Posted by: Old Salty ||
04/04/2025 13:04
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#3
as Wall Street chaos sees trillions more dollars evaporate
Donald Trump blamed, blamers expect us to join them in hysteria. Me? While I’m not good with all that investing stuff, I expected volatility, at least some of which is due to people taking losses early rather than later. Also, someone somewhere yesterday mentioned the possibility of malicious selling — how much of the chaos and trillions result from people who can afford it punishing the rest of us for letting Trump get voted into office?
#4
Decades long overpriced equities hold a lot of money that belonged in safer investments over the years, forced into equities, by design, during the Obama 0 interest-rate years. It won't sweat out for a while, a series of descending plateau's, dead-cat bounces, and further drops. Seeing this coming, a lot of big boys went much wider all-cash positions in anticipation of the 4th Turning. Trump has the collective in this auto-rotation, hope he knows how and when to flair as capital re-investment begins to really blossom the wider job base early next year! FWIW....
[AnNahar] The Israeli occupation army launched Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on military airbases and infrastructure sites in the Syrian cities of Damascus, Hama and Homs as it carried out an incursion in the country’s south late on Wednesday.
The attack on Hama military airport almost completely destroyed the facility and led to dozens of injuries among civilians and military personnel, the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement.
The strikes targeted the military airport in Hama, and the vicinity of the scientific research center in the Barzeh neighborhood in Damascus, Syrian state media and officials said.
A Syrian military source told Rooters a dozen strikes demolished the runways, tower, arms depots and hangars at the military airport.
"Israel has completely destroyed Hama airbase to ensure it is not used. This is a systematic bombing to destroy the military capabilities of the country’s main airbases," the source said.
The Hama airbase west of the city is one of the country’s main airbases, used extensively during the 13-year-old conflict between Assad and the rebels before they ousted him.
The Israeli occupation military also said on Wednesday it targeted the T4 airbase in Homs province, which it has repeatedly hit over the past week.
INCURSION IN DARAA
Elsewhere in the southern province of Daraa, 10 people were killed overnight in festivities between Israeli occupation forces and local residents in the al-Jabaliya area, Syrian state media reported Thursday morning.
The bottom-color:gray;' title='clashes'>festivities erupted as the occupation forces carried out an incursion into the area, according to the state media in Syria.
[IsraelTimes] Police and Shin Bet agents arrested two Bedouin Israeli teenagers from the Negev on suspicion of plotting to steal weapons from IDF bases to carry out a terror attack, spokespeople for the agencies say in a joint statement.
The two suspects, aged 17 and 18, planned to sell some of the stolen weapons to “terrorist operatives” in the West Bank, and use what remained to “carry out security offenses against Israeli targets,” the statement reads. They are also suspected of attempting to recruit a minor into their plot.
The Southern District Attorney’s Office filed a “very serious” indictment against the pair today in the Beersheba District Juvenile Court, after a joint investigation by the Shin Bet and the police’s investigations and intelligence unit.
[IsraelTimes] An Israeli drone strike is reported to have targeted a residential building in the southern Lebanon city of Sidon overnight, killing three.
The pro-Hezbollah Al Mayadeen news outlet reports that senior Hamas operative Hassan Farhat was killed in the strike.
Footage from the scene of the strike shows one floor of the apartment block in flames, with smoke pouring out of it. The other floors appear to be relatively unscathed.
An Israeli drone later bombed a car in the southern town of Alma al-Shaab, wounding one person.
Earlier in the day, Israeli warplanes carried out several raids on the area around the border town of Naqoura and a strike on a prefabricated home in the town’s center.
The strikes also targeted a Hezbollah-affiliated rescue services center in Naqoura, hitting two ambulances and a firefighting vehicle and destroying a temporary health center.
[AnNahar] Two men have been arrested in Britain on suspicion of alleged links to Hezbollah, the BBC has reported.
“They were detained at separate addresses in London as part of an investigation by the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command into activity both overseas and in the UK of Hezbollah, which is a proscribed organization under UK counter-terrorism legislation,” the BBC said.
A 39-year-old man was arrested at an address in north-west London on Tuesday on suspicion of being a member of Hezbollah, police said. A 35-year-old man was arrested at a separate address in west London on suspicion of the same offense.
The 39-year-old is also suspected of preparing for “acts of terrorism and involvement in a funding arrangement for the purposes of terrorism,” police said.
The two men were taken to a London police station and later released on bail until a date in mid-July, the force said.
It added that there was not believed to be any imminent threat to the public.
[AnNahar] The Spanish Civil Guard has carried out an operation against a group of individuals accused of joining a Hezbollah logistics structure in Spain, Spanish media reports said.
The operation focused on a faction facilitating the procurement of spare parts for drone assembly, according to Spanish media.
