[KhaamaPress] Iranian security forces arrested a network of ISIS-linked jacket wallahs planning attacks during the anniversary of Ruhollah Khomeini’s death.
Iranian media have reported the arrest of members of a terrorist and suicide kaboom network linked to ISIS, coinciding with the anniversary of the death of Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Theocratic Republic.
According to Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the group was planning terrorist operations on Iranian soil. The announcement was made on Wednesday, June 4, citing a spokesperson from Iran’s Law Enforcement Command.
Security forces stated that the network intended to carry out sabotage and kabooms during the commemorative events marking Khomeini’s death anniversary. The operation to dismantle the group was described as complex and conducted by Iran’s counter-terrorism units.
The arrests were carried out in a coordinated effort involving law enforcement agencies in Tehran, as well as the provinces of Isfahan, Qom, and Alborz. According to the police spokesperson, 13 members of the group were detained, including the leader, operational commanders, and suicide bombers.
Authorities also seized dangerous equipment such as explosive vests and backpacks from the suspects. Iranian officials did not disclose further details about the identities of the detainees or their exact targets.
This arrest comes amid ongoing Iranian efforts to prevent ISIS attacks, especially during public ceremonies and important national events. Similar foiled plots have been reported in recent years, reflecting Tehran’s heightened security measures against krazed killer threats.
[Rudaw] The US military said on Thursday that an Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) leader was arrested and two operatives killed in numerous partnered operations with Iraqi forces late last month.
Five operations, carried out from May 21-27 with Iraqi forces in the northern Salahaddin and Kirkuk provinces, resulted in the "clearance and destruction of multiple locations, confiscation of small arms weapons and munitions, recovery of material for further exploitation, two ISIS operatives killed in action, and the capture of an ISIS leader," the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
Another operation in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province, partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — the US-led coalition’s main ally in the anti-ISIS fight in Syria — resulted in an ISIS operative being captured, according to the statement.
"Operations like these underscore the commitment of USCENTCOM, along with our allies and partners, to the enduring defeat of ISIS in the region," said CENTCOM commander General Michael Erik Kurilla.
SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami lauded the cooperation between the Kurdish-led force and the coalition.
"The effective support provided by the international coalition forces to our forces has significantly contributed to the dismantling of numerous ISIS cells in Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa, and Deir ez-Zor. Our forces will continue their most effective operations against ISIS terrorism with support from our partners in the international coalition," Shami said on X.
[Rudaw] A number of suspected Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) turbans were arrested in a Kurdish counter-terrorism operation carried out near the Hamrin Mountains, the Sulaimani-based force said on Wednesday.
"In the operation, which was carried out swiftly, precisely, and without casualties, the forces successfully arrested a number of suspects with a history of terrorist activities," the Sulaimani-based Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG) said in a statement.
It described one of the suspects as "a logistical officer" for ISIS "in a designated area," without disclosing further details.
The operation was carried out in cooperation with the US-led international coalition against ISIS.
The US-led global coalition provided both the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga with air and ground support, as well as training and equipment, in the war against ISIS.
[Rudaw] Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ...the very aged actual dictator of Iran, successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini...> on Wednesday doubled down on rejecting the United States’ "no uranium enrichment" precondition for a nuclear deal, accusing Washington of trying to obstruct Tehran’s nuclear development and declaring, "They can't do a damn thing about it."
Speaking at the 36th anniversary of the passing of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Theocratic Republic, Khamenei said, "The first thing the US insists on is that 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... should not have a nuclear industry, so that we would be dependent on [the United States of] America."
"Our response to the US's nonsense is clear: they cannot do a damn thing about it," he stressed.
Khamenei further criticized Washington’s opposition to Tehran’s uranium enrichment capabilities, asserting that the issue is a sovereign right and not subject to foreign interference. "National independence means that the country should not wait for the green or red light from the United States and its ilk," he said, adding that "a key element of national independence is the principle of ’we can.’"
"In the nuclear dossier, the US’s plan is 100 percent contradictory to the ’we can' [principle]," he added.
Indirect, Oman-mediated talks between Tehran and Washington have been ongoing since April 12, with the fifth and most recent round held on May 23.
The talks mark the most significant engagement since 2018, when US President Donald Trump ...His ancestors didn't own any slaves... , during his first term in office, withdrew Washington from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief. Following the US withdrawal and reimposition of sweeping sanctions, Tehran gradually reduced its compliance.
Importantly, a key roadblock in the revived talks has been the issue of uranium enrichment. While US negotiators are pushing for "zero enrichment" by Iran, Tehran maintains that this condition is a nonstarter.
US President Trump on Tuesday insisted that "Under our [new] potential Agreement - WE WILL NOT ALLOW ANY ENRICHMENT OF URANIUM!" In a statement he posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump added that "the AUTOPEN should have stopped Iran a long time ago from ’enriching’."
Trump’s remarks notably contradicted media reports circulating in recent days that suggested the US might allow limited low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil for a to-be-determined period of time.
In a seeming response to the US president, Iran’s supreme leader reiterated on Wednesday that "uranium enrichment is the key to the nuclear issue, and the enemies have also put their fingers on enrichment."
Addressing Washington, Khamenei asked, "Whether Iran has enrichment or not, what does it matter to you? Who are you?" adding that Iran has achieved a complete nuclear fuel cycle with great efforts and that the nuclear industry is not just for energy.
Khamenei’s remarks also came shortly after the White House confirmed on Saturday that the US had sent Iran a proposal for a nuclear deal.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was in Tehran’s "best interest to accept" the "detailed and acceptable" proposal, emphasizing that "President Trump has made it clear that Iran can never obtain a nuclear bomb."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Tuesday acknowledged that a US proposal for a new nuclear agreement had been delivered through Omani mediation. However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried... the Iranian diplomat criticized that the proposal contains "many ambiguities and questions" and that many parts of it "are unclear."
The developments also follow a recent report by the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... ’s nuclear watchdog, the ineffective International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which noted that it is "of serious concern" that Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 percent has reached an estimated 408.6 kilograms as of May 17 - an increase of 133.8 kilograms since February.
Iran on Saturday condemned the IAEA’s report as relying on "unreliable and misleading information" from Israel and repeating "biased and baseless accusations."
Tehran further warned that if certain countries exploit its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog or use the latest IAEA report to undermine its transparency, it will take "appropriate measures" to defend its legitimate rights and hold those countries "fully responsible for the consequences."
[IsraelTimes] Senior Iranian official say Iran-based enrichment consortium ‘may warrant consideration,’ but anything outside borders ‘doomed to fail’; report suggests more talks this weekend.
#5
Actually Ali, I think there's smokin' hole in the ground out there with your name on it.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/05/2025 15:25
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#6
Sure we can.
It's called, "multiple aircraft carriers followed by ground invasion and regime change in Tehran.
Just like Iraq, but bigger.
destroy Iran and we've just pulled the rug out from under all of Isreal's (and our) problems in the middle East.
Get ready for Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!
#9
Just knock out any military and energy producing facilities. And then lock down any boats in or out of Iran and any vehicle in or out. Pop the popcorn and watch the implosion.
[IsraelTimes] Osama Krayem, 32 — already in prison over the 2015 Paris and 2016 Brussels attacks — acknowledges being present at the killing of Moaz al-Kasasbeh, but denies prosecution’s account
A jihadist enjugged Please don't kill me! over the Gay Paree and Brussels attacks in 2015 and 2016 went on trial in Stockholm on Wednesday for his role in the 2014 capture and subsequent killing of a Jordanian pilot burned alive in Syria.
The case is considered unique as the other jihadists involved in the brutal killing, which sparked international outrage at the time, are presumed dead, Swedish prosecutor Henrik Olin told AFP.
Osama Krayem, a 32-year-old Swede, is already serving long prison sentences for his role in the November 2015 attacks in Gay Paree and the March 2016 bombings in Brussels.
He now faces charges of "serious war crimes and terrorist crimes" for his alleged role in the killing of the Jordanian pilot.
On December 24, 2014, an aircraft belonging to the Royal Jordanian Air Force crashed in Syria.
The pilot was captured the same day by fighters from the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... group near the central city of Raqqa and burned alive in a cage sometime before February 3, 2015, when a video of the killing was published, according to the prosecution.
The gruesome killing was captured in a slickly produced propaganda video that was one of the first such videos released by ISIS.
The killing shocked Jordan, which was participating in the US-led coalition’s strikes against ISIS positions in Syria.
"Osama Krayem has, together and in agreement with other perpetrators belonging to [ISIS], killed Moaz al-Kasasbeh," prosecutor Reena Devgun told the court on Wednesday.
"Osama Krayem, in uniform and armed, guarded and led the victim Moaz al-Kasasbeh to a metal cage, where the latter was then locked up. One of the co-perpetrators then set fire to Moaz al-Kasasbeh, who had no possibility to defend himself or call for help," Devgun said.
Krayem, wearing a dark blue shirt and with a thick beard and long, loose dark hair, had his back to the handful of journalists and spectators who followed the proceedings on Wednesday behind a glass wall in the high security courtroom in Stockholm’s district court.
He appeared calm as the prosecution laid out the charges.
The pilot’s execution was filmed and released as part of a 22-minute video accompanied by a specially composed religious chant.
In the video, the victim is seen walking past several masked ISIS fighters, including Krayem, according to prosecutors.
The pilot is then seen being locked in the cage, praying, as he is set on fire.
Prosecutors have been unable to determine the exact date of the murder but the investigation has identified the location where it took place.
’I’M IN THE VIDEO’
Bringing the case to trial was the result of extensive cooperation with officials in Belgium, La Belle France and the United States, prosecutor Olin said last week when the formal charges were pressed.
It was thanks to a scar on the suspect’s eyebrow, visible in the video and spotted by Belgian police, that Krayem was identified and the investigation was opened, Devgun added last week.
Other evidence in the case includes conversations on social media, including one where Krayem asks a person if he has seen a new video "where a man gets fried," according to the investigation, a copy of which has been viewed by AFP.
"I’m in the video," Krayem said, pointing out the moment when the camera zooms in on his face.
The other person replies: "Hahaha, yes, I saw the eyebrow."
The defendant’s lawyer, Petra Eklund, told AFP before the start of the trial that her client admitted to being present at the scene but disputed the prosecution’s version.
"He denies the acts for which he is prosecuted," she said.
"He acknowledges having been present at that place during the event, but claims not to have acted in the manner described by the prosecutors in the account of the facts," she added.
Krayem, who is from Malmo in southern Sweden, joined ISIS in Syria in 2014 before returning to Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... in September 2015.
He was arrested in Belgium in April 2016.
In June 2022, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison in La Belle France for helping plan the November 2015 Gay Paree attacks in which 130 people were killed.
The following year, he was given a life sentence in Belgium for participating in the March 2016 bombings at Brussels’ main airport and on the metro system, which killed 32 people.
Krayem has been temporarily handed over to Sweden to participate in the Stockholm trial, which is scheduled to last until June 26.
[IsraelTimes] Far-left Zohran Mamdani, polling second, refrains from acknowledging a Jewish Israel, drawing fire from frontrunner Andrew Cuomo
New York State Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani,
…like Ilhan Omar he is the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) candidate. The red diaper baby of ethnic Indian immigrant academics (Columbia U, natch) parrots all the usual anti-Jew/Israel shibboleths — BDS, Israel in Gaza = genocide — while insisting he is also a Shiite Moslem, suggesting an important Iran connection…
a leading candidate in the New York City mayoral race, drew fire on the debate stage on Wednesday when he would not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Mamdani is polling in second place ahead of this month’s Democratic party primary,
…which is appalling. He should be a curiosity at best, even if he is the Communist. If NY elects him, they’ll deserve all the awful that will follow…
which will likely decide the winner of the November election in the mostly Democratic US city.
Mamdani, a state assemblymember from Queens, is a longtime pro-Paleostinian activist and is harshly critical of Israel. His views on Israel’s right to exist have come under scrutiny in recent weeks and he has repeatedly avoided acknowledging Israel’s Jewish character. He has previously identified as an anti-Zionist.
During Wednesday’s debate, their first, the nine primary candidates were asked where their first visit abroad would be if they were elected.
Three of the candidates said Israel — frontrunner Andrew Sonny Cuomo, the former New York State governor; longshot candidate Whitney Tilson; and Jewish former city comptroller Scott Stringer, who said it would be his first visit to Israel.
New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams said she would choose "the holy land." City Comptroller Brad Lander, also Jewish, said he would visit Canada due to the Trump administration’s antagonism toward Canada.
Mamdani said he would "stay in New York City." The interviewers took the opportunity to press Mamdani on whether he would consider a visit to Israel at all.
"I believe you need not travel to Israel to stand up for Jewish New Yorkers," he said.
"Yes or no, do you believe in a Jewish state of Israel?" he was asked.
"I believe Israel has the right to exist, as a state with equal rights," he said.
"Not as a Jewish state," Cuomo interjected. "And his answer was no, he won’t visit Israel."
Mamdani has voiced a variation of the same line several times before when pressed over Israel’s Jewish character, and has not yet acknowledged Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
After he affirmed last month, while under pressure, Israel’s right to exist without mentioning Israel’s Jewish character, he came under fire from anti-Israel activists.
Mamdani is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a far-left group that has made anti-Israel activism one of its party planks.
Jewish issues made scant appearance in the two-hour debate hosted by the news outlets NBC4 New York, Telemundo 47, and Politico.
Telemundo’s audience doesn’t care and Politico’s sides with the h8ter.
The candidates were asked about the Trump administration’s move to revoke Columbia University’s accreditation. They all opposed the move, while acknowledging that antisemitism was a serious issue, except for Mamdani, who did not mention antisemitism in his response, although in the following question he acknowledged the "very real issue of antisemitism."
"There’s been antisemitism in this city. I believe it’s a growing problem and I believe the rhetoric about Israel has actually inflamed the antisemitism. Put that aside, I think this is just another overreach of the Trump administration," Cuomo said.
"This is a frightening time for Jews and I feel it really personally after the flamethrowing in Boulder, Colorado, and the two murders in Washington, DC," Lander said. "But let’s be clear — Donald Trump ...Oh, noze! Not him!... , he platforms white nationalists and antisemites all the time. This has nothing to do with keeping anyone safe."
The candidates also opposed the Trump administration’s arrest of Columbia student activist Mahmoud Khalil.
"This is a continuation of Trump eroding democracy, chipping away at due process. He should be released," Cuomo said.
Cuomo and Tilson, who has Jewish family, wore yellow ribbons on their lapels, a symbol in support of the hostages in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Mayoral candidates, including frontrunner Cuomo, have been battling for Jewish votes ahead of the June 24 primary. Jews make up about 16% of the primary electorate.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/05/2025 8:49
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#2
^^ I'd almost make jokes about that endorsement Frank, but the dunces in AOC's district (and other nearby districts) apparently are oblivious to reality.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
06/05/2025 8:59
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[IsraelTimesJ Resumption of assistance brings a truckload of deadly issues, as competing actors struggle to safely feed Gazans amid mix of soldiers, armed gangs and terrorists clinging to power
Hundreds of trucks of food and other assistance have entered the Strip since Jerusalem began allowing aid into the Strip last month following an 11-week hiatus, Israeli officials say.
Some of the aid has gone to the US- and Israel-backed Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial new organization that operates four designated aid distribution centers where boxes of assistance are handed to individuals. "controversial"
“Not one of us, darling” is always distateful.
At the same time, assistance has continued to flow via the previous mechanism coordinated by the UN and other humanitarian organizations, which handle logistics and distribution to warehouses and facilities across the Strip. While it enjoys international legitimacy, Israel says the method leaves the aid supplies vulnerable to being taken by the Hamas ..always the voice of sweet reason... terror group, against which it is waging war.
After a blockade from March 2 to May 19, footage now shows humanitarian warehouses being restocked and aid being distributed. But the past two weeks have also seen a sharp rise in reports of looting, both spontaneous and organized, as well as violent mostly peaceful confrontations involving both Hamas operatives and Israeli forces near aid sites.
While Hamas and others have accused Israel of shooting and killing Paleostinians seeking aid, some have fingered Hamas and local gangs in Gaza as responsible for violence surrounding the aid.
According to Michael Milshtein, who heads the Paleostinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center, a Hamas unit known as Sahm appears to be taking brutal action against suspected looters.
"Everyone I speak with in Gaza talks about them. They are executing people left and right," Milshtein told the Times of Israel of Sahm. He said the unit was tasked with "enforcing all order" in Gaza.
A Telegram channel linked to the unit regularly publishes reports and footage of operations against alleged criminals and collaborators. Daily updates show individuals in Gaza being "handled" by Hamas mechanisms, meaning beaten or killed, reportedly for involvement in aid theft.
On Tuesday, the channel reported that Sahm had executed seven Gazooks accused of theft and collaboration with Israel.
Despite over a year and a half of war, with thousands of its fighters estimated to have been killed, Milshtein said Hamas remains "the one dominant actor in Gaza that continues to enforce order."
