vice first president takes over if the president dies, with Khamenei’s assent, and a new presidential election would be called within 50 days.
Vakil said the establishment will favour a candidate who can "maintain ideological legitimacy, and protect the system."
She said there was a possibility of "protests or instability in Iran."
Mass protests in the country have raged for years.
The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had been earlier detained over allegedly not wearing a hijab, or headscarf.
Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Theocratic Republic’s history.
The crash comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by the Israel-Hamas ..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,... war, during which Raisi launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
The IRGC in the Age of Ebrahim Raisi Raisi, who assumes Iran’s presidency on 5 August after the country’s June 2021 election, has set his eyes on further empowering the IRGC with key ministerial and bureaucratic positions likely to be awarded to guardsmen under his new government.
[NEWARAB] Extremist Israeli ministers have called on their military to invade and occupy south Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... and destroy the Hezbollah gang, as cross-border fighting escalates.
On Monday, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Israel should storm Lebanon and "destroy Hezbollah in its entirety."
Ben-Gvir echoed similar threats made a day earlier by Israel’s finance minister, saying that while he agreed with Bezalel Smotrich’s call to forcefully push Hezbollah away from the border and set up a buffer zone in southern Lebanon, such a plan "wouldn’t be enough."
"We would need to do another thing — and that’s a war that would destroy our enemies," Ben-Gvir said about Hezbollah.
"Even if they’re pushed back from the border, even if there’s a security zone, even if they move a bit — you can’t just leave people behind whose entire purpose and essence is to destroy the State of Israel," the far-right minister said.
"What they don’t do in six months they will do in a year, and what they don’t do in a year they will do in two," he added. "We must not leave this to our children. Not in the south [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 an 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] and not in the north [Lebanon]."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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[THEGATEWAYPUNDIT] Iranian women are celebrating the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and dancing on his "dirty grave."
The "Butcher of Tehran" oversaw a brutal crackdown on the protests in 2022 that rose against the Islamic "morality police."
As reported earlier, a helicopter carrying Iranian President and mass murderer Ebrahim Raisi crashed while visiting a northern region.
The Iranian state reported Raisi’s death.
Raisi oversaw a brutal crackdown on the Iranian people protesting following the murder of 22-year-old Iranian woman Mahsa Amini by regime thugs.
Amini died from injuries sustained at the hands of police after her arrest for the "improper" wearing of a hijab.
Under Raisi, and according to a UN Human Rights Council report earlier this year, the monthslong security crackdown killed more than 500 people, and over 22,000 were detained.
The report also found that Iranian security forces raped and sexually assaulted many of the women in jug.
Brave women 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... have shared their joyous reactions to Amini’s death on social media.
Mersedeh Shahinkar, who was blinded by Iranian security forces after taking part in the mass protests, shared, "We freely dance and celebrate on your dirty grave."
Shahinkar was joined by Sima Moradbeigi, who lost her right arm after being shot by police during a women’s rights protest.
A mother whose son was executed by Raisi only a few months ago shared a video of her celebration at the news.
Iranian journalist Masih AlinejadI said of the video, "I told you Iranian women are maimed, but unbowed to their oppressors. My social media is flooded with videos of the family members of those killed by the President of the Islamic Theocratic Republic, celebrating his death."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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[FoxNews] Iran will fortify its relationship with the "axis of tyranny" and continue to carry out its support of Hamas following President Ebrahim Raisi's death in a helicopter crash Sunday, according to foreign policy expert Dan Hoffman.
"I think we're going to see the continuation of the general contours of Iranian foreign policy, meaning domestic repression, carrying on support to Hamas, and their so-called axis of resistance against Israel and the United States and then fortifying their relationship, their alliance with this new axis of tyranny – Russia, China and North Korea," he said during an appearance on "Fox & Friends" Monday.
The former CIA station chief and Fox News contributor elaborated on the expectation of continued internal oppression despite Raisi's death, since Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sets policy for Iran. Though Raisi was considered a likely successor for the supreme leader, he did not have the same influence, Hoffman noted.
"I fully expect that domestic repression, including of women, especially of women, will continue," he said. "Also, I think that a new president, when one is chosen, will fall in line with the supreme leader's wishes."