This operation was part of ongoing investigations launched in July in Barcelona, which were carried out in cooperation with German authorities to dismantle “Hezbollah logistics networks responsible for manufacturing drones,” the reports said.
[IsraelTimes] The Trump administration is planning to halt more than half a billion dollars in contracts and grants awarded to Brown University, adding to a list of Ivy League colleges that have had their federal money threatened as a result of their responses to antisemitism, a White House official said Thursday.
Nearly $510 million in federal contracts and grants are on the line, said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the plan and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Separately, the US government set conditions that Harvard University must meet — including a mask ban and removal of diversity, equity and inclusion programs — to receive federal money. The conditions to Harvard were revealed in a letter seen by Reuters and the university confirmed receiving the letter.
In an email Thursday to campus leaders, Brown Provost Frank Doyle said the university was aware of “troubling rumors” about government action on its research money. “At this moment, we have no information to substantiate any of these rumors,” Doyle said.
Brown would be the fifth Ivy League college targeted by President Donald Trump’s administration, which is using federal money to enforce its agenda at colleges. Dozens of universities — including every Ivy League school except Penn and Dartmouth — are facing federal investigations into antisemitism following a wave of pro-Palestinian protests against Israel last year.
During last school year’s campus protests against Israel over the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 terror onslaught, Brown stood out for a deal it struck with student activists. In exchange for the students’ dismantling an encampment, the university committed to having its governing board vote on whether to divest from companies that protesters said were facilitating Israeli military control of Palestinian territories.
The Corporation of Brown rejected the divestment proposal.
#3
^ Some money to the University [wash] gets channeled to research grants [wash] which are run by donors [wash], institutions [wash] and political friends [wash] who feed it back in party donations and affiliated NGOs below the audit cap.
I ran afoul of a unregulated, unaudited University 'lending bank' which 'loaned' money for tuition, books and rent to foreign students with no local assets or domestic address who were thereby unable to get classic college loans.
#4
So then if one wanted to influence the moronic children of rich people, that money could be used to pay an agent's expenses while that agent, under the guise of a student, sets up cells.
Then those tainted automatons get placed in key positions because family name and college pedigree.
[IsraelTimes] Foreign Minister Saaralso says both Jerusalem and Paris interested in stable Lebanon, preventing Iran from acquiring nukes, after meeting French counterpart in Paris
Israel is ready to end the war in Gaza “tomorrow” in exchange for the release of hostages and an end to Hamas’s presence in Gaza, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said Thursday after meeting his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot in Paris.
“The way is very simple,” Sa’ar said, “hostages back, Hamas out.”
“We are still giving a chance to negotiations to extend the ceasefire and release our hostages on the basis of [US special envoy Steve] Witkoff’s proposal, but it is not open-ended,” he warned, referencing a proposal that would secure the release of five Israeli hostages.
Also Thursday, Sa’ar said both Israel and France are “interested in the stability of Lebanon, the continuation of the ceasefire, and the release of Lebanon from Iranian occupation,” referring to Iran’s hold over Hezbollah.
France is a “friendly country,” Sa’ar stressed, adding that he invited Barrot to visit Israel.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron last week said Israeli strikes on Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon were unjustified after the IDF struck targets belonging to the terror group in response to rocket fire at Israel.
Under the November ceasefire which ended over a year of Hezbollah-instigated fighting, the terror group was obligated to pull its forces north of the Litani River, about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from the Israeli border, and dismantle any remaining military infrastructure in the south, while the Lebanese army deployed to control the area.
Israel, meanwhile, was obligated to withdraw its forces from southern Lebanon within 60 days. The withdrawal deadline was pushed off, with Lebanese and US approval, to February 18. Israel eventually withdrew from all of Lebanon except for five strategic posts along the border.
Touching on Iran’s uranium enrichment, Sa’ar said Thursday that Israel and France share a “common” goal of preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Western countries, including the United States, have long accused Iran — which is sworn to Israel’s destruction — of pursuing a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has denied, insisting its enrichment activities were solely for peaceful purposes.
Iran has ramped up its enrichment of uranium up to 60 percent purity, the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so, and has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities.
“The most extremist regime in the world shouldn’t possess the most dangerous weapon in the world,” Sa’ar told reporters.
Israel is the region’s sole, if undeclared, nuclear-armed state. It has long made preventing any rival from matching this capability its top defense priority.
Iran has twice in the past year fired large barrages of missiles and drones at Israel in support of its terror proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen.
In response, Israel struck Iranian facilities, including missile factories and air defenses. That reduced Tehran’s conventional military capabilities, according to analysts and US officials, an assessment disputed by Tehran.
Sa’ar stressed that Iran was a threat to the entire region and not just to Israel, adding Israel was in talks with France, Britain, and the United States.
“We don’t exclude a diplomatic path with Iran,” he added.