"It is battered, it is limited, a pale shadow of what it was on October 7, 2023 — but let’s not be mistaken, it hasn’t disappeared or vanished, not even from people’s hearts," he said. "I don’t see the classic Middle Eastern signs of a regime collapse. There is no mass surrender of Hamas, no white flags, no Hamas members being hunted down in the streets. There are protests, there are gangs, but every time I check, I don’t see indications that something fundamentally different is about to happen."
LOOTINGS SPREAD
Numerous incidents of large-scale looting have been documented across the Strip since the renewal of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza. In some cases, looters appear to be desperate Gazook individuals, though Gaza-based social media has also documented organized raids throughout the war, often carried out by gangs, some with criminal records.
On May 25, dozens of Gazooks were filmed approaching a truck carrying humanitarian aid in central Gaza City. Gunfire was heard, and the crowd dispersed, though it remains unclear whether looting ultimately took place.
The shots are believed to have been fired by Hamas or another local security force; the IDF does not protect aid convoys inside Gaza, only maintaining a presence near the designated distribution zones managed by GHF.
Days later, footage from the overnight hours between May 27 and May 28 showed dozens of Gazooks looting a humanitarian aid truck that had arrived in the market area of Nuseirat in central Gaza. Reports indicated the truck was initially intended to deliver supplies to the north, where humanitarian organizations were to oversee an orderly distribution.
On May 28, videos circulated on social media showing hundreds of people looting a large warehouse containing what appeared to be humanitarian supplies, including sacks of flour.
Though anti-Hamas media outlets claimed the warehouse belonged to the terror group, portraying it as evidence of popular anger against Gaza’s rulers, the World Food Program — a UN organization — eventually clarified that the footage showed its Deir al-Balah warehouse. It confirmed that two people were killed during the looting, but did not disclose the circumstances of their deaths.
Hamas, which some reports accused of opening fire on the looters, denied firing on civilians.
It remains unclear whether Hamas had any role in the looting or whether it was responsible for securing the looted warehouses.
On June 1, the Israel Defense Forces released drone footage showing armed Gazook operatives firing at people attempting to pick up aid supplies in Khan Younis, accusing Hamas of trying to block aid from reaching Gazooks.
"Hamas is a brutal and murderous terrorist organization that is starving Gaza’s population. It is doing everything it can to sabotage successful food distribution in Gaza," the IDF said.
According to COGAT, the Israeli Defense Ministry unit responsible for coordinating aid into Gaza, over 1,100 truckloads of food, medicine, and medical equipment have entered the Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing since May 19, including 157 trucks on Tuesday.
However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the UN says it has been unable to pick up most of the trucks destined for humanitarian warehouses it supports due to unsafe roads and access issues, with only 200 truckloads retrieved from the crossing as of May 27.
Jonathan Whittall, who heads the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Paleostinian territories, accused Israel of attempting to impede aid deliveries.
"We face challenges in collecting goods from the Kerem Shalom crossing due to insecurity, long delays in receiving the necessary permits, being given inappropriate transport routes, and facing crowd desperation and looting — all a result of restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities," he told news hounds. "There is no logistical solution to a political decision designed to obstruct aid."
A UN official told The Times of Israel that it avoids using armed security to guard shipments, instead relying on coordination with local community representatives to reduce looting by Gazooks. However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... the tactic becomes less effective as desperation rises.
GANGING UP
Humanitarian officials have in the past spoken of working with local clan leaders to secure shipments through areas under their nominal control, and reports have indicated that Israel has also mulled similar moves.
While details are murky, some arrangements can apparently involve protection rackets in which armed gangs of looters are paid off with a cut of the aid to keep other looters away.
In recent weeks, reports have proliferated of an gang known as Abu Shabaab, composed of members of a single family, operating near Kerem Shalom in a zone under Israeli military control. Footage published online, including by clan leader Yasser Abu Shabaab, show the gang wearing military-style uniforms with the Paleostinian flag and the words "Counter-Terrorism Mechanism" emblazoned on them.
"The Abu Shabaab story frightens me the most," said Milshtein. "It’s blatantly clear that Israel is either backing or tolerating this gang, and this reflects the worst patterns of past Israeli behavior in the Arab world — making deals with shady criminals, just like in the 1980s when Israel supported the Christian Phalangists in Leb ...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?... against the [Paleostine Liberation Organization]."
"Everyone I speak to in Gaza says the Abu Shabaab clan are drug pushers and thieves," he added. "Before becoming a proxy for Israel, they were looting aid convoys."
Israel has refused to answer questions about any alleged relationship with Abu Shabaab, though the two appear to share an enemy in Hamas.
On May 30, Hamas released an official video showing a group of armed, masked men operating outside a building before being blown up. Hamas claimed the group in the video were working with the IDF to inspect buildings before Israeli troops move in, without specifying whether they were Israeli or Paleostinian.
However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by... online comparisons to previous images of Abu Shabaab’s gang suggested it was the same group, indicating that Hamas views the gang as a threat.
According to Milshtein, Hamas had previously killed 20 members of the clan as part of its crackdown on looters.
"Hamas will destroy them, even if it’s difficult," he said.
’DEATH TRAP’
Seeking to keep aid out the hands of Hamas, Israel and the US have backed a new aid mechanism in which assistance is distributed to Gazook individuals at sites operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.
The UN and other humanitarian groups have refused to cooperate with the GHF mechanism, saying it does not comply with humanitarian principles by turning aid into a tool of Israel’s military campaign and forcing Gazooks to travel long distances through IDF lines to reach the assistance, exposing them to danger.
In recent days, those concerns have been animated by a series of deadly shootings outside a GHF distribution site in Rafah, after the IDF apparently opened fire toward Paleostinians who had approached troops after straying off a pre-approved path for reaching a Rafah distribution site.
Hamas health authorities have claimed 61 people were killed and hundreds more maimed in shootings on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The figures have not been verified and the IDF has accused the terror group of inflating them.
GHF, which has been beset by controversy, has described the reports of shootings and other violence at aid distribution sites as part of a Hamas propaganda campaign aimed at discrediting the operation, in messaging echoed by Israel and the US.
Nonetheless, GHF shut down its sites for a day on Wednesday to work out measures with the IDF to enhance security and keep future shootings from taking place.
"There are many troubling aspects to this new aid mechanism," Milshtein said. "Everything is opaque — we don’t know how much is being distributed, or what percentage of the total aid that is."
Taken together, the looting of aid trucks and issues with GHF highlight the complexities and dangers surrounding aid delivery in war-torn Gaza, as overlapping claims from the IDF, Hamas, humanitarian groups, and international organizations like the UN create a murky picture of responsibility and reality on the ground.
Milshtein argued that Hamas had managed to take advantage of that fog to create a prevailing picture of Gazooks having to risk their lives just to receive food, with Israel to blame, regardless of whether it reflects reality.
"Since Sunday, Hamas’s narrative of an ’aid massacre’ has become the dominant one globally, not just among Paleostinians," he lamented. "The UNRWA commissioner-general even called the aid distribution centers a ’death trap.’ That ultimately affects the situation on the ground — it impacts Gazooks’ motivation to come to the distribution sites."
The Times of Israel has more on the subject here.
and elsewhere on the Internet:
BREAKING: Hamas has openly announced “field executions” of Palestinians who went to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for food.
They’re publicly murdering their own people for seeking aid—and the media somehow keeps “missing” the story. pic.twitter.com/km627Fc3jx
[IsraelTimes] Body distributing aid indicates it will resume operations later in the day, but does not say when.
The Israel-backed body leading aid distribution in 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 a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip said Wednesday its distribution sites would not be opening Thursday morning, due to maintenance and repair work.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation indicated the sites would resume operations later in the day, but did not say when.
The GHF post said the organization would share information on opening times as soon as the work is complete.
A GHF spokesperson told The Times of Israel that the organization was actively engaged in talks with the IDF to enhance the army’s security measures beyond the immediate perimeter of GHF sites.
To support civilian safety outside distribution sites, the spokesperson said GHF had asked the IDF to introduce measures that guide foot traffic in a way that minimizes confusion or escalation risks near the IDF-operated perimeter around the sites; develop clearer IDF-issued guidelines to help Paleostinians safely reach the distribution sites; and boost IDF training and refine internal procedures to ensure the safety of Paleostinians.
GHF did not open its sites on Wednesday, after eight consecutive days of operation. The shutdown was implemented in order to carry out logistical work in order to more safely accommodate more Paleostinians at distribution sites.
On Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, the IDF said it fired warning shots toward Paleostinians outside an aid distribution site after they approached troops while straying off a pre-approved path. Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... officials and the Red Thingy claimed dozens were killed and hundreds maimed from gunfire. The IDF asserted that those figures were exaggerated, while saying it was investigating the allegations.
A GHF spokesperson said Tuesday that the shutdown would only last a day, but the delay in reopening indicated that its logistical work was running behind schedule.
"GHF is working to make the distribution of food boxes as safe as possible, despite the difficult circumstances. We strongly urge all those heading to our locations to follow the routes set by the IDF to ensure safe passage," the foundation said.
While much of Gaza’s population of about two million is located in southern Gaza, their tent encampments are not adjacent to GHF distribution sites, and those in northern and central Gaza have reported having to walk dozens of kilometers, sometimes while dodging IDF fire, in order to pick up a box of food. GHF has said that it is working to open new distribution sites, including in northern Gaza, but it has not given a timetable, while the tens of thousands of Paleostinians amassing at distribution sites indicate that the need for food in Gaza remains dire.
For its part, GHF has reported distributing over seven million meals from over 100,000 boxes distributed over nine days. However,
there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... the boxes contain mostly dry food products that require cooking equipment and community kitchens, which are very limited in the Strip, as fuel remains very short.
Meanwhile,
...back at the abandoned silver mine, a triangular dorsal fin appeared in the water. Then another... the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) announced Wednesday that 88 humanitarian aid trucks carrying flour and food entered the Gaza Strip throughout the day.
Israel resumed aid deliveries to Gaza on May 19, after a pause since March 2. Since then, 1,197 trucks have entered the Strip. Some of the truckloads have been taken to the new aid distribution sites run by the GHF. The contents of many of the trucks that entered Gaza in recent weeks are still awaiting collection on the Gazook side of the Kerem Shalom Crossing.
The UN has said 600 trucks of aid need to be distributed each day in order to properly feed the Strip’s roughly two million people.
Also on Wednesday, the IDF published a video it said shows a dronezap on two Paleostinian button men who were carrying bombs meant to be used in an attack on troops in the Strip.
The video appeared to show secondary blasts, indicating that the pair were carrying explosives. The strike was carried out during operations of the Nahal Brigade in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya, the military said.
On Tuesday evening a reservist was killed and four soldiers were maimed in separate incidents fighting against Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip. The fighting came as troops continued to advance in Gaza, in a new IDF offensive aimed at capturing 75 percent of the Strip’s territory.
The slain soldier was named as Master Sgt. (res.) Alon Farkas, 27, of the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade’s 6646th Battalion, from Kabri.
According to an initial IDF probe, a Paleostinian gunman armed with an assault rifle opened fire on the paratroopers who were operating in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood. The gunman ambushed the troops from an alley and managed to flee following the attack, which seriously maimed another reservist, according to the military.
In a separate incident in the nearby town of Jabalia on Tuesday evening, Hamas used a drone to drop an explosive or a grenade on troops, according to the military. The explosion moderately maimed two soldiers of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit and lightly injured a Shin Bet officer.
A day earlier, three troops were killed in Jabalia when they were hit by a roadside kaboom.
Farkas’s death on Tuesday brought Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip to 425. The toll includes two coppers and three Defense Ministry civilian contractors.
Israel on March 18 resumed its attacks against Hamas with a wave of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s, ending a two-month ceasefire. The IDF has since deployed five divisions to the Strip, amounting to tens of thousands of troops, and has been carrying out a wide-scale ground offensive aimed at defeating Hamas’s military wing and ending its civil rule in Gaza.
[IsraelTimes] Turkish prosecutors have launched a probe against the leader of the country’s main opposition party for allegedly insulting a senior ally of the government, state television reports.
The case against Ozgur Ozel, leader of the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is the latest development in a tense struggle between allies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his opponents that has sparked mass protests.
Prosecutors opened an investigation into claims that Ozel threatened and insulted Istanbul’s chief prosecutor Akin Gurlek, state television channel TRT reports, citing a statement from his office.
Ozel is accused of launching a verbal attack against Gurlek at a rally in Istanbul on Wednesday evening.
A former deputy justice minister, Gurlek has been accused by opponents of going after Erdogan’s rivals through a series of cases launched since he was appointed to the post in October.
[IsrraelTimes] Two former members of the US military were arrested Monday in Washington state with an arsenal that included dozens of guns, explosives and body armor, along with Nazi paraphernalia, investigators say.
Levi Austin Frakes and Charles Ethan Fields were arrested at their home in Lacey, near Olympia, after being caught trying to steal weapons and other gear from a army base, according to a criminal complaint filed in US District Court.
At the home, agents found rifles staged at the upstairs windows, a probable cause affidavit filed in Thurston County Superior Court says. The federal complaint says agents “observed numerous Nazi/white supremacy memorabilia, murals, and literature in every bedroom and near several stockpiles of weapons and military equipment.”
Photos from inside the home included in court documents show a wall decorated with a red Nazi flag emblazoned with a black swastika and a black SS flag — the letters shaped like lightning bolts — referencing the Schutzstaffel, the Nazi paramilitary led by Heinrich Himmler.
Washington state business license records show that Frakes and Fields have a company called Sovereign Solutions, which featured an “SS” logo with the letters separated by a lightning bolt. Its website advertises “Quality Training and Equipment for the Modern Warfighter,” including marksmanship classes, as well as a T-shirt with the company logo and the words “Professional War Crime Committer.”
Authorities say agents seized about 35 firearms at the home, including short-barreled rifles and an MG42 machine gun — a type typically supported with a bipod and which was used by German troops during World War II.
Other seized gear included 3D-printed silencers and Army-issued gear that included explosives such as smoke grenade and blasting caps, ballistic plates and helmets, and night-vision devices, authorities say.
According to the complaint, a soldier entered a building at the Army Ranger compound at Joint Base Lewis-McChord on Sunday night and found two men, partially masked, with a cluster of US Army property around them. The two fled following a fight with the soldier that left him hospitalized, and were arrested the next day.
The federal complaint charges them with robbery, assault and theft of government property. They also face investigation on state charges of unlawful possession of incendiary devices, short-barreled rifles and a machine gun. Each is being held at the Thurston County Jail on $500,000 bail.
[IsraelTimes] The overnight operation that recovered the bodies of slain hostages Gadi Haggai and Judih Weinstein was enabled by intelligence obtained during a Shin Bet interrogation of a Palestinian terror operative who was detained in Gaza, an Israeli defense official tells The Times of Israel.
“The intelligence that is obtained in Shin Bet interrogations is valuable and important, and helps the ground operation and missions like the one carried out overnight,” the official says.
The couple had been held by the Mujahideen Brigades, a relatively small terror group in the Strip that was also responsible for the abduction and murder of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Ariel and Kfir.
The IDF says the operation was carried out using “precise intelligence” from the IDF’s Hostages Headquarters unit, the Intelligence Directorate, and the Shin Bet.
Haggai, 72, and Weinstein, 70, both US citizens, were on their morning walk around the kibbutz when they were murdered and abducted to Gaza by Hamas-led terrorists.
Terror groups in the Gaza Strip are now holding 56 hostages, including 55 of the 251 abducted by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7, 2023.
They include the bodies of at least 33 confirmed dead by the IDF. Another 20 are believed to be alive, while there are grave concerns for the well-being of three others, Israeli officials have said.
The two, a married couple, were murdered during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught, and their deaths were confirmed by the military in December of that year.
Haggai, 72, and Weinstein, 70, were on their morning walk near their home at Kibbutz Nir Oz when they were murdered and abducted to Gaza by Hamas-led terrorists.
Security camera footage from that morning showed the couple leaving the kibbutz.
In a chilling phone call to paramedics that morning, Weinstein described her husband’s head wound and urged the operator to send help, as some of the approximately 5,000 invaders rampaged through southern Israel.
“Parts of his brain are out of his… everything is covered with blood,” she told the operator, confirming that terrorists had shot at the couple. Asked if she was somewhere safe, she responded: “No, [I’m] outside, under a tree, next to the road.”
“They came on the road. There were lots of motorcycles and guns. They shot us. We were lying down and they shot us,” she recalled, clarifying that she, too, was shot in the hand and the head.
Haggai, a native of Kibbutz Ein HaShofet, was a retired chef and jazz musician who, having played music since childhood, served in the IDF orchestra for his military service and then lived in the US, where he took up the saxophone, according to the Haaretz daily.
Upon his return to Israel a number of years later, he met Weinstein, who had come from the US and volunteered at Ein HaShofet. The two of them played in a kibbutz jazz ensemble until they left the kibbutz in the late 1970s. In 1994, they and their four children moved to Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Weinstein, a teacher and New York native who also held Canadian citizenship, continued to write poetry into her retirement, with a particular love for haiku. She also tutored English, edited academic writing, practiced reiki therapy, and taught mindfulness classes, including through puppetry.