The supreme leader tapped Vice President Mohammad Mokhber to serve as interim president following Raisi's death Monday. During his tenure in office, Raisi supported the country's enrichment of uranium up to near-weapons-grade levels, attacks against Israel, particularly one last month made in response to an alleged Israeli attack that killed Iranian generals at the country's embassy compound in Damascus, Syria.
Domestically, he also supported crackdowns on dissenters following the controversially suspicious death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly not wearing a hijab.
Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials were confirmed dead on Monday following a lengthy search attempt to locate the helicopter crash site in the fog-shrouded mountainous region in the northwest part of the country.
The supreme leader tapped Vice President Mohammad Mokhber to serve as interim president following Raisi's death Monday. During his tenure in office, Raisi supported the country's enrichment of uranium up to near-weapons-grade levels, attacks against Israel, particularly one last month made in response to an alleged Israeli attack that killed Iranian generals at the country's embassy compound in Damascus, Syria.
Domestically, he also supported crackdowns on dissenters following the controversially suspicious death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested for allegedly not wearing a hijab.
Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials were confirmed dead on Monday following a lengthy search attempt to locate the helicopter crash site in the fog-shrouded mountainous region in the northwest part of the country.
[Breitbart] Former President Donald Trump will purge the administrative state by firing career bureaucrats from the DOJ and the FBI if he wins reelection, nine people involved in the effort told Reuters.
Trump repeatedly vowed to drain the administrative state or “deep state,” as he termed it, upon returning to office.
The term “administrative state” specifically describes the phenomenon of unaccountable and unelected administrative agencies, including the national security apparatus, exercising power to create and enforce their own rules. The administrative state uses its rule-making ability or raw power to essentially usurp the separation of powers between the three branches of government by creating a so-called fourth branch of government not formed by the Constitution.
Trump’s reported focus on overhauling the DOJ is predicated on his belief that career bureaucrats inside the administrative state improperly target conservatives, conservative groups, or conservative ideals with the help of the national security state or intelligence apparatus. Trump’s contention is buoyed by significant reporting on various controversies, such as the coronavirus, the Russia hoax, and the “laptop from hell.”
The next Trump administration would place new constraints on the DOJ’s authority by decentralizing its power to other law enforcement agencies, the sources told Reuters. The initiative is not a new idea among citizens concerned about the erosion of civil liberty.
Eliminating the FBI’s general counsel, an office that worked against Trump’s presidency and the investigation into the 2016 Russia hoax, would be first, two prominent Trump allies said.
The Biden campaign condemned the idea as Trump exacting revenge on political opponents who allegedly work for a non-partisan agency funded by taxpayers. Most conservatives agree that a president should have the power to fire and hire federal bureaucrats for cause.
Before Trump left office in 2021, he signed an executive order (EO) to reclassify federal government employees into Schedule F, which would have allowed the president to enhance accountability and job performance within the bureaucratic agencies. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” Trump said in May.
Biden canceled the order when he assumed office in 2021, but if Trump reclaims the White House, he will reportedly reimplement the executive order and purge the unelected technocrats artificially running the federal government. “It would effectively upend the modern civil service, triggering a shock wave across the bureaucracy,” Axios previously concluded about the EO’s impact.
“The mere mention of Schedule F ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction,” Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, previously told Time.
“The President never had a policy process that was designed to give him what he actually wanted and campaigned on,” he added. “[We are] sorting through the legal authorities, the mechanics, and providing the momentum for a future Administration.”
The administrative state appears terrified of a Trump victory in November. It is preparing for Trump to win reelection by implementing a surge of bureaucratic regulations before a deadline that renders them difficult to undue by a potential Trump administration.
The administrative state implemented 66 rules in just April alone, a number that is greater than any month since the Reagan administration, a Regulatory Studies Center analysis found. Biden’s administrative state published 111 more regulations than Trump implemented at the same point in his term, Axios reported. Many of the rules will protect the progressive agenda of “climate change,” such as limiting auto tailpipe emissions and forcing power plants to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
A potential Trump administration, via the Congressional Review Act, can reverse the rules implemented during an upcoming “lookback period.” When the “lookback period” begins in 2024 is murky, but Axios reported Biden’s deadline ranges between May 22 and September. Any rules put into action before the deadline cannot be reversed.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
05/21/2024
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
When Citizens can no longer trust their nations justice system to be fair, non-political, applied equally and their Election process is clearly fraudulent top to bottom. Then those Citizens tend to start to voice their objections in increasing ways.