Concern is mounting as talks with Iran appear to have reached an impasse, while the window for negotiating a new treaty with Tehran is set to close in the fall. Key aspects of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal that Iran signed with world powers in 2015, are due to expire in October. US President Donald Trump already took the US out of the deal during his last mandate.
On Wednesday, Barrot warned that a military confrontation with Iran would be “almost inevitable” if talks over Tehran’s nuclear program failed.
Trump said in early March he had written to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to call for nuclear negotiations and warn of possible military action if Tehran refused. He has threatened that Iran will be bombed if it persists in developing nuclear weapons. Khamenei has promised to hit back.
Reflecting Israeli concerns about Turkish influence in Syria, Sa’ar accused Ankara of playing a “negative role” there, in Lebanon, and other regions.
“They are doing their utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate. It’s clear that is their intention,” he said.
Turkey was a strong backer of groups opposed to Bashar al-Assad during the country’s 13-year civil war and is considered to be one of the new administration’s key allies.
[IsraelTimes] Turkey demands Israel withdraw from Syria and says it must stop harming stabilization efforts there, after Israel stepped up airstrikes in the neighboring country and accused Turkey of trying to turn Syria into a Turkish protectorate.
“Israel has become the greatest threat to regional security” and is a “strategic destabilizer, causing chaos and feeding terrorism,” the foreign ministry in Ankara says.
“Therefore, in order to establish security throughout the region, Israel must first abandon its expansionist policies, withdraw from the territories it occupies, and stop undermining efforts to establish stability in Syria,” it adds.
[AnNahar] France has proposed a mediation aimed at replacing Israeli forces with peacekeepers from the French UNIFIL contingent on the five strategic hills Israel is still occupying in south Lebanon, sources told Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath television.
“France backs Lebanon’s inclination to devise a timeframe for the handover of Hezbollah’s weapons,” the sources added.
“France wants the ceasefire supervision committee in Lebanon to oversee the negotiations over the land border and the captives,” the sources went on to say.
The sources also revealed that the committee’s work is still ongoing despite the suspension of its meetings for two weeks now, adding that “France is communicating with Israel and the U.S. to adopt the diplomatic choice in Lebanon rather than the military.”
[IsraelTimes] Amid crackdown on military indiscipline, IDF said to call off raid near Bethlehem after soldiers in the area found to have vandalized Palestinian property
Israeli forces killed one Paleostinian and injured two others who had hurled explosives at Israeli soldiers during an overnight raid in the northern West Bank, the IDF said Thursday.
The incident occurred during a combined counterterrorism raid conducted by the IDF, Shin Bet and police forces.
Soldiers from the Nahal Brigade responded to the attacks in Silat al-Harithiya, near Jenin, and successfully neutralized the threat, the IDF said, adding that there were no Israeli casualties.
According to the statement, security forces also arrested eight wanted individuals and seized two homemade "Carlo" submachine guns. The detainees and weapons were handed over to the Shin Bet and Israeli police for further investigation.
The raids were part of an ongoing Israeli effort in the West Bank, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, which was launched on January 21 and has since seen hundreds of arrests.
Also overnight, the IDF reportedly called off a raid in the Deheisha refugee camp near Bethlehem after troops were caught vandalizing Paleostinian property and spray painting graffiti in homes.
Kan news reported Thursday that the soldiers, reservists tasked with erasing anti-Israel graffiti, defaced property with their own markings, despite being explicitly instructed to remove incendiary messages, not to create new ones that could further inflame tensions.
However,
if you can't say something nice about a person some juicy gossip will go well... photos taken by Paleostinian residents reportedly showed the defacement of walls by Israeli soldiers with their own graffiti, including Stars of David over the Arabic slogans, and drawings of rifles.
Upon receiving the images, Brigade Commander Col. "Gimmel" — identified only by his rank and first Hebrew initial — and Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brig. Gen. Yaki Dolf immediately ordered the mission to be halted, withdrawing the soldiers from the area, Kan reported.
According to the report, the IDF has since opened an investigation to determine which soldiers violated orders.
The action appears to be part of a wider effort by new IDF chief of Staff Eyal Zamir to crack down on such acts of vandalism and restore military discipline that has become visibly lax over the last year and a half of war.
Last weekend, the IDF handed down punishments to several officers and troops for defacing Paleostinian property during an unwarranted search of the southern West Bank village of Jinba.
Media reports said that Zamir himself went to Jinba to investigate the incident.
As the IDF intensifies its counterterrorism operations, the region remains in a fragile state, with a rise in settler violence.
On Tuesday, a mob of some 50 Israeli settlers attacked homes in the northern West Bank village of Duma, setting property ablaze and assaulting residents. Three Paleostinians were reportedly injured in the attack.
The Israel Defense Forces says troops from the 636th Combat Intelligence Collection Unit opened fire at a “number of terrorists throwing rocks toward Route 375” near the village of Husan, killing one and wounding another.