The couple’s son Ahl Haggai told the Ynet news site on Thursday he was caught in a swirl of emotions.
“This is a shocking moment,” he said. “I am both relieved and anxious. This isn’t simple, despite it easing things and removing something [weighing] on the heart. There was an uncertainty that has ended.”
Kibbutz Nir Oz also issued a statement announcing its members’ deaths. Hamas terrorists entered all but six of over 200 homes in the small community and either murdered or kidnapped one of every four residents — 117 people out of some 400.
[Rudaw] The Iraqi government will hold a conference in Geneva in September to facilitate the repatriation of families with ties to the Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems.... (ISIS) from the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria, Iraq’s national security advisor said on Tuesday.
Qasim al-Araji received Steve Fagin, the new charge d'affaires of the US Embassy in Baghdad, on Tuesday to discuss a range of issues, including the fate of thousands of families, almost half of whom are Iraqis, from the notorious al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (Rojava).
"Regarding the Syrian al-Hol camp file, Mr. al-Araji confirmed that the Iraqi government will hold a conference in Geneva next September for the repatriation of families from the camp to their countries," Araji’s office said in a statement.
About 10,000 Iraqis remain in the camp after the group of 832 people left on Saturday, Sheikhmous Ahmed, who oversees all internally displaced persons (IDP) and refugee camps in Rojava, told Rudaw English.
Thousands of individuals with suspected ISIS ties are being held in al-Hol and Roj camps, which are controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in northeast Syria’s (Rojava) Hasaka province. al-Hol is the larger of the two camps. As of April, it housed 34,927 people. Of these, 15,681 were Iraqis, 15,861 were Syrians, and 6,385 were foreigners, according to data obtained by Rudaw English from Ahmed.
Iraq has repatriated its nationals in groups, bringing them to al-Jada camp south of djinn-infested Mosul ... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn... , where they go through a rehabilitation program before reintegrating into the community. Baghdad has set a goal of repatriating all Iraqi citizens from camps in Rojava by 2027.
[ToloNews] On Monday, the German Foreign Ministry, responding to reports about contact with the Islamic Emirate, stated that there are no plans to establish diplomatic or political relations with Afghanistan’s interim government.
German media reported that the ministry emphasized that contacts are maintained only at a "technical" level.
A statement from the German Foreign Ministry read: "There are no plans on the part of the German government to engage in political contact with the Taliban ...Arabic for students... . However,
the difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits... technical-level contact has been maintained."
Najib-ur-Rahman Shamal, a political analyst, said: "Due to concerns from the German Foreign Ministry, all German aid to Afghanistan remains limited to technical and logistical support because of the non-recognition of the Islamic Emirate. This is a concern for them. We hope that based on requests from the international community, Germany, and other international institutions, fundamental reforms in governance and the government structure will take place to pave the way for broader engagement between Afghanistan and the global community, including European countries and Germany."
Although Germany and other European countries currently refrain from establishing official relations with the Islamic Emirate, experts believe that targeted and conditional engagement could help reduce the humanitarian crisis and open the door for real dialogue between Afghanistan and the international community.
Fazl-ur-Rahman Oria, a political analyst, said: "At present, Afghanistan urgently needs to establish and expand diplomatic relations with European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... countries, especially Germany. Germany is one of the world’s industrial powers and has a deep influence within the EU and globally. Strong relations between Afghanistan and Germany would greatly benefit Afghanistan."
Wais Naseri, another political analyst, stated: "From the perspective of international engagement, there is practical interaction, but official recognition of the current Afghan government is not on the agenda of any country, not Germany, not Russia, not China, not Pakistain, nor any other country, until the Taliban meet the world’s four main conditions: human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... , and rights for women and girls."
Since the return of the Islamic Emirate to power, most countries, including Germany, have suspended their diplomatic activities in Afghanistan.
[Breitbart] A Mexican national living in the U.S. under the protection of an Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) will be spending more than eight years in prison for leading a straw purchasing ring that supplied firearms to cartel members in Mexico.
This week, 22-year-old Mario Elier Leal went before Chief U.S. District Judge Randy Crane for a sentencing hearing at a federal courthouse in McAllen. Texas. Leal previously pleaded guilty to straw purchasing charges in 2024.
During the hearing, Judge Crane sentenced Leal to 97 months in federal prison. According to information provided to Breitbart Texas by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, since Leal is not a U.S. citizen, he will face a deportation process once he completes his sentence. Leal was in the country under the DACA program, meaning that he had been brought illegally into the country as a child but had since been allowed to stay.
According to federal prosecutors, Leal had recruited other individuals to purchase AK-47-type rifles in South Texas that would then be smuggled into Mexico. At the time of his arrest, authorities seized three AK-47 rifles that Leal obtained using two other young men who were U.S citizens and could legally buy weapons in Texas. Court documents do not specify the cartel for which the guns were purchased. However, just south of McAllen is the area controlled by the Gulf Cartel.
As part of his guilty plea, the man admitted to paying $300 to each individual who would buy the guns for him as a way to bypass U.S. laws that prohibit him from buying them himself. Federal prosecutors claim that at least 13 other weapons were purchased or were in the process of being bought for Leal.
[Free Beacon] Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D., Texas) accused Republicans of scrutinizing a $2 billion Biden-era grant benefiting a nonprofit linked to Stacey Abrams for the purpose of keeping a "strong black woman down." "We grifters gotta stick together!"
Crockett's comments came during a DOGE subcommittee hearing examining how nonprofits may abuse government funds in pursuit of far-left initiatives. And they came after several Republicans and hearing witnesses criticized the EPA climate grant—which was first revealed by the Washington Free Beacon—awarded to the Abrams-linked group Power Forward Communities in 2024. Crockett said that criticism is related to race and a potential third Abrams gubernatorial run in 2026.
"To hear the comments about Stacey Abrams really got me going," Crockett remarked during the Wednesday hearing. "A lot of times when we come into this hearing room, it's all about politics. And it made me think that there was an issue most likely with Stacey because someone actually brought up the fact that Stacey has run for governor a couple of times, and there's a gubernatorial race that's coming up in Georgia and nobody knows whether or not Stacey is going to run."
"So, why not muddy the waters if we can hopefully keep a strong black woman down?" she added. "But again, I digress."
The comments represent Democrats' latest attempt to defend the Biden administration's massive climate spending programs. Republicans have targeted the Power Forward Communities grant and others in their quest to curb spending and make the federal government more efficient, but have received pushback from Democrats who argue those grants are justifiable.
The Biden EPA announced in April 2024 that it would award Power Forward Communities the $2 billion grant to help provide electric zero-emissions appliances to poor communities. The group was established in October 2023 as a coalition of various groups led by Rewiring America, a left-wing environmental group where Abrams served as senior counsel and as a senior adviser between early 2023 and late last year.
But Power Forward Communities reported just $100 in revenue at the time of that EPA announcement and centered its grant application around an Abrams-led project in DeSoto, Georgia, where she delivered electric appliances to a few dozen households that had previously relied on natural gas-powered appliances. Biden EPA officials touted that project when announcing they would award the group the $2 billion grant.
Ian Magruder, the director of partnerships at Rewiring America, specifically credited Abrams for her work on the Power Forward Communities funding application. "Stacey Abrams played a pivotal role," he said.
"It's pretty eye opening that a brand new politically connected group got such a massive federal grant," Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.), who chairs the subcommittee, said during Wednesday's hearing.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/05/2025
08:50 ||
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[153 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
[JustTheNews] The pair indicted this week worked with a University of Michigan laboratory helmed and the FBI is calling the federal funding a possible bioterrorism security risk.
Two Chinese scientists charged in a shocking plot to smuggle a toxic pathogen into the United States worked at an American laboratory led by more senior Chinese scientists funded by the U.S. government, according to federal spending records and the researchers' own disclosures.
Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, were charged Tuesday with smuggling a fungus called Fusarium graminearum into the United States in 2024. The fungus is classified in the scientific literature as a “potential agroterrorism weapon” because it affects wheat, barley, maize, and rice by causing “head blight,” according to the Justice Department.
The incident is again raising concerns about the tendrils of Chinese Communist Party influence inside U.S. research institutions and broader society, just five years after the COVID-19 pandemic exposed federal funding to a lab in Wuhan, China where the virus is believed to have escaped and where dangerous gain of function research was being conducted.
The Justice Department noted Yunqing Jian’s electronics contained evidence describing “her membership in and loyalty” to the Chinese Communist Party. The Trump administration, especially the FBI, have doubled down on efforts to root out Chinese Communist Party influence, especially in higher education, by revoking visas for Chinese students at American schools.
FUNDING FROM U.S. TAXPAYERS
Records reviewed by Just the News show that both China-born scientists charged this week were affiliated with a University of Michigan research laboratory led by two senior researchers who are also Chinese citizens and are receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health for studying plant immunity.
Ping He and Libo Shan, both of whom completed their undergraduate studies in China and doctoral and postdoctoral studies in the United States, are the senior faculty members at the Molecular Plant-Microbe Interaction Working Groups housed at the University of Michigan’s Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. The laboratory conducts research on plant immunity, according to its website.
According to NIH records, Libo Shan and Ping He received more than $7.6 million in total funding between two sponsored projects, awarded one to each scientist. Both NIH projects (R35GM144275 and R35GM149197) were cited in at least two research papers involving both Jian and Liu, the indicted Chinese nationals.
Other research papers on which both Jian and Liu were authors cite awards from the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
The FBI told Just the News Wednesday night that it is aware of the federal funding trail and believes the entire case exposes a serious national security risk with U.S. scientific research relying on foreign scientists, particularly from commust China.
"The CCP’s quiet infiltration of our research ecosystem is a direct threat to our national security, biosecurity, and economic independence," Erica Knight, an adviser to FBI Director Kash Patel, told Just the News. "The Director understands these threats better than anyone, and under his leadership, we will aggressively root out every trace of corrupt foreign influence."
Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, said the incident shows that the threat of Chinese involvement in dangerous research funded by the U.S. government, first exposed during investigations into COVID-19, is still ongoing.
“It has been obvious for years that Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins not only funded dangerous research, but directed funding to scientists loyal to China, not America,” Johnson told Just the News. “My hope is that we can uncover and expose the extent to which their blatant actions harmed our nation and the world.”
Both Jian and Liu worked with the University of Michigan laboratory led by Shan and He, according to current and archived versions of the laboratory’s webpage.
Niether Dr. Shan nor Dr. He immediately responded to requests for comment from Just the News.
The provided biography shows Yunqing Jian joined the laboratory in August 2022 as a postdoctoral fellow. She is originally from Sichuan, China and completed her doctoral studies at Zhejiang University in China in 2020 where she “studied the mechanisms of how fungi combat with plant-derived stresses,” the web page reads.
The indictment shows that Jian also received funding through China’s "Postdoctoral International Exchange Program and the Second Class of Grants from the 69th Batch of China Postdoctoral Science Foundation” from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2024.
CHANGED HIS STORY AFTER QUESTIONING BY CBP
Zunyong Liu, who is reportedly in a relationship with Jian, was also affiliated with the laboratory before he returned to China in July 2024 after trying and failing to enter the United States with a red plant material in his backpack, according to the Justice Department indictment. Liu changed his story under interrogation about the biological material, prompting authorities to turn him back.
Liu was listed as a postdoctoral fellow at the Michigan laboratory until shortly before he was turned away at customs, according to an archived version of the website. He is also listed as an author on at least four scientific studies produced under the NIH grants associated with the University's laboratory, the records show.
#1
This sounds like many layers of REALLY BAD. Dear FBI, CIA, NSA, and any other fed group I have not named; PLEASE FIX THIS!
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
06/05/2025 5:46
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#2
Robert Conquest's Third law of Politics:
"The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies." Literally, it seems.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/05/2025 15:30
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[ZERO] The Islamist group which rules Syria from Damascus, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has long been designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, US and UK. But once the hardline group toppled Assad, things changed rapidly.
The group's leader and self-declared interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) until very recently had a $10 million bounty on his head. In May, President Trump met with Sharaa in Saudi Arabia, praising his "very strong past" - after which US sanctions on Syria were dropped. That 'strong past' was terrorism plain and simple, including attacks on civilians and overseeing Sharia executions in AQ-held Idlib provice.
A week before the Gulf meeting with Trump, Sharaa had suggested the idea of building a Trump Tower in Damascus. Since then, Sharaa has engaged with several US delegations, pushing for positive relations amid an effort to present a 'moderated' and 'reformed' leadership, despite that Jolani had even been part of ISIS early in the Syrian proxy war.
This is why a headline which emerged Tuesday is absurd and shocking: the man who founded the Syrian al-Qaeda group Al-Nusra Front is coming to America.
Posted by: Besoeker ||
06/05/2025
03:16 ||
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[The Federalist] Strong evidence contradicting Harvard University’s claim of elite status was available decades before the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard University lawsuit the Supreme Court ended in 2023. Harvard’s subjugation of merit to politics goes all the way back to at least the 1920s, when, as Justice Clarence Thomas noted in his SFFA v. Harvard concurrence, it set quotas on Jews to reduce their enrollment.
Indeed, as I note in my recent book about identity politics, "the federal government had begun hiring people based on race" and demanded the same of its contractors as far back as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency in the 1930s and 1940s. Under Roosevelt, the federal government pioneered the "disparate impact" doctrine today better known as diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act and other identity politics measures of the era were immediately interpreted by federal agencies and courts as requiring employers such as universities, even private ones, to hire and promote on the basis of sex and race. So, as I explain in False Flag, even though the Civil Rights Act explicitly bans "preferential treatment" by race or sex, it has always been used by federal agencies and courts to require the opposite.
This means, as Thomas testified in the 2020 documentary Created Equal, racial discrimination in favor of minorities at so-called elite schools was already widespread when he studied law in the early 1970s. Thomas was accepted to Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale law schools, and went to Yale.
#2
Is that why our government is so dysfunctional? Because elite universities used some criteria other than merit to determine who would be admitted? IOW, elite students from elite families got admitted and certain demographics got admitted regardless of merit? Then they went on to get the top jobs in government, academia and in major corporations because they graduated from schools like Harvard? They were on the inside track, the game was rigged in their favor? And then, since they were arrogant and incompetent, they screwed everything up?
Whatever happened to the best and the brightest?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/05/2025 12:11
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#3
Whatever happened to the best and the brightest?
#5
...hierarchical, tribal, and territorial entities who once successful against their neighbors usually beset by corruption, civil war, and mismanagement coupled with an outside threat that either cleans up or is welcome the those disenfranchised.
#8
The best and brightest are nice, but not nearly as necessary as reality-based and common sensical. The destruction happens when the rulers, however bright or stupid, live in a dream world and insist on imposing those impossible dreams on the rest of us.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] President Donald Trump has banned foreign nationals from studying at Harvard University as he continues to clash with the Ivy League institution.
The president issued an executive order Wednesday entitled Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University, which suspends the school's student visa program - calling it a 'privilege granted by our government, not a guarantee.'
He also doubled down on his claims that the school violated federal law and argued it is important to limit international students for national security reasons on the same day he restricted travel from a dozen countries.
'The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long warned that foreign adversaries and competitors take advantage of easy access to American higher education to, among other things, steal technical information and products, exploit expensive research and development to advance their own ambitions and spread false information for political or other reasons,' the executive order states.
'Our adversaries, including the People's Republic of China try to take advantage of American higher education by exploiting the student visa program for improper purposes and by using visiting students to collect information at elite universities in the United States.'
Harvard has nearly 6,800 international students, making up more than 27 percent of its enrollment in the past academic year, according to the BBC.
About one-third of those international students are from China, and Trump has previously accused the Ivy League school of 'coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party,' claims he reiterated in the executive order.
Trump further said that Harvard failed 'to identify and address misconduct by those foreign students' amid his crackdown on universities that allowed antisemitic protests on campus during the war in Gaza.
'In my judgment, it presents an unacceptable risk to our nation's security for an academic institution to refuse to provide sufficient information, when asked, about known instances of misconduct and criminality committed by its students,' he wrote, claiming that crime rates at the Massachusetts campus have 'drastically risen.'
'When a university refuses to uphold its legal obligations, including its recordkeeping and reporting obligations, the consequences ripple far beyond the campus,' the executive order continues.
'They jeopardize the integrity of the entire United States student and exchange visa system , compromise national security and embolden other institutions to similarly disregard the rule of law.'
The president then reasserted that Harvard is working with the CCP, claiming that it received more than $150 million from the country over the past decade.
In return, Trump writes that the Ivy League has 'repeatedly hosted and trained members of a Chinese Communist Party paramilitary organization,' citing a probe by the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
That same probe also claims Harvard has partnered with the Chinese 'on research that could advance China's military modernization.'
The president concluded the executive order by saying that rather than admit 'hardworking Americans,' the school is enrolling 'students from non-egalitarian nations, including nations that seek the destruction of the United States and its allies or the extermination of entire peoples.