Then, the Government elites typically go into a oppressive suppression mode against its citizenry to protect its own existence.
In a manner of Speaking TRUMP is that normal, common voters, voice against the DC Swamp.
An the DC Swamp is seriously worried about their continued unbridled existence and possible prison time for their deeds. To the point they are even openly flaunting their ability to circumvent the law, rights, and justice. All to protect their rule & agendas.
#5
All the alphabet agencies and government bureaucracy need to be slashed in an Argentina type move. At least a 40% reduction to start and several agencies like the ATF just need to be disbanded. By the time Trump leaves office, government shrunk by 60%, taxes and capital gains cut in half and roll back tons of regulations and you will see the economy roar back to life.
#14
all constitutional amendments above 10 into the trash. add two...no discrimination based on color or shape of skin...all elections on paper ballots cast in person on day of election. Military no exception, they can vote in situ on national issues.
#15
Return everything in the Beltway to it's natural original condition. Then farm out what Constitutionally authorized departments of the Executive branch across the country. No state can have more than one.
[GEO.TV] Israel intends to broaden its military operation in Rafah, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday told a senior aide to US President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. The very model of probity.... , who has warned against major action in the southern Gazook city that may risk mass civilian casualties.
Israel describes Rafah, which abuts the 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 an 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's border with the Egyptian Sinai, as the last stronghold of Hamas ..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... fighters whose governing and combat capabilities it has been trying to dismantle during the more than seven-month-old war.
After weeks of public disagreements with Washington over the Rafah planning, Israel on May 6 ordered Paleostinian civilians to evacuate parts of the city and began troop and tank incursions.
"We are committed to broadening the ground operation in Rafah to the end of dismantling Hamas and recovering the hostages," a statement from Gallant's office quoted him as telling visiting US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2024
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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.
[Zero] 'You'll own nothing in retirement and be happy'...
Might "enrage" a few outside of PA as well.
[ZERO] In a regularly scheduled meeting with leftist activists and Democrat NGOs, Satan tries to to explain the value of subtlety. It does not go well. The Babylon Bee has become famous in a disturbing way - Their parodies often end up predicting future realities, proving that we now live in Clown World whether we like it or not.
...71st United States secretary of state and a leading light of the corrupt and inept Biden administration. He previously served as deputy national security advisor from 2013 to 2015 and deputy secretary of state from 2015 to 2017 under the corrupt and inept Obama administration. He advocated for the 2003 invasion of Iraq while serving as the Democratic staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2002 to 2008. He was a foreign policy advisor for the Biden 2008 presidential campaign. During his tenure in the Obama administration, Blinken helped craft B.O.'s policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the nuclear program of Iran. We all saw how well each of those worked. After leaving government service, Blinken moved into the private sector, co-founding WestExec Advisors, a lobbying firm...
...a Moslem country located in the Horn of Africa. It is noted for its affinity for rule by ex- or current generals, its holy men, and for the oppression of the native Afro population by its Arab conquerors. South Sudan, populated mostly by the natives, split off from Sudan proper, which left North and South Darfur to be oppressed by the guys with turbans...
[FoxNews] A 23-year-old man who ran away from a mental health clinic in Florida on Sunday was critically wounded in a police shooting after officers encountered him armed with pepper spray and a knife, authorities said.
...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 Frational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...
...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
...sleazy lawyer who worked for Trump as his ''fixer,'' then turned on him after the Stormy Daniels shakedown. Mikey told about six hundred different stories, most of them contradfictory and some physically impossible. In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight counts including campaign-finance violations, tax fraud, and bank fraud. As Alvin Bragg's star witness against Trump, he admitted on the stand to enbezzling from the Trump Organization...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...Persian foreign minister, Mouthpiece of Mullahs, good friend of John Kerry and similar exemplars of Merkin values...
..one of the armed feet of the Moslem Brüderbund millipede,...
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...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 
[Breitbart] Former President Donald Trump will purge the administrative state by firing career bureaucrats from the DOJ and the FBI if he wins reelection, nine people involved in the effort told Reuters.
The Biden campaign condemned the idea as Trump exacting revenge on political opponents who allegedly work for a non-partisan agency funded by taxpayers. Most conservatives agree that a president should have the power to fire and hire federal bureaucrats for cause.
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