[CampusReform] President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... ’s administration has suspended $210 million in funds to Princeton University in New Jersey after Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Dr. Zachary Marschall filed a civil rights complaint against the school over anti-Semitism.
Marschall’s complaint, filed in January 2024, claimed that the school took no serious steps to combat anti-Semitism after the Oct. 7 Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... massacre of Jewish civilians. He stated, for example, that students protested against the Jewish state only weeks after the massacre, chanting messages like "Brick by brick, wall by wall, apartheid has got to fall," and calling for an "Intifada."
Marschall’s complaint led the Department of Education—then under former President Joe The Big Guy Biden ...46th president of the U.S. I'm not working for you. Don't be such a horse's ass.... —to start investigating the Ivy League university in April 2024. The investigation was one of 16 that were started as a result of Marschall’s Title VI complaints, with other colleges such as Brown University and Tufts University also finding themselves under federal scrutiny.
A news hound for The Daily Caller News Foundation announced the $210 million funding freeze on Monday, stating that it resulted from the investigation that started under Biden’s Department of Education, which is now continuing under President Trump.
The $210 million makes up almost 50 percent of federal funds that the Ivy League school receives, The Daily Princetonian reported.
On March 19, Princeton leaders called for "holistic spending restraint" due to negative attention from the White House—among other reasons—and announced that Princeton will cut down on hiring and raises, as well as potentially eliminate funding for certain projects, the Princetonian wrote.
It’s a double opinion, actually: the columnist writes about Batya Ungar-Sargon — the self-described lefty MAGA journalist, whom we last saw explaining it all to Bill Maher — talking about the Trump tariffs.
[PJMedia] It's true that Ungar-Sargon is a lefty and, like my hippie friends, she holds fast to her left-leaning principles, as I do my conservative ones. But she has a charismatic, infectious clarity when she speaks, and though I've only just heard of her, she's already pulled me out into new intellectual territory and opened my eyes to even more swaths of common ground with our pro-Trump allies on the left.
This cheerful, brilliant woman went on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" earlier this week and explained Trump's Liberation Day tariff regime within the framework of class warfare — and it's not the traditional Marxist-narrative class warfare of the haves vs. the have-nots that you're used to. It's the true communist version, where the elites decimate the middle class and force them into serfdom along with the already entrapped poor. It's the opposite of the American dream, where everything is possible no matter who you are or where you come from. And in pointing all this out, Ungar-Sargon brilliantly details the normal-people union between left and right that is MAGA.
I'll post the video at the end of this article because I recommend you watch the whole thing. Meanwhile, here is Ms. Ungar-Sargon's preamble to her fascinating remarks to her fellows on the panel, some pro-Trump and some real haters:
What I find so frustrating about the conversation around tariffs is that we all agree on the problem. We all agree that the de-industrialization of America led to the downward mobility of the American working class, deaths of despair, people working multiple jobs and not being able to afford the American dream. We all agree that it is deeply unfair for the American middle class to be bearing the burden of unfair tariffs from other countries. We all agree that it is great for the President to have leverage in order to demand reasonable things, like that country stop allowing fentanyl to murder 100,000 Americans every year, and that Mexico do its part to police its own border. And yet, when somebody has the courage to show up and say to Wall Street, "Screw you. I am waging war. I'm waging class warfare on behalf of the American working class, and you elites on Wall Street, you do what you need to do, because I'm not going to stop fighting for the American working class." Suddenly, everybody is sitting around going, "Oh no, the stock market!" Yeah, the stock market looks like that because the rich are punishing Trump for siding with the neglected and humiliated American working class over them.
[X]
Here's the truth about tariffs: For 60 years they destroyed the American working class to funnel money upwards into the pockets of the rich. Donald Trump is the first president in generations to tell Wall Street to screw itself—he's for the working men and women of this country. pic.twitter.com/sCZRFeITYh
[PJMedia] After weeks of the mainstream media and the Democrats pushing the narrative that Trump has been a disaster for the economy, the March jobs report just blew that narrative out of the water. If this report tells us anything, it's that after just a few short months of cleaning up the disastrous Biden-Harris mess, America is back
According to the report, the U.S. economy added a whopping 228,000 jobs in March, a tremendous vindication of Trump’s America First policies—far exceeding the 140,000 jobs that economists had predicted.
Health care led the charge, adding 54,000 jobs across ambulatory care, hospitals, and nursing facilities—exactly the kind of growth that strengthens essential services. Social assistance also outperformed expectations, bringing in 24,000 new jobs, with a major boost from individual and family services.
Retail also made a comeback in March, adding 24,000 jobs as food and beverage stores rebounded. Transportation and warehousing saw a significant jump as well, adding 23,000 jobs—nearly double the sector’s average monthly gain—driven by increased demand for couriers and trucking.