'It is not in the interest of the United States to further compound Harvard's discrimination against nonpreferred races, national origins, shared ancestries or religions by further reducing opportunities for American students through excessive foreign student enrollment,' Trump writes.
He adds that the ban will remain in effect 'until such time as the university shares the information that the federal government requires to safeguard national security and the American public.'
Trump has spoken about limiting Harvard's foreign students for weeks, suggesting last month that the school should cap its international student population at 15 percent.
He even tried to revoke current students' visas, but a judge last month ordered the university and Justice Department attorneys to work out an agreement that would stop prevent the students' visas from being revoked.
Lawyers for the Ivy League institution have argued that revoking student visas is a part of an 'unprecedented and retaliatory attack on academic freedom at Harvard,' which is pursuing a separate lawsuit challenging the administration's decision to terminate nearly $3 billion in federal research funding.
They claim the Trump administration is retaliating against it for refusing to cede to its demands to control the school's governance, curriculum and the 'ideology' of its faculty and students.
But Harvard has denied accusations of bias against conservatives, fostering antisemitism on campus and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.
It has said losing that right would affect about one quarter of its student body and devastate the school, as it would prevent Harvard from not only enrolling new international students but also require existing ones to transfer to other schools.
Many students at the Ivy League have since protested against a ban on international students - and the school even had a Chinese student give a commencement speech.
University President Alan Garber also taunted the president in his own commencement speech as he congratulated students from 'around the world' graduating from the prestigious university.
'From around the world,' he repeated for emphasis. 'Just as it should be.'
DailyMail.com has reached out to Harvard for comment.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] President Donald Trump has announced widespread bans and restrictions for visitors from 19 countries while simultaneously issuing a chilling warning that Egypt could be next.
Wouldn’t that be a well-deserved kick in the pants, given Egypt’s sub rosa support of Hamas’s war against Israel in the years since President Al Sisi was elected.
Nationals of Afghanistan, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen will be barred from entering the United States under the new order, which goes into effect on June 9.
Citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be partially restricted from traveling, removing access to all immigrant visas and several non-immigrant travel options.
The list and the concept are fascinating. I greatly look forward to seeing how it plays out, at home as well as abroad. Does this mean people here from those countries are about to endure extra scrutiny?
Trump also issued a warning that Egypt could soon join the no-fly list in the wake of the Colorado terror attack in which an Egyptian national who overstayed his visa allegedly set fire to pro-Israel demonstrators.
'We don't want 'em,' Trump said bluntly in a video released shortly after the ban was announced.
'Very simply, we cannot have open migration from any country where we cannot safely and reliably vet and screen.'
Mohamed Soliman, the Egyptian national suspect charged with firebombing pro-Israel demonstrators, was residing in the US illegally with his wife and five children.
The president has directed several of his top national security chiefs to investigate whether Egypt should also be added to the list of restricted nations.
'In light of recent events, the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence, shall provide me an update to the review of the practices and procedures of Egypt,' he wrote in a Wednesday proclamation.
Trump said he hopes their efforts will 'confirm the adequacy of its current screening and vetting capabilities.'
He said the tragedy in Boulder 'underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted.
'We've seen one terror attack after another from foreign visa overstayers... thanks to Biden's open door policies today there are millions and millions of these illegals who should not be in our country.'
Several of the nations facing bans have been targeted because their screening and vetting capabilities are not up to the president's standards, putting Egypt on high alert.
Afghanistan, Eritrea, Libya, Sudan and Yemen were all placed on the banned list in part due to limited screening and vetting measures, Trump noted.
During his first term in office, Trump announced a ban on travelers from seven majority-Muslim nations, a policy that went through several iterations before it was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Former President Joe Biden, a Democrat who succeeded Trump, repealed the ban in 2021, calling it 'a stain on our national conscience.'
But Trump touted the successes of his initial 2017 travel bans in his proclamation.
'During my first Administration, I restricted the entry of foreign nationals into the United States, which successfully prevented national security threats from reaching our borders and which the Supreme Court upheld,' the president wrote.
'It is the policy of the United States to protect its citizens from aliens who intend to commit terrorist attacks, threaten our national security, espouse hateful ideology, or otherwise exploit the immigration laws for malevolent purposes.
'The United States must be vigilant during the visa-issuance process to ensure that those aliens approved for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans or our national interests.
'More importantly, the United States must identify such aliens before their admission or entry into the United States.
'The United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists or other threats to our national security.'
Trump said the list is 'subject to revision' if nations work toward improving the vetting system of their nationals.
Similarly, other nations can be added to the list if Trump later believes they pose a risk to national security.
But as it stands, the nations included on the list have disappointed Trump in various ways, either by having a high rate of nationals who overstay their visas or by limiting the United States' access to security data.
The primary concern for Iranian nationals is that the government 'is a state sponsor of terrorism.'
In that instance, Trump argued 'Iran regularly fails to cooperate with the United States Government in identifying security risks, is the source of significant terrorism around the world, and has historically failed to accept back its removable nationals.'
Similarly, the inclusion of Somalia comes after 'The United States Government identified Somalia as a terrorist safe haven.
'Terrorists use regions of Somalia as safe havens from which they plan, facilitate, and conduct their operations.'
Haitian nationals, Trump argued, have a higher likelihood of trying to overstay their visas.
'Additionally, hundreds of thousands of illegal Haitian aliens flooded into the United States during the Biden Administration,' the president said.
'This influx harms American communities by creating acute risks of increased overstay rates, establishment of criminal networks, and other national security threats.'
During the run-up to the election, thousands of Haitian migrants who had moved to Springfield, Ohio drew the ire of President Trump, who claimed that some of them were even eating pets.
Eritrea, for example, has been included on the list because 'the United States questions the competence of the central authority for issuance of passports or civil documents in Eritrea.'
Trump wrote: 'Criminal records are not available to the United States for Eritrean nationals. Eritrea has historically refused to accept back its removable nationals.'
Trump added that 'many of these countries have also taken advantage of the United States in their exploitation of our visa system and their historic failure to accept back their removable nationals.'
Trump said the decision was made in collaboration with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Ratcliffe.
For the seven nations who have had their access to the United States severely restricted, Trump has clarified that authorities will no longer accept any immigrant visa applications.
Additionally, a host of nonimmigrant visa options will be revoked, and those that remain will have 'reduced validity... to the extent permitted by law.'
Looking ahead to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Trump has already added a clause in his proclamation which states: 'Any athlete or member of an athletic team, including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives, traveling for the World Cup, Olympics, or other major sporting event' will be exempt.
The US travel ban on Afghanistan exempts Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders, green card residents, dual nationals, and close family members.
On Wednesday, US President Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... signed an executive order banning travel to the United States by citizens of Afghanistan and 11 other countries. The order restricts entry from these nations, citing security concerns. The list includes Iran, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... , Haiti, Myanmar, Libya, Somalia, 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... , and Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... However,
nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits... the executive order includes several important exceptions. Afghan nationals holding Special Immigrant Visas (SIV), legal permanent residents (green card holders), and dual nationals traveling with passports from other countries are exempted from this travel ban. Additionally, close family members of US citizens, such as spouses and young children with immigration visas, are allowed entry.
The order further permits Afghan athletes and coaches participating in international sporting events like the World Cup or the Olympics to enter the United States. These exceptions aim to accommodate specific humanitarian and diplomatic considerations amid the broader restrictions.
According to the executive order, Afghanistan is currently under Taliban ...Arabic for students... control, a group designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organization by the US Treasury Department. This designation targets groups involved in terrorism with economic sanctions and asset freezes, justifying the ban on travel due to security risks.
The order also notes Afghanistan’s lack of a strong, cooperative central authority capable of issuing passports or civil documentation. Furthermore, the country is described as lacking adequate screening and background check systems to vet travelers, thereby increasing concerns about potential security threats entering the US.
The travel ban reflects the US government’s stance on mitigating risks associated with terrorism and national security. While it significantly restricts travel from Afghanistan and other nations, the exemptions aim to balance humanitarian considerations and bilateral relations.
This executive order may have considerable impacts on Afghanistan citizens seeking refuge or family reunification in the US. It remains crucial for policymakers and advocacy groups to monitor the humanitarian consequences and ensure that legitimate travelers are not unjustly hindered by these broad restrictions.
#1
It's sad that it took anti-semitic hate crimes to force this to finally happen. these people freely entered our country for years: nothing. Finally the utterly predictable outcome happened, Jews killed in terror attacks.
NOW the USA finally gets off its ass and does something about it.
It's just fucking sick and sad. That the Americans did nothing until they got a good kick in the pants to get their attention.
#2
It was clearly on President Trump’s ToDo list before he was even sworn in — he’d started the process during his first term, but was then blocked by hysterical Democrats and interventionist judges. Now he has better tools and is surrounded by stiffer spines.
I imagine he took the opportunity of the attack on Zionists to move it up a few steps, that’s all. No doubt he would have done the same had the illegal from Egypt attacked a church or a public school — any opportunity to stop the inflow of the definitely untrustworthy and to increase the outflow.
[FoxNews] Suspect arrested at New York airport following last month's explosion that killed bomber and injured four
An individual allegedly linked to the primary suspect in a car bombing outside a Palm Springs fertility clinic has been arrested, Fox News has learned.
The suspect, identified as 32-year-old Daniel Park, was arrested at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City overnight, and is charged with providing and attempting to provide material support to a terrorist. Park waived his identity and probable cause hearings in a Brooklyn federal courtroom Wednesday and is set to be transported to California to face prosecution.
Park allegedly supplied Guy Edward Bartkus
with the materials needed to construct the explosives, with the last shipment arriving just days before the attack, according to United States Attorney Bill Essayli.
"Law enforcement learned that Park spent approximately two weeks visiting [the primary suspect’s] residence in 29 Palms in late January and early February of this year, spending time together running experiments [in the suspect’s] garage, where the FBI recovered large quantities of chemical precursors and laboratory equipment after the bombing," Essayli said in a news conference.
Authorities used a cellphone recovered from the crime scene to identify Park, according to the criminal complaint. Park allegedly used an AI chatbot to search for
…age 25 when he blew himself up, the member of a anti-natalist cult had driven from his home in Twentynine Palm for the occasion in his 2010 Ford Fusion sedan. He apparently tried and failed to livestream his explosion in social media, but there apparently is manifesto or writings….
information regarding assembling an explosive device just days before the attack, the complaint said.
Park traveled to Poland four days after the bombing, where he was arrested by local authorities on May 30 and deported back to the United States. Authorities were unable to confirm if Park initially traveled abroad in an attempt to flee the country.
A search of Park's home in Kent, Washington revealed six packages of explosive materials, according to authorities, leading them to believe the items were allegedly mailed to Southern California prior to the attack.
Fox News Digital was unable to immediately identify an attorney representing Park.
Attorney General Pam Bondi worked to secure the expulsion and subsequent arrest of Park, according to the Department of Justice.
"Bringing chaos and violence to a facility that exists to help women and mothers is a particularly cruel, disgusting crime that strikes at the very heart of our shared humanity," Bondi said in a statement. "We are grateful to our partners in Poland who helped get this man back to America and we will prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law."
Last month, 25-year-old Bartkus was identified as the perpetrator behind the bombing outside the American Reproductive Centers facility. Four people were injured and Bartkus was killed in the blast.
Surveillance footage and online postings show Bartkus parking behind the building before ingesting drugs and detonating the explosive device.
Authorities allege Park and Bartkus targeted the center in an attempt to destroy human embryos stored on-site after being motivated by a fringe "pro-mortalism" ideology movement, which views human reproduction as immoral while believing death is preferable to life.
Day 3 can be seen here. Posts for Days 1 and 2 can be seen at the top of Day 3.
[FoxNews] Republicans slam Democrats for putting 'illegals ahead of Americans'
In an emergency ruling, a Biden administration-appointed federal judge in Colorado halted the deportation of the wife and five children of Mohamed Soliman, the Egyptian national under federal investigation for the Boulder firebombing attack on Sunday.
The temporary restraining order (TRO), issued by U.S. District Judge Gordon P. Gallagher, prevents federal immigration authorities from removing Soliman's wife, Hayem El Gamal, and the couple's five children from the country — at least for now.
We now have the names of the wannabe murderer, his wife, and presumably eldest daughter, Habiba Soliman.
"Defendants are temporarily restrained and enjoined from removing Hayem El Gamal and her five minor children from the State of Colorado or the United States," Gallagher wrote in the order.
The ruling will remain in effect until a scheduled hearing on June 13.
The order came after El Gamal's friend, Susanna Dvortsin, sought emergency legal protection for the family. She argued that the family faced imminent deportation by the Trump administration without the opportunity to present their case in court.
Gallagher agreed, writing that the family's deportation would cause "irreparable harm."
The judge ruled that Dvortsin must submit a supporting legal brief by June 6, with government attorneys required to file a response by June 11. A hearing is set for June 13 at the Byron G. Rogers Courthouse in Denver.
According to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, citing sources, El Gamal and her five children have all overstayed their visas. However, an asylum application had already been submitted on their behalf by Soliman.
The central question is whether deportation should move forward in spite of the family's pending asylum claim.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has publicly addressed the detention and potential deportation of El Gamal and her five children. In a social media video on Tuesday, Secretary Noem confirmed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had taken Soliman's family into custody.
"Mohamed's despicable actions will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but we're also investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack," Noem said in the X post. "If they had any knowledge of it or if they provided any support to it."
The Boulder attack triggered a political firestorm in Washington and Colorado, as Republican lawmakers have slammed it as a lack of immigration enforcement through sanctuary policies and poor management during the Biden administration.
"This is a direct result of failed sanctuary states like Colorado and California," Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., said in the aftermath of the attack. "For the sake of our state, Democrats MUST stop putting illegals ahead of Americans. There are lives on the line."
Meanwhile, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ office said they were never aware of any threat from the suspect.
"The reality is that Colorado is not a sanctuary state and state, federal and local law enforcement work together closely to apprehend criminals, whether they are from this country or not," a spokesperson for Polis’ office told Fox News Digital, adding that the governor "expects to see the suspect prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
"There were no requests from federal law enforcement agencies regarding this individual, and if there had been then the state would have eagerly cooperated. Reports indicate that this person’s legal presence ended in March, nearly three months ago, and we are not aware of any attempt by any federal agency to deport him," the spokesperson added.
In addition, some Democrats in Colorado also faced scrutiny for attending a fundraiser with Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., in nearby Denver roughly 30 minutes after the attack, as she has had a past history of anti-Semitic remarks and intense criticism of Israel.
Courtrsy of Frank G in comments yesterday:
Susanna Dvortsin, who petitioned the court to stay the deportation of the firebomber's wife and children--called the "Next Friend"--was barred from the practice of law owing to misconduct in an immigration matter in South Dakota in 2019. https://t.co/AddTjJfQMP
Soliman and his family came to America from Kuwait on tourist visas (they are originally from Egypt) but illegally overstayed them. Based on what we know at this point, none of them ever gained any permanent residency either. Soliman was then granted work authorization by the Biden administration in 2023, but that ran out in early 2025. That revelation led the Trump administration to arrest Soliman's family for deportation, given that they have no right to remain in the country.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
06/05/2025
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#1
Powerline: The petition was brought, not by Soliman’s wife, but by one Susanna Dvortsin as “next friend” of the prospective deportees. So, who is Susanna Dvortsin? She is an immigration lawyer with a checkered history. I haven’t tried to untangle it in detail, but she was fired from the Department of Homeland Security for dishonesty:
[E]leven days before her one-year probationary employment period expired, the agency terminated Ms. Dvortsin for failing to provide accurate information on the SF-86 form. The agency listed four reasons for her removal including failure to list her daughter’s father Mr. Jaime Arias as an illegal alien, failure to list the psychiatric medication she had been prescribed during the last seven years, failure to list credit information, and failure to list foreign travel information.
Some years later, Dvortsin was suspended from practicing law by the Supreme Court of South Dakota for “misconduct concerning an immigration matter.” Nevertheless, Democratic Party judge Gordon Gallagher considered her a fine representative of the Soliman family’s interests.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/05/2025 12:21
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#2
Interesting corner they painted themselves into.
On one hand, they can't not fight it, because to just let this go is to admit that yes this can be done as precedent.
On the other, they show that no matter how illegal the breach, how illegal the behavior, they will be championed. They will try and frame it as absolute morality, but the fact is if there are no boundaries to the behavior then they are without morals. Then the champion they pick is herself a convicted lawbreaker and disbarred.
[FoxNews] "the video does show in that specific block, that he goes in, made a phone call; you’ll see 12 hours of guards going in basically check on him"
#6
Give it up. The "DA JOOOZ DID IT!!!!!!" bullshit is over . You wanted it cleared up, it's been cleared up. Bongino and Kash Patel both confirmed it.
Time to drop it.
Trump said he'd clear up the Epstein thing and he did just that .
Promises made, promises kept.
IT'S OVER.