Wages continued their upward trend. Average hourly earnings rose by 9 cents in March, bringing the yearly increase to 3.8%, while production and nonsupervisory workers also saw gains. Meanwhile, the average workweek held firm, suggesting employers are maintaining steady hours for their workforce.
What makes this even more impressive? This happened while Elon Musk was busy draining the swamp through the Department of Government Efficiency. For weeks now, the narrative has been that Trump and Musk were killing jobs. Well, how ridiculous does that narrative sound now?
Naturally, left-wing media outlets tried desperately to put a negative spin on the news.
“March’s report marks another solid month of job gains and a continuation of a historic expansion of the labor market,” CNN reported. “Whether that continues, however, remains to be seen. Recent economic data has indicated that uncertainty and layoffs are on the rise amid some monumental policy shifts from the Trump administration.”
The timing of this report delivered another crushing blow to the Democrats, as it comes mere days after Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on countries that unfairly take advantage of the United States. Democrats have been predicting for weeks that Trump was going to tank the economy with his tariff threats. The March jobs report proves his America First policies are working.
Here's what really matters: After just three months of Trump's leadership, we're seeing real economic growth again. The Biden-Harris administration left us a struggling economy, and we’re starting to see things turn around.
Lord Garth went straight to the source; linking to the BLS March report, he summarizes:
[Breitbart] Visibility was as low as a quarter-mile in fog and neither ship involved had a dedicated lookout in the ramming of a U.S. wartime supply aviation fuel tanker off the coast of England, accident investigators say.
The United Kingdom’s Maritime Accident Investigation Board (MAIB) has released an interim report into the March 10th collision between container ship Solong and U.S.-flagged chemical tanker Stenna Immaculate, revealing new details about the incident. Among them are security-camera stills recording the moment of impact, with the two ships catching fire.
The Stenna Immaculate was at anchor at the time of the incident, having arrived the previous day and was awaiting a free berth at a nearby marine terminal to unload its cargo, the equivalent of 220,000 oil barrels of jet fuel. The Solong, meanwhile, was proceeding south on its regular route delivering containerised general freight.
Despite visibility at sea “reported to be patchy” on the morning of the collision, and at times as little as 0.25 nautical miles (.28 miles), neither the anchored or underway vessel had “had a dedicated lookout on the bridge”, MAIB states. Both ships were found to be well above their minimum crewing requirement and the captain of the Solong, a Russian citizen, was logged as on the bridge at the time of the incident.
As MAIB note of the body’s own purpose, the “sole objective” of their investigation is to prevent future accidents, and their reports apportion no blame and are inadmissible in court. Nevertheless, in terms of learning those lessons, the body said as its investigation goes forwards they will be considering the navigation and watchkeeping practices of the vessels, as well as how the crew and fatigue may have contributed to events.
One person was killed in the incident. MAIB says Able seaman Mark Pernia was believed to have been on the bow of the Solong at the time of the smash, the worst-impacted area. His body was never found, efforts to find him immediately after the collision being “hampered by the severity of the fire”.
Maritime incidents of this magnitude are relatively rare and getting rarer, in general, and particularly in the waters of developed nations. This event gained a much greater magnitude of public attention after it was revealed one of the ships involved, the rammed party, was one of only a handful of U.S.-flagged and owned fuel supply ships contracted to be available to deliver supplies in case of emergency or war.
Interest was further focussed after it was revealed the captain of the vessel that smashed into the stationary U.S. tanker is a Russian citizen. He has been arrested and is being investigated on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.
[Breitbart] A lack of training, qualifications and experience among the crew on board a New Zealand navy ship that ran aground, caught fire and sank off the coast of Samoa have been identified by a military Court of Inquiry in a final report released Friday as contributing to the disaster.
The deficiencies were among a dozen failings of the crew, ship and New Zealand’s Navy that contributed to the loss of the HMNZS Manawanui in October 2024, the 120-page report said. An interim report last November had already divulged that the ship´s crew didn´t realize the vessel was on autopilot and believed something else had gone wrong as it plowed toward a reef.
All 75 people on board evacuated to safety as the boat foundered about 1.6 kilometers (a mile) off the coast of Upolu, Samoa’s second largest island. The ship was one of only nine in New Zealand´s navy and was the first the country lost at sea since World War II.
Officials did not immediately know the cause of the sinking and the Court of Inquiry was ordered to find out. Insufficient training, lack of qualified personnel on board and inadequate risk management, were among a raft of problems uncovered in its findings released Friday.
The report also underlined the so-called hollowness of New Zealand’s navy – which prompted the organization to “take risks” to meet demands “with a lean and inexperienced workforce,” its authors wrote.
“It’s an indictment on the fact that our navy was left in quite a perilous state,” Defense Minister Judith Collins told reporters in Auckland Friday. The whole of the country’s military needed a “serious uplift,” she added.
The state of New Zealand´s aging military hardware has prompted several warnings from the defense agency, which in a March 2024 report described the navy as “extremely fragile,” with ships idle due to problems retaining the staff needed to service and maintain them.
The Court of Inquiry could not make findings of guilt, it said, and suggested a separate disciplinary investigation for individual members of the crew who were not named in the report. Their suggested offenses were redacted.
The report included a dramatic transcript of what unfolded on the bridge, with one crew member saying to another that the ship was “not really doing what I want it to do” as they tried to change the vessel’s course.
“It’s a bad day for the navy,” said Rear Admiral Garin Golding, the leader of the navy. “Our reputation has taken a hit.”
The navy would “learn from” the episode and ensure it wasn’t repeated, he added. Friday´s findings, however, also urged recognition for those involved in the decision to abandon ship, who the report found saved lives during the evacuation.
The specialist dive and hydrographic vessel had been in service for New Zealand since 2019 and was surveying the reef that it ran aground on. Its sinking provoked alarm, demands for compensation and fear of environmental catastrophe for Samoan villagers living on the coast where it capsized, who say they fear permanent damage to the fragile reef ecosystem.
A no-fishing zone around the vessel was lifted by Samoa’s government in February.
New Zealand’s military said this month that it had completed months of work to remove diesel fuel and other pollutants from the ship, which remains where it sank. Salvage work to retrieve equipment and weapons continues.
Seawater and marine life in the area are “uncontaminated”, the military said, citing Samoa’s scientific research agency. A decision about whether the ship will eventually be removed has not been made.
#1
Tried to use the manuvering thrusters and engine controls while on autopilot. Strangely, that didn't work.
This ship was 11% of the NZ Navy.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/04/2025 19:42
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#2
a New Zealand navy ship that ran aground, caught fire and sank off
Ran aground, caught fire, and sank - that is like the trifecta of pooch pooching, and is generally considered bad seamanship. Given this is NZ, we might be talking seapersonship, which could explain a lot.
[WaPo via Rooters via Yahoo] The director of the U.S. National Security Agency was fired on Thursday, the Washington Post reported, citing two current and one former U.S. officials.
Timothy Haugh, who is also head of U.S. Cyber Command, was dismissed along with his deputy at the NSA, Wendy Noble, the newspaper said.
Noble was reassigned to a job within the Pentagon's office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, the newspaper said. The NSA is part of the U.S. Defense Department
The current and former officials cited by the Washington Post said they did not know the reason for Haugh’s dismissal or Noble’s reassignment.
U.S. Cyber Command deputy William Hartmann was named acting NSA director and Sheila Thomas, who was the executive director at the NSA, was named acting deputy, newspaper said.
The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Democrat Jim Himes, a ranking member of the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee condemned Haugh's firing. Warner is definitely Deep State ground zero
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2025
07:33 ||
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Haugh’s removal as director of the NSA, the nation’s primary cyber espionage and electronic eavesdropping agency, comes on the same day at least three White House National Security Council staffers reportedly also were shown the door.
The ousted NSA director’s civilian deputy, Wendy Noble, was also let go Thursday, according to the Washington Post, citing current and former US officials.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2025 7:46
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#2
Heads a rollin'. Nice.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
04/04/2025 8:42
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#8
Any connection to the overheard Signal conversation?
An interesting question!
My first guess is a general housecleaning. But I would be interesting in hearing more. Like, why is the FedGov using a janky commercial app for semi-important conversations?
[Facebook] Heritage legal expert Paul J. Larkin testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts today and gave one of the best explanations on the abuses of nationwide injunctions you will ever hear.
“The practice of issuing nationwide injunctions outside the confines of a certified nationwide class action is mistaken as a matter of law and unwise as a matter of policy.”
[GatewayPundit] The corrupt Biden DOJ pressured at least two Jan 6ers to lie about Ray Epps and then punished them when they refused.
Stewart Rhodes and Ryan Samsel were targeted and pressured by the corrupt Obama/Biden DOJ to lie and say that Ray Epps was a good man and patriot on Jan 6. Neither would do it, and as a consequence, both were severely punished.
Stewart was with the Oath Keepers and hadn’t seen Epps for years. The corrupt DOJ wanted Rhodes to lie and make statements about Epps that were not true.
Ryan Samsel was pressured by the DOJ to say nice things about Ray Epps and he was punished when he refused. Six men beat him so bad that he received a broken eye socket and broken jaw!
Tweets with videos of the two gentlemen being interviewed can be watched at the link.
[GatewayPundit] President Trump was forced to switch helicopters due to a ‘wheel issue.’
Trump departed DC en route to Florida on Thursday evening. The President will first visit his Doral golf club to attend a LIV dinner and then fly to Palm Beach to end the evening at Mar-a-Lago.