Special Forces troops under Operation Hadin Kai have eliminated a notorious Boko Haram/ISWAP commander, Amir Abu Fatima, during a precision strike on a terrorist stronghold in the Kukawa axis of Borno State.
The operation, launched on Thursday, followed credible intelligence pointing to the location of the high-value target.
A statement on the Nigerian Army’s X handle on Friday said Abu Fatima, who had a ₦100 million bounty on his head, was fatally wounded in an intense gun battle, adding that his deputy, several explosives experts, and multiple fighters were also neutralised.
The service also said troops recovered several AK-47 rifles, magazines, improvised explosive device materials, and assorted ordnance during the raid.
[PMNEWSNIGERIA] The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa'ad Abubakar, has called on the Moslems to offer fervent prayers for divine solutions to current challenges facing Nigeria, including the resurgence of Boko Haram ... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... murderous Moslems' attacks in the North-East and banditry attacks in the North-West and parts of North-Central on Arafat Day.
The sultan made the call on Wednesday in a statement issued by the Jama'atu Nasril Islam(JNI), signed by its Secretary-General, Prof. Khalid Aliyu.
He said , ''in this sacred month of Dhul-Hijjah, we are calling on Nigerian Moslems to rededicate themselves to good virtues and fervent prayers on the day of Arafah on Thursday.
According to him, the day of Arafah is considered one of the most beloved days to Allah, and fasting on this day is believed to expiate sins of the previous and coming year.
Abubakar cited some of the current challenges facing Nigeria, including the resurgence of Boko Haram murderous Moslems' attacks in the North-East and banditry attacks in the North-West and parts of North-Central.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2025
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The Ukrainian Armed Forces are holding back the Russian offensive in the east and south of Ukraine.
The largest number of Russian assaults have been recorded in the Pokrovsky direction. There, fighting continues near eight populated areas.
Since the beginning of the current day, 67 combat clashes have occurred on the front. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in an operational report on Wednesday, May 4.
Thus, in the Kharkov direction, the Russians twice tried to advance in the Vovchansk area. Currently, one battle is ongoing.
In the Kupyansk direction, our defenders successfully stopped one attempt by the enemy to advance forward in the Zagrizove area.
In the Liman direction, the enemy attacked 15 times in the areas of the settlements of Grekovka, Novy Mir, Karpovka, Lipovoe, Ridkodub and Torskoye. Clashes continue in nine locations.
In the Seversky direction, two military clashes occurred near Belogorovka and Verkhnekamyanskoye. The defense forces successfully stopped one attempt by the occupiers to advance, another battle is ongoing.
In the Kramatorsk direction, the enemy attacked three times in the areas of Kurdyumovka, Orekhovo-Vasilyevka and in the direction of Belaya Gora. Two clashes continue.
In the Toretsk direction, the enemy organized seven assaults in the areas of the settlements of Toretsk, Romanovka and Rusin Yar. One combat clash continues.
In the Pokrovsk direction, 16 attacks were carried out near the settlements of Malinovka, Grodovka, Lisovka, Novoukrainka, Udachnoye, Novosergeevka, Kotlyarovka and Gorikhovoe. The defense forces repelled 15 assaults.
In the Novopavlovsk direction, Russians attacked eight times near the settlements of Odradnoye, Vesyoloye, Volnoye Pole, Novosyolka and Novopol. Two attacks are still ongoing.
In the Kursk direction, our defenders repelled 11 attacks.
Let us recall that on June 3, Russia lost more than 1,000 servicemen killed and wounded in 24 hours. The total number of Russian losses exceeds 990 thousand.
[GEO.TV] As part of ongoing anti-terror efforts, security forces have neutralised 14 hard boyz in an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's North Wazoo, the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said on Wednesday.
As per the military's media wing, an operation was conducted in the general area Datta Khel of North Waziristan district upon the reported presence of hard boyz belonging to Indian proxy "Fitna al Khwarij", wherein the security forces effectively engaged the forces of Evil and bumped off 14 of them after an intense exchange of fire.
"Sanitisation operations are being conducted to eliminate any other Indian-sponsored terrorist found in the area," the statement added.
Commending the security forces on successful operation, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that the nefarious intentions of terrorists, and enemies of humanity will be crushed.
Mike Pompeo's speech in Ukraine, the day before Ukraine's biggest attack ever deep inside of Russia that scuttled the peace talks, called for Ukraine to carry out a "blitzkrieg" to "inflict enough costs" on Russia and "punch them in the face" to change their negotiating leverage
[TWZ] The U.S. Army says it is on schedule to retire the last of its turboprop-powered intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft by the end of this year. Prior to the start of these divestments in 2022, the service had dozens of crewed turboprop ISR planes spread across units in the United States and forward deployed overseas. There continues to be questions about forthcoming capability and capacity gaps, with business jet-based replacement aircraft still years away from entering service and recent reports that the Army could ultimately buy just six of them.
"The divesture of the AISR [aerial ISR] legacy fleet is ongoing and will continue throughout 2025," a spokesperson for the Army’s Program Executive Office for Aviation (PEO-A) confirmed to TWZ. "The RC-12X, MC-12, and EO-5 fleets will be divested by the end of 2025. The divestment of the legacy AISR fleet has been ongoing since 2022."
The RC-12X, also known as the Guardrail Common Sensor (GRCS), is a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air-based ISR aircraft equipped with a signals intelligence (SIGINT) package and a ventral sensor turret with electro-optical and infrared full-motion video cameras. The RC-12X is the latest in a line of Guardrail variants with steadily improving capabilities, the first of which entered service in the 1970s and were staples during the Cold War. Prior to 2022, the Army had 14 GRCS aircraft, plus five RC-12X(T) pilot trainers with no sensors fitted.
Aircraft in the graphic is not an RC-12 but rather a Shorts-360 deployed to Iraq in 2009 to conduct 'persistent surveillance' in support of the counter-IED mission.
#3
Really nice looking aircraft. And Dear Army, why is there an apparent gap between now and what works, and the when of this aircraft's jet replacement? The tyranny of "the schedule"? Do better, please.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
06/05/2025 5:59
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#4
Possibly less expensive to contract it out or use drones.
#5
...We see a GUARDRAIL about once every two weeks, shooting touch-and-goes at Columbia Regional. It's fun watching people's faces when I tell them what it can do. (low, mildly evil chuckle).
#6
Reserve Crazy Hawk C-12's used to fly out of Orlando. Kept an eye on Cuba when tasked, sometimes when not tasked. Mostly Viet vet pilots and backseaters.
[IsraelTimes] Police have reopened south Tel Aviv’s Elifelet light rail station to the public after arresting two West Bank Palestinians over a suspicious object report.
Light rail security staff previously called the cops on the two men, reporting that they had been carrying “suspicious luggage,” a law enforcement spokesman says. Police officers and bomb disposal specialists who arrived at the scene did not find any weapons or dangerous items in their possession.
Officers checking their luggage instead found pants that are part of an IDF uniform, among what appears to be a plethora of other clothing and shopping bags.
They have taken the two men — a 44-year-old Nablus resident and a 59-year-old Beita resident — for questioning at a nearby station.
A photo shared by the police spokesman shows the contents of the detainees’ luggage strewn about the light rail platform.
Text taken from a news article posted on telegra.ph
Text from May 2023.
[ColonelCassad] Colonel (ret.) Pere de Young is the former commander of the 3rd Marine Regiment, aide-de-camp to two French presidents and founder of THEMIIS (an independent French company founded in 2015 that provides services to states and institutions in the fields of security, defense and development). He is also responsible for the course on security and defense service companies (ESSD), taught as part of the Master's program in Geopolitics and International Security at the Institut Catholique de Paris (ICP).
Pere de Young has just published a book, Agir entre les lignes (Acting between the lines), published by Mareuil, and is also the author of Vous n'oublierez rien, colonel (You will not forget anything, Colonel) (Editions Tallandier, 2017). Paul Munier is a Master's student in Geopolitics and International Relations at the Institut Catholique de Paris.
Paul Munier (Interviewer): To begin with, based on your experience, what are the preconceived notions about private military companies at a time when the Wagner Group has found itself in the spotlight worldwide?
Peer de Young (P.J.): Private military companies (SMPs), which are called ESSDs in France (translator's note: this is the French name for companies providing security and defense services, so this abbreviation will be used in the context of French companies in the following text), officially have a relatively recent history, but their activities are much older.
Specifically, we very often equate PMCs with mercenaries, but this has nothing to do with the matter; we are talking about two completely different stories here. Obviously, they have a common basis, since they are related to conflicts and the military sphere. But they are opposed by different modes of action. In addition, mercenaries have been criminalized since 1977 (translator's note: in Russia, Article 359 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Mercenarism" was singled out as a separate type of offense only in 1996). This obviously does not apply to the ESSD, whose role is limited by the law of April 2003 banning mercenaries in France. These are two completely different worlds.
PMCs and ESSDs have experienced significant growth, especially since 2003, with the American presence in Iraq. However, it should be noted that Washington has always used subcontracting companies. From the Cold War to conflicts in the Middle East and the Vietnam War, PMCs have operated all over the world. One of the first notable operations was the use of Air America, created in 1946. Owned by the CIA, this company provided air support and transport for Chiang Kai-shek in his war against Mao Zedong. After Mao came to power in 1949, Air America was gradually “recycled” during the Vietnam War. Thus, between 1945 and 1975, the Americans experimented with the possibility of using a form of subcontracting, bringing in the necessary external expertise through Air America.
The Wagner “structure” is a form of development of Russian foreign policy; it is not exactly a PMC. Depending on the Russian state, mercenary groups are used rather as a supplementary form, as in Syria or Libya, or as a first-line force, as in Ukraine.
P.M.: PMCs and ESSDs are not very well known; in your book you describe in detail the various areas of their activity. What is the reason for turning to the services of these companies?
P. de J.: Since the 2000s, the budgets of all armies in the world, and especially in Europe, have been sharply reduced. Sometimes up to 30%, as in France or the USA. Soldiers have become rare and therefore expensive, which has opened up peripheral and “auxiliary” activities for ESSDs and PMCs. This observation was made by Dick Cheney and then Donald G. Rumsfeld, the two subsequent US Secretaries of Defense. This was the beginning of the rise of private structures.
However, each army has its own traditions, its own ways of doing things; there is no predetermined and ideal model. In the ESSD, personnel are very often recruited from among those who have left the army. Therefore, they are well trained. The unemployment observed today among retired military personnel is more a result of the dogma of "spent material" than of a logic based on doubts about their abilities. The skills are definitely there and they can be used.
With the exception of active combat operations, which include the use of weapons, which must remain within the framework of self-defense, PMCs and ESSDs can perform all possible missions, especially everything that is peripheral, namely security, protection, convoy escort, medical care or even what is called maintenance of operational condition (MCO) of equipment (you can read more about this here). Obviously, the capabilities of ESSD employees allow them to conduct all kinds of training. In addition, ESSDs are indispensable both in operations to combat maritime piracy and in matters of cyber defense. The scope of employment is very wide. Thus, these private structures can compensate for the shortcomings of the army, which is in the process of constant restructuring.
PM: After the Cold War, in a security context marked by asymmetrical struggle, to what extent did the war in Iraq open the doors to the world market for companies providing military services?
P. de J.: Since the 1940s, the United States had already integrated the use of private groups into its system, mainly for economic and technical reasons. The fall of the Wall (1989) and the collapse of the Warsaw Pact (1991) led to a sharp reduction in budgets and personnel in many armies around the world. Particularly in the United States, where the American budget was cut by 28%. These cuts lead to shortages and needs.
Dick Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, explained that soldiers had become rare and expensive, and that they had to dedicate themselves to their combat mission. This is how the idea of outsourcing auxiliary or peripheral activities (support, logistics, assistance, etc.) to private companies arose. So Dick Cheney and his successor Donald G. Rumsfeld created a kind of recurring doctrine of supporting the American military. The peak of this period was the Iraq War in 2003.
So when the Americans intervene, the American budget is extremely low, while the needs in Iraq and Afghanistan are enormous. Realizing that the war may drag on, and given the limited budget, they will compensate by encouraging the entry of ESSD into the scene. The Americans develop the principle of outsourcing to such an extent that in Iraq there is one contractor for every fighter (a contractor is simply a person under contract with a company). During this conflict, almost 90% of the PMC missions were support missions assigned to non-combatants, most of whom were foreigners.
PM: You devote a large chapter of your book to Prigozhin and Wagner. How did the Russian Wagner Group become a form of service to the Russian political power?
P. de J.: To be specific, Yevgeny Prigozhin is a businessman with an entrepreneurial mindset. Wagner is only one third of the "tripod" of Prigozhin's structures. In fact, this Russian businessman has a holding company called Concord, based in St. Petersburg. This historical parent company generates significant amounts of money in the catering sector, and therefore in everything related to food. So he understands the need for new problems.
Like the Americans, Vladimir Putin is considering the possibility of building structures that can take up minimal space on the ground, American "light springs". V. Putin, a former Russian intelligence officer, understands the logic of American intervention, especially in Iraq. He believes that outsourcing peripheral operations is a good idea.
Prigozhin responded to Putin’s questions about this minimal intervention by creating the Wagner Group, which became a tool for “dirty work”. In 2014, the Wagner Group entered the fight in Donbas and Crimea, reinforcing the Russian intelligence forces of the FSB and GRU. They become a supporting force, and the Wagner experiment is successful. It immediately…
This experience was subsequently reinforced in 2015, 2016 and 2017 during the fighting in Syria, where the same sequence of actions was repeated with the Russian Air Force. They captured the Syrian cities of Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor.
Prigozhin’s architecture rests on two other pillars: information warfare and “seizing the legacy”, that is, access to natural resources. Thus, Prigozhin attracted a number of companies that were supposed to strengthen and finance the role of Wagner. These civil companies negotiate with states for remuneration and carry out technical activities related to the extraction of natural resources (minerals, gas, oil, etc.).
Prigozhin’s entrepreneurial activity at Concord is noteworthy. After all, Wagner is only the visible part and flagship of the “Prigozhin project”, a kind of “loss leader” …
PM: France lags significantly behind other national competitors in this market. In your experience, what difficulties have French security and defense companies (ESSD) encountered in their development, despite the skills acquired in our national institutions?
P. de Y.: Firstly, it is a question of culture and history. In France, all external actions and influence operations are based on two pillars: diplomatic and military, which has always worked.
In 2003, the Americans introduced a new player to the national team – a PMC (translator’s note: Colonel De Jong is being a bit disingenuous here: the Americans had been actively using their PMCs in the Yugoslav War since 1991, especially since De Jong himself was “working off” his service in Bosnia at that time). France did not do this for various reasons.
Firstly, given the asymmetrical nature of the operations in which France participated, this nature did not require a fundamental need for external personnel. Today, the situation is changing due to two parameters: firstly, the weakening of French influence in Africa, while our army was an instrument intended for this region, and, secondly, the war in Ukraine. The latter is forcing our army to become more compact. We have entered a transition period, which must necessarily take these two new parameters into account.
However, the ESSD faced the state, namely those structures that I call the "deep state", characterized by the reluctance of the armed forces, "exhausted" since the 2000s by successive reforms, and which did not welcome the emergence of any form of competition. The political power is relatively indifferent. He believes that there is an opportunity to develop new small and medium-sized enterprises, which has a very positive impact on employment. In any case, if the positions are not filled by French people, they will obviously be foreign quasi-PMCs, as is already happening in the air transport sector.
PM: President Macron's speech in Toulon on November 9, 2022 is considered a turning point in French policy in Africa. What developments can be foreseen for our ESSD in this region, where French influence is harshly criticized? What role could they play?
P. de Y.: In Africa, to be specific, we are being shown the way out, our military system in Africa will be reduced, especially in terms of numbers. We already know that in Gabon, Ivory Coast and Senegal these numbers will be halved. African states are demanding a transformation of the French presence and want, in the name of their sovereignty, a minimal French presence.
Secondly, in connection with the events in Ukraine, part of our army will be sent to resolve the issues of the "Greater East". Therefore, I recommend that the PMCs and the ESSD support these consolidation movements in Eastern Europe, as well as in Africa, where they can obviously meet the specifications. This is a modest impact...
In my experience, the ESSD can very well be compensatory structures with a minimal presence, in civilian clothes and without ranks. The ESSD does not represent France; if the customer state is not satisfied, it terminates the contract; this will not affect the bilateral relations between France and this African state. So, there are many advantages to having ESSD in combat, especially since these companies are 95% ex-military, like Themiis.
PM: What limitations do you see for PMCs and ESSD, given their unique capabilities and versatility in terms of missions and theaters of operations?
The first is an administrative limitation – carrying weapons. This is a very important concept, because in special forces or small patrols there are those who need to carry weapons and those who do not. For example, to conduct training or provide advice, there is no need to carry weapons. The number of missions that require carrying weapons is limited. This is a central issue for ESSD-SMP. There are very strict rules governing the carrying of weapons.