The President arrived at Miami International Airport Thursday afternoon, ready to board Marine One en route to his Doral golf club, when he was forced to switch helicopters.
Trump, wearing a red hat, was spotted walking across the tarmac to another helicopter.
#2
If a pilot feels that the aircraft is unsafe in one way or another, he/she has the discretion to scrub the flight until the problem is rectified.
Pretty standard procedure and not so 'Scary', although Skid does note what could be considered concerning.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/04/2025 8:00
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#3
Brand-new aircraft and fastidious maintenance tradition by the Marine Corps make a flat tire suspicious. Most obviously, it removes the redundancy factor the USSS uses to deter anyone knowing what aircraft POTUS uses until the last moment.
[Jpost] A labor strike among waste collectors has led to a major incident being declared in the United Kingdom, as 17,000 tonnes of trash have piled high in Birmingham, England’s second-largest city.
Birmingham City Council described the ongoing situation as “regrettable,” according to Sky News.
Despite the sanitary conditions of the city causing a public health concern, picket lines continue to prevent waste vehicles from accessing depots and or collecting trash.
National Invasive Species Awareness Week (Feb. 24-28, 2025) is here to remind us that some of the biggest ecological nightmares are critters that don’t belong here.
#10
National Invasive Species Awareness Week ... is here to remind us that some of the biggest ecological nightmares are critters that don’t belong here.
Critters wander around all the time. The fundamental problem with invasive species is that no one is eating them.
Wait, when you say 'invasive species', do you mean migrants?
Expanding the lens beyond the human interest of those fired.
[ZeroHedge] The first stage of cuts to Health and Human Services (HHS) have begun with 10,000 employees slated to be fired in the coming weeks. Pink slips have been replaced with emails and deactivated key cards as workers line up at HHS offices across the country to find out if they still have a job. The establishment media is out in force to paint a tragic narrative of "public servants" who only want to do good for less fortunate souls no unable to fulfill their calling. It's all quite dramatic.
The HHS currently employs around 82,000 people within 10 regional offices and the average income for a worker is around $100,000 with benefits. The majority of them are pencil pushers and social workers, not doctors or scientists making grand discoveries in medical technology.
Keep in mind that the HHS was partly involved in the funding of gain of function research by EcoHealth Alliance, which, in conjunction with projects run by Dr. Peter Daszak and Dr. Anthony Fauci at the NIH, reportedly led to the creation of human transmissible coronaviruses at the Wuhan Level 4 Virology Lab in China (ground zero for Covid).
The annual budget of the HHS is $1.8 trillion - It accounts for around 20% of all federal dollars spent every year and tracking where this immense pool of cash goes is far more complex than the shady operations of USAID. The agency is, by any measure, a monstrosity. Cuts are intended to hit the FDA, CDC, and the NIH, all under the umbrella of the HHS.
A large portion of programs instituted by HHS tap into pandemic funds set aside during covid (yes, the covid cash is still floating around after 5 years). This money goes to support numerous programs that the majority of Americans voted against, including DEI programs, illegal immigrant programs and gender affirming care programs (gender based care for minors was indeed pursued by the HHS).
Democrats in at least 23 states are taking action to sue the Trump Administration over the budget cuts and layoffs. In the lawsuit, filed Tuesday, the states are seeking a temporary restraining order and injunctive relief to immediately halt the administration’s funding cuts that they say will lead to key public health services being discontinued and thousands of health-care workers losing their jobs.
The civil suits are unlikely to make much difference in the end, just as they failed to stop the cuts to USAID. The HHS, now under the management of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is expected to undergo unprecedented changes in the coming months and a level of accountability the institution has probably never dealt with before.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago. HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again,” the agency said in a statement last week.
#2
Anyone in the entire government who is 'stunned' to be discharged at this point is nothing but a fool.
It's been going on for over a month. You should have took the buy-out.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/04/2025 19:46
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#3
You should have took the buy-out.
Kind of a pity they don't get a 2nd bite at that apple. I bet a whole lot of them would "self-deport" given a chance to rethink. Or would they? Virtue signaling vs self-interest - stay and cosplay as The Resistance or take the cash? Life is so difficult!
[ZeroHedge] Goldman analysts Brooke Roach, Kate McShane, and others earlier today provided clients with a breakdown of Trump's reciprocal tariffs:
On April 2nd, President Trump announced reciprocal tariffs. This includes a 10% tariff increase on all countries (excluding Mexico and Canada) and a higher rate of increase on select countries with trade deficits, set to take effect on April 5th and April 9th, respectively.
We believe the most material impact to our retail coverage from the announcement is the increase in tariffs on key sourcing partners for retail such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Cambodia.
China: Tariffs on China move to 54% (a 34% increase vs. the 20% tariff already in effect).