The second point concerns the issue of combat. If we take Wagner, this group is an exception, and the creation of a "French Wagner" is unthinkable. PMCs are a very little-known topic, and we return to the topic of the "mercenary myth" mentioned at the beginning. There is one limitation that cannot be crossed: the fact that PMCs or ESSDs participate in combat.
PMCs are not frontline forces, but peripheral combat support forces... That is the difference between Wagner and everything else. The use of force is allowed only to civil servants. There should be no debate on this matter. All over the world, PMCs are an instrument of influence, not an instrument of struggle.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The destroyer Paul Ignatius and the command ship Mount Whitney of the US Navy entered the Baltic Sea. Together with almost 50 ships from different countries, they will take part in the NATO exercise Baltops 25. This was reported on June 4 by the Izvestia newspaper, citing informed sources.
Military expert Dmitry Kornev noted that these ships quite often visit the Baltic Sea and have repeatedly taken part in various exercises of the North Atlantic Alliance.
“The Arleigh Burke-class destroyer is a standard American destroyer with a vertical launch system for up to 56 Tomahawk cruise missiles of various types, which can reach as far as the Urals,” the expert said.
He also recalled that the Mount Whitney ship is designed to manage operations of diverse naval forces.
It is noted that Germany has sent the frigate Bayern to participate in the exercises, and Great Britain will be represented by a group of P2000 patrol ships. Military aviation will also be involved in the maneuvers.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, the annual naval exercises of the North Atlantic Alliance countries, Baltops-2025, began in the Baltic Sea on June 3. They will take place in the southern part of the Baltic Sea – from the Danish Straits and the Jutland Peninsula to the Gulf of Gdansk. NATO has been holding them in the Baltic Sea since 1972.
Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation Alexander Grushko said that the military bloc is conducting these maneuvers to prepare for a potential conflict with Russia. He emphasized that the exercises are extremely provocative, they are aimed at fighting a comparable enemy. According to Grushko, this is indicated by the concept of the maneuvers, the deployment structure and quality of military forces, as well as the tasks of the exercises.
On May 27, the Baltic Fleet of the Russian Navy began scheduled exercises to defend bases. The maneuvers involved units of the Northern Fleet with the support of the Aerospace Forces, Moscow and Leningrad Military Districts.
German experts expressed the opinion that the simultaneous maneuvers in the Baltics are fraught with the risk of a more serious escalation and possible provocations. They suggested that Russia is using the exercises for reconnaissance and surveillance of NATO activities, and pointed out that Moscow's actions are legitimate, they demonstrate the strength and ability of the state to act.
On May 22, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated that the Baltics could become a place of permanent confrontation between Russia and Western countries.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum. There are no “20 thousand children kidnapped by Russians” that representatives of the Kiev regime spoke about. This was stated at a briefing on June 4 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
She added that the Russian delegation at the talks in Istanbul received a list with the data of 339 Ukrainian children who were lost due to various circumstances, lost contact with their parents or legal representatives. The Russian side intends to examine this information in detail, Zakharova said.
“As we see, there are no 20,000 allegedly abducted children, as the Kiev regime previously claimed,” said the Foreign Ministry representative.
Zakharova pointed out that the Kiev regime had stated this at all levels, while Ukraine was unable and did not even try to confirm these figures with documents, did not provide specific facts, lists of children, or information about the parents who were looking for them.
"And why hasn't the Kiev regime done anything over these years? Because it was all a lie. Moreover, there is not a single "abducted" child. Russia saves them from shelling, taking them out of the combat zone to safe places <…> does everything to reunite children with their families," the diplomat noted.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, on June 2, the head of the Russian delegation at the talks in Istanbul, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, reported that the list of children Ukraine wants to return contains 339 names, although in reality there are several dozen such children. He emphasized that the Russian side has long wanted to receive a list with the names of children who, according to Kiev, have lost contact with their parents. Each situation will be studied, the presidential aide assured.
According to Medinsky, some of the children on the list may be in the Donbass and Novorossiya territories, and some may have gone to Europe. He stressed that no one kidnapped these children, they were taken out of the combat zone.
The head of the Russian delegation also said that Ukrainian institutions abroad do not deal with conflict situations and do not help fellow citizens in matters of reunification with children. Therefore, Ukrainian parents are forced to contact Russian consulates with such questions. Medinsky emphasized that in the spring of 2024 alone, 255 children were removed from Ukrainian families in Germany and several other countries. The reason for such actions by the juvenile justice system could be that a parent spanked his child.
On June 3, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs Viktor Vodolatsky reported that the Ukrainian authorities are deliberately taking children from liberated territories to Europe and Western Ukraine. Cases have been recorded, in particular in the DPR and Kursk Oblast, when the Ukrainian authorities took children from their families. At the same time, neither the parents, nor the Russian child welfare services, nor the Red Cross can establish their whereabouts. In turn, the Russian military is rescuing children from combat zones, especially from orphanages and boarding schools that are being shelled by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, the deputy added.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Olga Borisova
[REGNUM] The allegedly kidnapped Ukrainian children were one of the topics discussed by the Russian and Ukrainian delegations during the negotiations. This was confirmed by the head of the Russian negotiating group, assistant to the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Medinsky, but he emphasized that the topic was not central, and the Ukrainian side simply made a "show for compassionate Europeans" out of it.
"We were always trying to document what children were 'stolen by the Russian Federation', there were no lists. It was said that one and a half million Ukrainian children were kidnapped. Then it became 200 thousand. Now the official figure is 20 thousand. We tried to somehow document it, but there were no lists," he told journalists.
When the Ukrainian side finally handed over the list of those very “stolen children,” it contained only 339 names—not thousands, and certainly not millions, as Kyiv had been claiming all these years.
But these children were not kidnapped either. They were evacuated and rescued by Russian soldiers. Every child whose legal representative was found is returned to his family, Medinsky emphasized.
" Children from a similar list recently ended up in Germany, but the claims were made against the Russian Federation. This shameful PR campaign must be stopped. All families will be reunited, it is a matter of honor," he added.
Those same children - 161 children from Ukraine were found evacuated to Germany a year ago, which was confirmed by the head of the National Police of Ukraine Ivan Vyhovsky. At the same time, for two years in a row, all the world's media wrote about "abducted", or in the mildest formulation - "forcibly deported" children to Russia and Belarus.
From the very beginning, the Russian ombudsman for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, stated that this was simply a dishonest PR campaign by the Ukrainian authorities to demonize Russia.
"Stolen Ukrainian children" is another bright myth of Ukrainian propaganda, like the "Bucha massacre" or the "Holodomor". The number that was initially voiced - one and a half million - absurd and abstract - at first really did evoke emotions in the foreign public.
The Ukrainian authorities and propagandists tried to present the evacuation of children from the combat zone as an act of "genocide". There were even theses that these children, temporarily staying in sanatoriums and boarding houses on the Black Sea until they were reunited with their families, would lose "their Ukrainian cultural identity".
In reality, the process of family reunification did not stop during the entire period of the SVO. Children met with their relatives through the mediation of Qatar, Belarus and other countries, as the Ombudsman's Office regularly reports. And the Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmitry Lubinets does too.
PEOPLE ARE A RESOURCE
Are there other goals besides PR behind Kyiv's insistent demands for the immediate return of the children? It is quite possible, because the Ukrainian government views its citizens solely as a valuable resource.
Every day, men are seized, beaten and maimed on the streets of Ukrainian cities and sent to the front without any serious training.
The Ukrainian authorities are doing everything possible to return refugees from the EU countries, primarily men, of course. The rules for issuing documents have been made as difficult as possible for them, and some countries in Eastern Europe are threatening to start issuing them at the request of Ukrainian military registration and enlistment offices.
Talk of a possible mobilization of women flares up and then dies down again, but recently the Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk announced the creation of a network of National Resistance Training Centers - essentially military training centers throughout the country, where both women and men will be accepted.
She illustrated this initiative with her militant photographs from training at one of the training grounds in the Kyiv region - with a machine gun in her hands and an enthusiastic gleam in her eyes.
But what about the children?
If Kyiv is concerned about their safety, the Ukrainian authorities should be happy that the children are away from the fighting, in evacuation. But no. Ukrainian and European volunteer communities were shocked this week by the news that children with disabilities, who were evacuated back in 2022, were returned to Ukraine from Austria.
In Kyiv, they motivated this by saying that the children needed to be placed with Ukrainian families and state institutions. They promised to return them to safe regions, but in fact they were brought to Kropyvnytskyi (renamed Kirovohrad) in the central part of Ukraine. The regional administration explained that the children had reached the age when they should be adopted. At the same time, the age of 52 children ranged from three to ten years.
The Austrian social services were shocked by this decision. Until now, the children had been living safely in the SeneCura special institution in Burgauberg-Neudauberg under the supervision of Ukrainian specialists.
Former Austrian People's Party state secretary Christine Marek wrote an open letter to the Ukrainian ambassador, calling the decision "completely incomprehensible" and threatening the well-being of children. Concern was also expressed by the UNHCR representative in Vienna, Christoph Pinter.
But neither this nor dozens of indignant articles in the Austrian media helped. On June 1, the children were taken away, and stories about how carelessly, without observing any medical requirements, they were taken to Kropyvnytskyi spread through Ukrainian volunteer chats.
A year ago, the Ukrainian authorities wanted to return orphans from Berdyansk, evacuated to the Italian province of Bergamo, in the same way. Fortunately, the juvenile court of the city of Brescia prohibited this, the children were given an extension of their placement in local centers and were left under the protection of Rome.
"ALL FAMILIES ARE REUNITED"
The situation with children evacuated to Russia is different.
In an interview with Regnum News Agency, the director of Lugansk Children's Home No. 1, Victoria Mochalova, said that her children were first evacuated in 2014, when Ukraine began shelling Lugansk. The children were then taken to Odessa Oblast, but they never returned to Lugansk.
Little by little, the orphanage, which had suffered from attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and deprivation, began to have new pupils. And in February 2022, these children were taken to Azov, Rostov Oblast, away from military action, when Ukraine again began to launch artillery strikes on residential areas of Lugansk, not caring at all about the children.
That's why others worried about the children.
"After all, the Russian soul is the Russian soul. Do you understand? We arrived there with these red bags - each with spare panties, socks, T-shirts. And when we were leaving, I called my guardianship authorities: I said, "Please give me a bus so that everything fits." Just everything. And clothes, and shoes, what people themselves brought when they found out about us. The Azov authorities immediately organized an educational process for us.
We had a child with us... who required special attention. The girl was not very healthy. We took this girl of ours into our family. So thank God for helping us and the good people who always cross our path. Probably, everything in this life is not just like that," she said about this evacuation.
A similar story is told by children from the boarding school in Perevalsk in the Luhansk People's Republic. The director of the institution, Tatyana Semenova, told the Regnum news agency how in 2022, the boarding school staff searched all over the world for relatives of those children who ended up under its roof in the turmoil of military action and evacuation.
Parents and relatives were in Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.
"We found one family in the Mari El Republic. The family was literally divided in two: the parents with three children were evacuated one and a half thousand kilometers away, and the three younger children - a girl and two boys - were with us, in the LPR.
In Mari El, they were given a house as a large family. The police were able to find them only in January 2023, and then the family was reunited," Semenova recalled.
THE END OF THE MYTH
Each such story is the fate of a small, defenseless person. But will those for whom the Ukrainian authorities have been showing a "show for compassionate viewers" on all channels for the third year already know about these children from Luhansk, Berdyansk, Gorlovka?
Why they are persistently trying to return children to Ukraine, disregarding their safety, is unknown. And besides, it is illogical, because Elena Zelenskaya, who heads the humanitarian aid fund, recently stated that every fourth Ukrainian child would like to leave their home country and settle abroad.
Well, there simply were no millions of children, as Russia had been claiming year after year. The list of 339 names provided by the Ukrainian side not only confirms this fact, but also puts an end to this issue.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Sergey Adamov
[REGNUM] In the development of the situation in the SVO zone over the past two weeks, two trends can be identified. While units of the "North" group of the Russian Armed Forces are advancing from the state border to the south, expanding the buffer zone in the Sumy region, in the DPR our troops are approaching another section of the border defined by the Constitution in several directions. Next is the Dnepropetrovsk region.
On June 4, the Ministry of Defense confirmed that Russian troops had occupied the village of Kondratovka. The distance from this settlement to the regional center, the city of Sumy, is no more than 21 kilometers in a straight line. In some areas, the distance from the line of combat contact to Sumy is about 19 kilometers.
Footage taken by Russian drone operators is being published online, showing the northern and eastern outskirts of the city.
Earlier, our assault units in the border area also managed to dislodge the Ukrainian Armed Forces from two villages - Alekseyevka, taken under control on June 1, and Andreyevka, which Russian troops entered on June 3. The fighting continues near Kondratovka, in the area of the settlements of Yunakovka and Novonikolayevka. Footage of the raising of the Russian flag over the settlement of Vodolaghi also appeared online.
In just one day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 200 soldiers, an armored personnel carrier, six army vehicles, five field artillery pieces, and an electronic warfare station in the Sumy border area.
The enemy officers also acknowledge the worsening situation for the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the border area.
The day before, Ivan Shevtsov, a representative of the 15th mobile border detachment of the State Border Service of Ukraine, stated that Russian troops had occupied “approximately 15 kilometers along the front and about 6-7 kilometers in depth.”
At the same time, according to reports from the field, the enemy is trying to stop the breakthrough by pulling additional forces into the border area.
Ukrainian troops made a series of attempts to pull Russian troops away from the bridgehead in the area of liberated Sudzha, making a series of attempts to cross the border further north - near the village of Tyotkino in the Kursk region. All attempts by the enemy to advance in this area were thwarted by air and artillery fire.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces also constantly use drones and missiles for terrorist strikes on the territory of the Kursk and Bryansk regions. In response, the Russian Armed Forces struck a series of Ukrainian Armed Forces facilities both in Sumy and in the city's outskirts. According to unconfirmed reports, the target of one of the strikes was the headquarters of the local SBU department, as well as training grounds where Ukrainian army recruits were being trained.
"WHILE THE ENEMY AWAITS THE ASSAULT..."
Our troops continue to actively advance into the DPR, 75-80 kilometers northwest of Donetsk. In the Krasnoarmeysky (Pokrovsky) direction, Russian troops are storming the settlements of Novosergeevka and Novonikolaevka in the DPR, located directly on the border of the Dnepropetrovsk region.
According to reports from the field, east of the city of Krasnoarmeysk (Pokrovsk), Russian troops have driven the Ukrainian Armed Forces out of Nikolayevka. Some sources report the successful completion of the assault. This settlement adjoins the village of Novoekonomicheskoe, which, in turn, is part of the Krasnoarmeyskaya agglomeration. With the liberation of Novoekonomicheskoe, Pokrovsk-Krasnoarmeysk and its satellite city of Mirnograd will find themselves in a large semicircle.
South of Krasnoarmeysk, the advanced units of the Russian army are also advancing in the direction of the border with the Dnepropetrovsk region. The successful assault on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has led to the settlement of Shevchenko being semi-encircled. It is located on the T-0515 highway, leading from the south of the DPR (more specifically, from the large village of Konstantinopol liberated in March ), along the western border of the DPR through Krasnoarmeysk to Kramatorsk. At the same time, success in this direction creates the preconditions for a decisive strike to the north and the encirclement of the city, a frontline source for the Regnum news agency reports :
"Everything is going as expected. While the enemy is waiting for the assault on Pokrovsk, pulling new reinforcements into the city, including mobilized ones, we are flowing around the enemy's defense along the borders of the agglomeration. The future of the offensive in this area will depend on the assault on Novoekonomichesky - whether it will be possible to cut off the enemy's logistics or not."
A similar operation is underway in the area of the city of Konstantinovka, the first in a "chain" of cities stretching from south to north (Konstantinovka - Druzhkovka - Kramatorsk - Slavyansk). Russian troops are expanding the bridgehead created in this area in recent weeks. Fierce fighting continues in the area of the village of Yablonovka, as well as near Aleksandro-Kalinov, Poltavka and Rusyn Yar.
The offensive continues in the southern Donetsk direction, to the west of Velyka Novosyolka.
On June 3, our units drove the VSAS troops out of three strongholds in forest belts and on one of the heights west of the village of Volnoye Pole, which is located near the junction of the borders of the Dnepropetrovsk region and two Russian regions - the DPR and the Zaporizhzhya region.
The Ukrainian defense in this area is being built in the area of the village of Komar, also a few kilometers from the border with the Dnepropetrovsk region. In this direction, the enemy has repeatedly attempted to counterattack, but has been thrown back to its original positions.
SPRING FAILURES OF THE ARMED FORCES OF UKRAINE
The results of our troops' offensive in the spring months and the first days of the beginning of summer look extremely disappointing for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The main success, of course, was the completion of the operation to defeat them in the border area.
In three months, the Russian Armed Forces in the Kursk region liberated 33 settlements, including a number of villages that the enemy held at the cost of huge losses in personnel and military equipment. "On the shoulders" of the retreating enemy, the Russian army managed to break into the territory of the Sumy region, occupy more than ten settlements and create a buffer zone of 200 square kilometers.
In Donbass, the decisive success was the breakthrough of the enemy's line of defense between two strategically important cities - Krasnoarmeysk and Konstantinovka. The created bridgehead was expanded in depth and along the front to a distance of up to 15 km. South of Krasnoarmeysk, the forces of the "Vostok" group captured the key node of the enemy's defense - the village of Bogatyr, which allowed them to be pushed back from the eastern part of Donbass to the borders of the Dnepropetrovsk region. In total, 48 villages and settlements were liberated in the DPR from March to May.
Another major success during the spring campaign was the "defrosting" of the Zaporizhzhya Front. Here, Russian troops were able to occupy at least five settlements and create a bridgehead on the approaches to the city of Orekhovo, a key settlement, control over which theoretically allows for an offensive on Zaporizhzhya.
The successes of Russian troops are recognized in the West as well. Since the beginning of spring, Russian troops have only increased the pace of their advance, expanding their zone of control by an average of 14 square kilometers per day, The New York Times reports — twice as fast as in late winter and early spring.
In just one week, Russian troops liberated 18 settlements and occupied an area of almost 200 square kilometers, according to the German publication Bild.
According to foreign media, the last week has been “black” for the Ukrainian army: Kyiv is facing precise missile strikes on the rear of its troops and is suffering defeats at the front.
Western analysts cite the depletion of human and moral resources of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as the technical superiority of Russian troops, as the reason for these failures.
[GEO.TV] Russian President Vladimir Putin ...President-for-Life of Russia. He gets along well with other presidents for life. He is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law, which occasionally results in somebody dropping dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substance. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to him. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile or dead from poisoning by polonium or other interesting substances... told Donald Trump ...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down... in a telephone conversation on Wednesday that Moscow would have to respond to the recent Ukrainian drone attacks, the US President said.
Trump said the two men "discussed the attack on Russia's docked airplanes, by Ukraine, and also various other attacks that have been taking place by both sides."
Putin "did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields," Trump said in a social media post.
Russia will respond to Ukraine drone attacks, Putin tells Trump
Trump said it "was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace."
Moscow said earlier on Wednesday that military options were "on the table" for its response to Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia and accused the West of being involved in them.
Russia also urged the US and Britannia to restrain Kyiv after the attacks, which Ukrainian officials have lauded as showing Kyiv can still fight back after more than three years of war.
British and US officials have said they had no prior knowledge of the weekend attacks on Russian nuclear-capable long-range bombers.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2025
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#3
Currently Ms Rice is the director of Stanford’s Hoover Institution, but she made her name as George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor, and then his Secretary of State. Before that she was a poli sci professor, specializing in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. You may recall the fuss made because she was the highest ranked African American woman ever in the presidential succession.
#8
Putin will have lost all credibility if he does not respond, not only with Westerners, but with his own people. He will be seen as weak, cowardly and ineffective. He will be seen as a loser. Some young and aggressive group of Russian leaders will decide it's time for a new generation to take the reins of power in Moscow. Putin will be in fear for his own life and he may even lose it.
Maybe that's what American and Western European globalist want but when it happens it might not go the way they hope it will.
This is madness. This is how wars get completely out of control.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
06/05/2025 12:46
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No doubt whatsoever that Israel comes out far ahead in the deal.
[GEO.TV] Ireland's prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday that it would cut all links with Israel in protest at "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law".
The university's board informed students by email that it had accepted the recommendations of a taskforce to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel".
The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law", said the email sent by the board's chairman Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.
The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities".
University board announces divestment from Israeli firms, colleges; decision taken in step with recommendations of a task force, formed after anti-Israel students blockaded campus
Ireland’s prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday that it would cut all links with Israel in protest of "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law."
The university’s board informed students by email on Wednesday that it had accepted the recommendations of a task force to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel."
The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law," said the email sent by the board’s chairman Paul Farrell, and seen by AFP.
The task force was set up after part of the university’s campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days last year in protest against the 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 a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , where Israel is battling to defeat the Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... terror group following the October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel.
Among the task force’s recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest "from all companies headquartered in Israel" and to "enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms" and "no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities."
The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities."
Trinity has two current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with Israeli universities: Bar Ilan University, an agreement that ends in July 2026, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP in an email.
The board also said that the university "should not submit for approval or agree to participate in any new institutional research agreements involving Israeli participation."
It "should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence EU policy concerning Israel’s participation in such collaborations," it added.
Ireland has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel’s response to the October 7 onslaught, in which turbans belonging to Hamas and other Paleostinian terror groups killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages.
Polls since the start of the war have shown overwhelming pro-Paleostinian sympathy and anti-Israel sentiment in Ireland.
In May 2024, Dublin joined several other European countries in recognizing Paleostine as a "sovereign and independent state."
Ireland then joined South Africa’s International Court of Justice case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza — charges angrily denied by Israel.
In December, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar ordered the closure of the country’s embassy in Dublin, blaming Ireland’s "extreme anti-Israel policies." Sa’ar later said that Dublin "encouraged" antisemitism under then-prime minister Simon Harris whom he accused of hating Jews.
Most recently, Ireland’s cabinet gave its formal backing last month to drafting legislation on restricting trade with Israeli communities in East Jerusalem and West Bank settlements.
While Ireland does very little trade with West Bank settlements, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said it was a "symbolic move" that follows Ireland’s official recognition last year of a Paleostinian state.
The bill is unlikely to be passed by parliament until later in the year.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Kiev regime's raid on airfields in Russia showed that British troops need to rethink the way they wage wars. The Economist wrote about this.
According to the authors, the attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces looked like “old-fashioned sabotage with cult weapons.”
"The surprise attack is a reminder of why complacency looks like a mistake. UK troops must relearn how to fight from a wider range of positions and disperse their ammunition, spare parts and fuel," the publication noted.
It is emphasized that Britain is in dire need of funds for rearmament and preparation for new war conditions.
As reported by IA Regnum, attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Russian airfields will not help Kiev increase its advantage over Russia in a special military operation. This opinion was expressed by journalists from the Politico publication.
US President Donald Trump said that Russian President Vladimir Putin warned him of his intention to respond to the Kiev regime's attacks on Russian airfields.
On June 1, the Kiev regime carried out terrorist attacks against five Russian airfields: in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions. The attacks were carried out using FPV drones, which are controlled by an operator via video link in real time.
All attacks on military airfields in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions were repelled. Fires broke out in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, they were extinguished, there were no casualties or fatalities. The Ministry of Defense reported that some of the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks were detained.
On June 4, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow is waiting for a clear reaction from Washington and London in connection with the aforementioned attacks by Kiev in order to prevent further escalation of the conflict.
#1
The deep state authorized these strikes, knowing exactly what a dangerous escalation they are.
Schumer just traveled to Ukraine. How much more obvious can they make it?
The elected government isn't in charge in America.
[GEO.TV] The Gilgit-Baltistan region on Monday reported its first case of polio ...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set. Currently the disease is only found in Pakistain and Afghanistain... in 2025, marking a concerning emergence of the crippling disease in an area previously thought to be polio-free.
Officials confirmed today that a 23-month-old child in the Diamer district has been infected with the poliovirus.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) in Islamabad officially confirmed the presence of the virus in the child from Diamer, indicating that this is the first time the poliovirus has been revealed in Gilgit-Baltistan.
This new case brings the total number of polio cases reported across Pakistain so far in 2025 to 11, according to health officials.
The re-emergence in Gilgit-Baltistan underscores the ongoing challenges in eradicating polio nationwide and highlights the critical need for continued vigilance and robust vaccination campaigns, even in regions where the virus has not been detected for an extended period.
The latest polio case comes despite an ongoing campaign to immunise 45 million children under five years of age across different parts of the country.
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:33 Tankers of the "East" group of forces destroyed Ukrainian Armed Forces strongholds in forest belts in the South Donetsk direction.
During the battle, the enemy lost up to 30 servicemen, two Kozak combat armored vehicles, one electronic warfare station, and a field ammunition supply point.
20:34 Advance of the Russian Armed Forces near Chasy Yara and on the western bank of the Seversky Donetsk-Donbass Canal, –MAP.
19:09 The following were hit by the FPV drone crews of the Rubicon Center: AHS Krab self-propelled guns of Polish manufacture, T-72 VSU, and PzH2000 VSU self-propelled guns of German manufacture.
17:23 UAV crews of the 132nd Separate Guards Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 51st Guards Combined Arms Army of the Southern Military District destroyed hexocopters of the Ukrainian Armed Forces –VIDEO
Servicemen of the 27th Artillery Regiment of the 6th Motorized Rifle Division of the "Southern" group of forces destroyed an ammunition depot and an electronic warfare station of the enemy in the area of the village of Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People's Republic.
A crew of the Lancet loitering munition from the 18th Combined Arms Army of the Dnepr group of forces destroyed a self-propelled artillery unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kherson region.
Operators of attack UAVs of the Tula Guards Airborne Unit destroy equipment and personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Sumy region.
UAV operators of the Vostok group of forces destroyed enemy heavy hexacopters "Baba Yaga" in the South Donetsk direction.
16:38 The Russian Armed Forces have raised flags in liberated Redkodub, – MAP.
15:46 The Russian Armed Forces are fighting in Karpovka and are also continuing to encircle Zelenaya Dolina, – MAP.
14:53 Pokrovskoe (Krasnoarmeyskoye) direction. Right flank/ Druzhkovskoye direction
Units of the Russian Armed Forces continue their offensive in the general direction of Raiskoye and have advanced in the direction of Koptevo, dislodging the enemy from a number of strongholds and farms northwest of Shevchenko-First.
Fierce head-on battles with the use of armored vehicles continue in Poltavka and on the approaches to Rusin Yar.
14:25 Servicemen of the 20th Army of the West Forces Group released the settlement of Redkodub in the Donetsk People's Republic.
Thanks to the coordinated actions of the fighters, the use of aviation, artillery and attack UAVs, military equipment was destroyed and the firing points of the Ukrainian militants were suppressed.
13:37 Summary of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation on the progress of the special military operation as of June 4, 2025
The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to conduct a special military operation.
As a result of active actions, units of the North group of forces completed the liberation of the village of Kondratovka in Sumy Oblast.
Concentrations of manpower and equipment of two mechanized, tank, airborne assault, ranger brigades, a coastal defense brigade, an airborne assault, two assault regiments of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the center of special operations forces of the Main Intelligence Directorate were defeated in the areas of the settlements of Iskrikivschina, Petrushevka, Sadki, Yunakovka, Novaya Sich, Pisarevka, Khoten, Pavlovka and Velykyi Prikol in Sumy Oblast.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 230 servicemen, two tanks, three combat armored vehicles, nine cars and five field artillery pieces. A radar station and two ammunition depots were destroyed.
As a result of decisive actions, units of the West military group liberated the settlement of Redkodub in the Donetsk People's Republic.
Defeat was inflicted on formations of three mechanized, assault and airmobile brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the populated areas of Chistovodovka, Kupyansk, Glushchenkovo, Borovaya, Peschanoye, Olgovka, Andreyevka in the Khar'kov region and Volchiy Yar in the Donetsk People's Republic.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost up to 220 servicemen, a tank, four combat armored vehicles, 13 vehicles and three artillery pieces, including a 155mm self-propelled artillery unit "Bogdana" and a 155mm self-propelled artillery unit "Panzerhaubitze 2000" made in Germany. The electronic warfare stations "Quertus" and "Anklav" were destroyed, as well as five ammunition depots.
Units of the "Southern" group of forces improved the situation along the front line. They defeated the manpower and equipment of three mechanized, motorized infantry, assault, airmobile and mountain assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Dronovka, Seversk, Privolye, Nikiforovka, Serebryanka, Pereyezdnoye, Konstantinovka, Ivanopolye and Aleksandro-Shultino of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The enemy lost up to 250 servicemen, three vehicles, six artillery pieces and a Croatian-made RAK-SA-12 multiple launch rocket system launcher. Two electronic warfare stations, a counter-battery radar station and three ammunition depots were destroyed.
Units of the "Center" group of forces improved their tactical position. They defeated formations of six mechanized, two airborne assault brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, two naval infantry brigades, a territorial defense brigade and two national guard brigades in the areas of the settlements of Petrovskoye, Udachnoye, Novonikolayevka, Dimitrov, Koptevo and Bogdanovka of the Donetsk People's Republic.
The enemy's losses amounted to 520 military personnel, five armored combat vehicles and five field artillery pieces.
Units of the "East" group of forces continued to advance into the depths of the enemy's defense. They defeated the manpower and equipment of the mechanized, airborne assault and airmobile brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Komar, Otradnoye in the Donetsk People's Republic and Temirovka in the Zaporizhia region.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 180 servicemen, five armored combat vehicles, five cars, three field artillery pieces and three electronic warfare stations.
Units of the Dnepr group of forces defeated formations of two mechanized brigades, three coastal defense brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a territorial defense brigade in the areas of the settlements of Plavni, Pavlovka, Orekhov, Novoyakovlevka in the Zaporizhia region, Ponyatovka, Antonovka and Sadovoe in the Kherson region.
The enemy lost up to 75 servicemen, eight vehicles and two artillery pieces. Two electronic warfare stations, two counter-battery radar stations and an ammunition depot were destroyed.
Operational-tactical aviation, strike unmanned aerial vehicles, missile troops and artillery of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed the launcher, radar station and control cabin of the IRIS-T anti-aircraft missile system manufactured in Germany, damaged a fuel production plant, workshops for assembling strike unmanned aerial vehicles and their storage sites, ammunition depots, a logistics base, as well as temporary deployment points of Ukrainian Armed Forces units in 133 districts.
Air defense systems shot down three US-made HIMARS multiple launch rockets and 109 aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the following have been destroyed:
663 aircraft,
283 helicopters,
61,316 unmanned aerial vehicles,
610 anti-aircraft missile systems,
23,749 tanks and other armored combat vehicles,
1,566 combat vehicles of multiple launch rocket systems,
25,696 field artillery pieces and mortars,
36,441 units of special military vehicles.
12:50 On frames: The destruction by strike drones of the Russian Armed Forces of two 122mm howitzers D-30 and a 152mm howitzer 2S3 "Akatsiya" of the 1st Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine using the UAV "Inohodets-BLA" and the UAV "Forpost" with the use of UAB-20 in the area of the settlement of Frunzenka in the Sumy region.
11:30 Calculation of the ground robotic complex "Mole-1" struck firing point of the Ukrainian Armed Forces unit in the Dyleevka area in the DPR. The work of the "Mole" was adjusted by the UAV crew.
11:03 Calculation of the Iskander-M OTRK with a precise hit destroyed The enemy's IRIS-T air defense missile system in the Dnepropetrovsk region.
09:31 Calculation of the Geranium UAV destroyed warehouse of Ukrainian Armed Forces drones in the Kherson region.
Objective monitoring equipment recorded a secondary detonation of the affected object.
08:36 122mm BM-21 BM-21 Grad MLRS crew of the Aleysky motorized rifle unit of the Center group of forces inflicted a strike against concentrations of enemy manpower and equipment on the approaches to Krasnoarmeysk.
08:24 Sumy region
The assault forces of the Russian Armed Forces, after a complete clearing of the settlement of Andreyevka and adjacent locations, are preparing to storm the settlement of Khoten, which is less than seven km away.
After which a stable bridgehead will be created for the assault on Sumy.
08:08 Sumy region. The Russian Armed Forces entered Novonikolaevka –MAP.
07:34 Changes to map over the past 24 hours:
Andreevka has been liberated➡️
Advance in the Vladimirovka - Belovody area
Control zone south of Yablonovka has been expanded
Advance north of Romanovka👉
Correction of the control zone in Staritsa in favor of the enemy
07:13 During the past night, air defense systems on duty destroyed seven Ukrainian aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles:
Four UAVs over the territory of the Republic of Crimea,
Two UAVs over the territory of the Kursk region,
One UAV over the territory of the Belgorod region.
06:37 Servicemen of the 90th Guards Tank Division of the Center Group of Forces told of details of the liberation of the village of Troitskoye in the DPR.
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]Who is he? We don’t have that name in the Rantburg archives.
🔥 BOOMMMM Fire belt over Sajaiya – reports say the target was Hamas’ new leader, Azaddin al-Haddad. This morning he officially took the job. By evening… he officially evaporated. 🤣 pic.twitter.com/GXEhuwk0db
🚨BREAKING 🚨The IDF has eliminated Mahmoud Abu Nar, commander of the Central Gaza Brigade of the Al-Mujahideen Brigades, the organization that kidnapped the Bibas family. pic.twitter.com/1rwTxNSITi
There is no immediate comment from the Israel Defense Forces on the strike.
Residents said the IDF escalated airstrikes and tank shelling on parts of Khan Younis, a day after it dropped leaflets warning residents to leave their homes and head west, saying forces would fight Hamas and other terror groups in those areas.
The explosion wounded two soldiers of the elite Yahalom combat engineering unit moderately and lightly injured a Shin Bet officer.
In a separate incident yesterday in operations in in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood, IDF reservist Master Sgt. (res.) Alon Farkas, 27, was killed by gunfire. A second reservist was seriously wounded.
The slain soldier is named as Master Sgt. (res.) Alon Farkas, 27, of the 646th Reserve Paratroopers Brigade’s 6646th Battalion, from Kabri.
Another reservist of the battalion was seriously wounded in the same incident, the military adds.
According to an initial IDF probe, Farkas was killed and the other soldier was wounded by gunfire during operations in Gaza City’s Shejaiya neighborhood.
A Palestinian gunman opened fire on the forces with an assault rifle, before managing to flee.
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[GEO.TV] The United States vetoed Wednesday a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire and unrestricted humanitarian access in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... , which Washington claimed undermined ongoing diplomacy to resolve the conflict.
A general view shows the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... Security Council meeting on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, U.S., March 14, 2022. — Rooters
"This resolution would undermine diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire that reflects the realities on the ground and emboldens Hamas ..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... . This resolution also draws false equivalence between Israel and Hamas," said Washington's United Nations envoy Dorothy Shea just ahead of the vote.
''United States opposition to this resolution should come as no surprise,'' said Shea.
''The United States has taken the very clear position since this conflict began that Israel has the right to defend itself, which includes defeating Hamas and ensuring they are never again in a position to threaten Israel. In this regard, any product that undermines our close ally Israel's security is a non-starter.''
“The United States has been clear we would not support any measure that fails to condemn Hamas and does not call for Hamas to disarm and leave Gaza,” Acting US Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea told the council before the vote.
“This resolution would undermine diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire that reflects the realities on the ground, and embolden Hamas,” she said of the text that was put forward by 10 countries on the 15-member council.
A similar humanitarian-focused draft resolution is now expected to be put to a vote in the 193-member UN General Assembly, where no countries have a veto power and it would likely pass, diplomats said.
Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon warned: “Don’t waste more of your time, because no resolution, no vote, no moral failure, will stand in our way.”
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[AmuTV] The Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... ’s religious enforcers, known as mohtasibs, have seen an unprecedented expansion of authority over the past 10 months, according to multiple local sources, following the formal enactment of the Taliban’s "Law on Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," also called morality law.
Implemented last year, the law codifies a wide range of restrictions, particularly affecting women and media. It empowers the Taliban’s morality enforcers to detain individuals for up to three days and has declared the voices of women to be "awrah," or forbidden to be publicly heard. The law also prohibits the broadcasting of images of living beings — a measure that has led to the suspension or alteration of programming at dozens of visual media outlets across more than 15 provinces.
Despite widespread criticism from inside and outside the country, Taliban authorities have not relented. On the social platform X, Saif Khyber, spokesperson for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, recently announced the launch of an audio campaign to explain the articles of the law to the public.
"Let us contribute to the dissemination of the articles of this law in audio format," he wrote, noting that the full text will be shared one article at a time through audio recordings.
The law, spanning an introduction, four chapters, and 35 articles, has effectively institutionalized a host of restrictions that critics say amount to a harsh imposition of the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law. Religious scholars and civil society groups argue that the edicts reflect an extreme and punitive reading of Sharia and are being enforced in ways that severely curtail civil liberties.
The law has already resulted in visible changes to public life. Taliban officials are increasingly divided over the use of their own images in public, with some now opting to hold audio-only press briefings. The ban on broadcasting living images has led several television channels either to switch to radio formats or cease operations altogether.
In Herat ...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns... Province, eight local sources confirmed to Amu that Taliban enforcement of the law has grown more aggressive in recent months. Residents there report increased surveillance, restrictions on women’s movement and expression, and arrests related to perceived violations of the moral code.
Despite appeals from international human rights ...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... groups and U.N. bodies calling for a rollback of these restrictions, Taliban continue to implement the law with growing rigor. Their ministry claims the measures are necessary to preserve moral order and religious values — a claim sharply contested by critics who warn that the law is instead a tool of repression.
[GEO.TV] More than 200,000 Afghans have left Pakistain since the government renewed a deportation drive in April, with 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... also stepping up expulsions of Afghans.
Generations of Afghans have fled to neighbouring Pakistain and Iran during decades of successive wars, seeking safety and better economic opportunities.
Both governments have grown weary of large migrant populations and ordered millions to leave under the threat of arrest.
Pakistain has launched a strict campaign to evict more than 800,000 Afghans who have had their residence permits cancelled, including some who were born in the country or lived there for decades.
According to the interior ministry, more than 135,000 Afghans left Pakistain in April, while around 67,000 departed in May and more than 3,000 were sent back in the first two days of June.
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Pakistan fails pretty much covers it. That it’s women being failed serves them right for escaping purdah, amirite?
[GEO.TV] ''It's brought me some closure,'' said Shafaq Zaidi, a school friend of Noor Mukadam, reacting to the Supreme Court's May 20 verdict upholding both the life sentence and death penalty for Noor's killer, Zahir Jaffer.
''Nothing can bring Noor back, but this decision offers a sense of justice —not just for her, but for every woman in Pakistain who's been told her life doesn't matter,'' Zaidi told IPS over the phone from Islamabad. ''It's been a long and painful journey—four years of fighting through the sessions court, high court, and finally, the Supreme Court.''
Echoing a similar sentiment, rights activist Zohra Yusuf said, ''It's satisfying that the Supreme Court upheld the verdict,'' but added that the crime's brutality left little room for relief. ''It was so horrific that one can't even celebrate the judgment,'' she said, referring to the ''extreme'' sadism Noor endured—tortured with a knuckleduster, raped, and beheaded with a sharp weapon on July 20, 2021.
Yusuf also pointed out that the ''background'' of those involved is what drew national attention.
Noor Mukadam, 27, was the daughter of a former ambassador, while Zahir Jaffer, 30, was a dual Pakistain-US national from a wealthy and influential family. Her father and friends fought to keep the case in the public eye, refusing to let it fade into yet another forgotten statistic.
Still, the response has been muted — many, including Yusuf, oppose the death penalty.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistain recorded at least 174 death sentence ...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead... s in 2024 — a sharp rise from 102 in 2023 — yet not a single execution was reportedly carried out. The last known hanging was in 2019, when Imran Ali was executed for the rape and murder of six-year-old Zainab Ansari.
However,
the man who has no enemies isn't anybody and has never done anything... Noor's father, Shaukat Ali Mukadam, has repeatedly stated that the death sentence for Zahir Jaffer was ''very necessary,'' emphasising, ''This isn't just about my daughter — it's about all of Pakistain's daughters,'' referencing the countless acts of violence against women that go unpunished every day.
The HRCP's 2024 annual report painted a grim picture of gender-based violence against women in Pakistain.
According to the National Police Bureau, at least 405 women were killed in so-called honor crimes. Domestic violence remained widespread, resulting in 1,641 murders and over 3,385 reports of physical assault within households.
Sexual violence showed no sign of slowing. Police records documented 4,175 reported rapes, 733 gang rapes, 24 cases of custodial sexual assault, and 117 incidents of incest-related abuse — a chilling reminder of the dangers women face in both public and private spaces. HRCP's media monitoring also revealed that at least 13 transgender individuals experienced sexual violence — one was even killed by her family in the name of honor.
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#1
Well, there's Pakistani's involved. And their cousins.
It's like, why can't India complete a working weapon project? 'Cause they have their own government.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
06/05/2025 15:36
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That could ruin someone’s day under the wrong circumstances.
[GEO.TV] Researchers in Japan have developed a plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours, offering up a potential solution for a modern-day scourge polluting oceans and harming wildlife.
While scientists have long experimented with biodegradable plastics, researchers from the RIKEN Centre for Emergent Matter Science and the University of Tokyo say their new material breaks down much more quickly and leaves no residual trace.
At a lab in Wako city near Tokyo, the team demonstrated a small piece of plastic vanishing in a container of salt water after it was stirred up for about an hour.
While the team has not yet detailed any plans for commercialisation, project lead Takuzo Aida said their research has attracted significant interest, including from those in the packaging sector.
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#2
OK!, It dissolves.
But what chemicals has it broken down into, which will be contaminating the Seawater and those items we eat, like our seafoods?
A short list of Plastic chemicals include:
Polyethylene terephthalate, High-density polyethylene, Polyvinyl chloride, Polypropylene, Polystyrene, or Low-density polyethylene.
It's a given, that many of the things used to make plastics are toxic.
Googling/D2D each chemical name with the word "cancer" added produces some interesting results.
Plus now add what new chemicals will be used, and what are the side effects are when used with packaged consumable items?
Are we repeating an updated latest and greatest modernization hazard, like when ancient Rome started using LEAD Pipes to supply water?
”Dammit, the friends of the Jews at home and abroad noticed. We’ll have to try again later, guys.”
[IsraelTimes] Germany’s foreign minister says the country will continue arms deliveries to Israel despite earlier suggesting that these are under review.
Johann Wadephul tells a heated session in parliament that Israel, amid its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, is also under threat from Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Lebanese Hezbollah terror group and Iran, and that “Germany will continue to support Israel, including with weapons deliveries.”
Last week, Wadephul said that Germany was assessing “whether what is happening in Gaza is in line with international law” and that arms sales to Israel would be evaluated on this basis.
This brought criticism from some within Wadephul’s own CDU/CSU conservative alliance, who accused him of insufficient support for Israel.
Tomorrow, Wadephul will welcome his Israeli counterpart Gideon Sa’ar to Berlin.
Today’s parliamentary session is briefly disrupted by a protester shouting “Free Palestine” and “No to genocide,” who is then escorted from the spectators’ gallery.
Earlier, an MP for the far-left Die Linke party, Cansin Kokturk, was ordered to leave the chamber for wearing a T-shirt with the word “Palestine” on it.
Germany has been one of Israel’s strongest supporters as it tries to atone for the murder of more than six million Jewish people during the Holocaust.
However, conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz said last week: “I no longer understand what the Israeli army is now doing in the Gaza Strip, with what goal.”
He added that the impact on Gaza’s civilians “can no longer be justified by a fight against Hamas terrorism.”
Of course they are. As is Hamas at their end of Iran’s war against Israel.
[IsraelTimes] US President Donald Trump says “Iran has been slow-walking” in the ongoing nuclear talks.
“Time is running out on Iran’s decision pertaining to nuclear weapons, which must be made quickly!” Trump writes on Truth Social, saying he discussed the matter on a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier today.
The post was subsequently deleted.
“I stated to President Putin that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and, on this, I believe that we were in agreement,” Trump had written.
Trump said Putin offered to personally participate in the nuclear talks in order to help push them along.
[IsraelTimes] The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen take responsibility for launching the drone that was shot down by the Israeli Air Force over the Israel-Egypt border earlier this evening.
The Houthis claim to have launched two drones at Ben Gurion Airport in the attack, indicating that the second one likely crashed before reaching Israel.
[IsraelTimes] Eight civilians from Syria’s Alawite minority were shot dead by “security checkpoint personnel” on Wednesday in the central province of Hama, a war monitor says.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, of unclear funding, says that “security checkpoint personnel carried out a field execution of eight civilians, including three women, and injured five others — all Alawite, travelling in “a civilian passenger bus” in the western Hama countryside.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] Over a hundred pilgrims from North Ossetia went on the Hajj, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the republic reported. The cost of the trip in 2025 remained at the level of last year and amounted to 5,700 dollars.
Hajj is a pilgrimage to the Muslim holy sites in Mecca, and is one of the five main pillars of Islam. Pillars be fluffy...
Clearly a new use of the adjective. I’m not up on the latest slang, I see..
Every Muslim who has reached adulthood and has the opportunity to do so is required to perform the hajj at least once in their life. The pilgrimage to Mecca usually takes place at the beginning of the 12th month of the Muslim lunar calendar and ends with the feast of sacrifice, Eid al-Adha. In addition, there is the so-called "small hajj" - Umrah.
The cost of the Hajj for pilgrims from North Ossetia in 2024 remained at the level of last year and is $5,700 (almost 450 thousand rubles), a representative of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the republic told the " Caucasian Knot ". "The price has not changed, the same as it was last year," the source said.
In previous years, he said, the cost varied depending on the route: a combined program cost about $3,500, while a direct flight was more expensive. However, this year, he emphasized, there are no more combined programs. "Starting this year, all programs are direct only, that is, there are no more combined flights," the RSO-Alania DUM said.
Speaking about the reasons for the price increase compared to previous years, the speaker noted the increase in the cost of services from Saudi Arabia. "Saudi Arabia raised the price - for hotels, for all services. That is why the price level is like this," the representative of the DUM explained.
The quota for the Hajj for North Ossetia this year was 140 places. According to the source, 84 people went from the republic through the Spiritual Administration, and another 25 under a separate program intended for relatives of SVO participants. "There was enough space for everyone, everyone was included. Our quota for all our pilgrims is always enough," he assured.
The pilgrims who left via the DUM flew direct from Mineralnye Vody. Relatives of the SVO participants were heading to Saudi Arabia from Moscow via Dubai. "This year, relatives of the deceased went under the SVO program - either their parents, or brothers or sisters, one of them," the source added.
He specified that the pilgrims flew to Medina on a direct flight. The price includes roundtrip flights, accommodation in Medina, Mecca, Arafat and the Mina Valley, as well as two meals a day. "The pilgrims stayed in Medina for three days, and on the third day they set out for Mecca, performed Umrah, and now tomorrow [June 4] they are leaving for the Mina Valley," the representative of the spiritual administration said.
In 2024, 1,833,164 people performed Hajj, of which nearly 90% came from outside Saudi Arabia via sea, air and land ports, according to a report from the Saudi General Authority of Statistics. The pilgrims were mostly men, but 875,027 were women.
The Hajj remains one of the largest religious gatherings in the world and the fifth pillar of Islam, obligatory for every Muslim who is physically and financially able.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[KavkazUzel] FSB officers in Adygea detained a resident of the republic suspected of justifying international terrorist activity.
A criminal case has been opened against a 24-year-old local resident. According to investigators, he visited the resources of an international terrorist organization in the Telegram messenger, where he posted statements justifying terrorism.
In particular, he tried to justify the activities of an international terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation, the press service of the Russian Federal Security Service for the Republic reported.
That sounds like they aren’t saying ISIS…
The case is being investigated under the elements of a crime under Part 2 of Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code, TASS reports. The man faces up to five years in prison.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] In the Chelyabinsk region, police officers liquidated a large drug lab in which more than 427 kg of drugs were found. This was reported by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs Irina Volk on her Telegram channel.
"The operatives discovered an illegal production facility in a private home in the Kartalinsky District of the Chelyabinsk Region. There, two criminals were manufacturing a synthetic narcotic. In the laboratory itself, the police officers found more than 427 kg of narcotics and about 1 ton of precursors," she said in the publication.
Volk specified that the approximate value of the seized prohibited substances exceeds 1.5 billion rubles. According to her, about 1 million single doses of drugs did not reach consumers.
"They placed the drugs ready for sale in hiding places, from where they were picked up by couriers from other regions. Each cache was a large batch weighing 15-20 kg," Volk also reported.
The representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs added that the investigator of the Main Investigation Department of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Chelyabinsk Region initiated criminal cases under articles on attempted crime and illegal production, sale or shipment of drugs (Articles 30 and 228.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The criminal chemists are currently in custody.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in March, the Ministry of Internal Affairs also discovered two large drug labs in Ramenskoye near Moscow and seized about 200 kg of mephedrone worth about 800 million rubles. Two local residents and a native of the Orenburg region were detained. Investigators opened a criminal case. The defendants were taken into custody.
[GEO.TV] In a significant diplomatic victory, Pakistain has been named vice-chair of the United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... Security Council's (UNSC) Counter-Terrorism Committee, tasked with overseeing implementation of resolution 1373 (2001) concerning international anti-terror efforts, according to an official statement issued by Pakistain's mission to UN on Wednesday.
Islamabad has played an active role in promoting the principles and purposes of the UN Charter and made significant contributions to international peace and security, including its role as one of the leading troop-contributing countries to UN peacekeeping missions across the world. It was elected to the UN Security Council in June 2024 and replaced Japan in the Asian seat.
Pakistain had been one of the worst victims of terrorism for over two decades as the country loss more than 80,000 lives and thousands more injured.
Pakistain has time and again raised the issued of India sponsoring and backing terrorist groups such as Tehrik-e-Taliban ...mindless ferocity in a turban... Pakistain (TTP) and Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) to carry out attacks inside Pakistain.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2025
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
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.
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...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 
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
..always the voice of sweet reason...
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling 
...Arabic for 
...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...
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
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...They hit him with slander, they impeached him twice. Nancy Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address on national TV. They stole an election and put his adherents in jail. They vilified him. They couldn't crucify him, so they shot him. Still, they can't keep him down...
...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set. Currently the disease is only found in Pakistain and Afghanistain...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...mindless ferocity in a turban...
...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 
...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