Tariffs broadened to key sourcing partners: Tariffs on other key sourcing partners for U.S. retail are set to be implemented, including Vietnam (46%), Indonesia (32%), Bangladesh (37%), Italy (20%), India (27%), and Cambodia (49%). Imports from the European Union will also be subject to a 20% tariff.
Canada and Mexico: The announcement maintains tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Exemptions under USMCA will remain, which exempt compliant products from the 25% tariff rate on both countries. Should current orders be terminated, USMCA compliant products would receive preferential treatment while non-USMCA compliant goods would be tariffed at a 12% rate.
Material increase to softlines tariff rate overall: On our calculations, the announcement implies a ~38% weighted average tariff rate for total apparel and footwear imports to the U.S.
Given the tariff breakdown and timeline, Roach and McShane provided clients with a "China Tariff-O-Meter," highlighting companies in their retail coverage whose supply chains are heavily exposed to China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Cambodia.
From their Softlines coverage, companies such as Warby Parker, Torrid Holdings, Groupe Dynamite, Nike, Yeti Coolers, and SharkNinja have high exposure to China and other Asian countries targeted by Trump's upcoming round of tariffs. In other words, the products from these companies entering U.S. ports in the coming days will be subjected to sizeable tariffs.
In their Hardline coverage, companies such as Floor & Decor, Lowe's, RH, Williams-Sonoma, Target, Dick's Sporting Goods, Dollar Tree, and Five Below have elevated or high supply chain exposure to China or other Asian countries.
#2
With the possible exception of Lowe's, Not A Problem. And that's only because they're closer.
And don't forget about Harbor Freight, where literally everything came from China except the clerks.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/04/2025 13:09
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#3
^ Or that cheap crap from Temu
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/04/2025 13:10
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#5
Some of my feeds are like, "Come purchase your overseas ammo (PMC, for example) before tariffs take place."
Other feeds, "The reason your new Nintendo Switch will be more expensive and hard to find is because Trump tariffs." Sure, OK, whatever.
And a third, "Wall Street has lost $10 Trillion! because Trump tariffs!!#@!", from the Occupy Wall Street associates, natch.
Now, if you remember, something similar with Ammo happened with the Obama ban on overseas/Russian ammo and etc. and -Iam Malcomlm- "Life found a way." Maybe Lake City, example, gears it up. The catch might be Prvi Partizan which makes some 'off broadway' sizes.
[ZeroHedge] President Donald Trump teased another explosive revelation from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as Democrats and legacy media escalate their ongoing campaign against the cost-cutting initiative and its leader, Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
While speaking with the press aboard Air Force One en route to South Florida for the weekend, Trump said: "They found something today that's horrible,” adding. “You'll find out very soon. What they found is incredible."
[ZeroHedge] European authorities were able to shut down one of the largest online child abuse networks in the world last month in an operation that is set to be the catalyst for the potential arrests of over 1 million pedophiles worldwide. Europol officials confirmed that Operation Stream was successfully able to the take child pornography platform Kidflix offline, which has thus far led to the arrest of 79 suspects involved in the distribution of child sex abuse material. The operation was led by the State Criminal Police of Bavaria and Bavarian Central Office For The Prosecution Of Cybercrime in tandem with Europol and other law enforcement agencies worldwide. Authorities carried out raids at 96 locations, targeting 103 different suspects across 31 countries. The network was the largest to be taken down by Europol in its history but marks only the beginning of the fight to bring the perpetrators of child sex abuse who were using the site to justice.
Kidflix hosted approximately 91,000 videos on its peer-to-peer network that enabled pedophiles to share child pornography, making it one of the largest operating child abuse network to be identified on the Dark Web. The 91,000 child sex abuse videos on the website totaled a runtime of over 6,288 hours, with 3.5 new videos being uploaded on average every hour. Since its creation in 2021, the website operating out of Germany enabled pedophiles across the globe to not only stream, share, and download child pornography but to profit from its distribution by enabling payments made via on-site tokens purchased with cryptocurrency. 1.8 million users worldwide visited the site over the course of Operation Stream between April 2022 and March 2025, foreshadowing many more arrests to follow.
In addition to the 79 suspects arrested to date, law enforcement agencies have identified another 1,393 as they broaden the scope of their investigations. Several of the suspects taken into custody have been implicated in the direct abuse of children and production of child pornography. German officials leading Operation Stream seized over 3,000 electronic devices connected to the network, including hard drives taken by German and Dutch law enforcement with around 72,000 videos alone.
Analysis of child sex abuse material hosted on the Dark Web website by the European Cybercrime Centre aided in the rescue of 39 children who were victims of the pedophile network. One of the children rescued by Operation Stream was the child of one of the pedophile network's members who offered his son to pedophiles using Kidflix. This disturbing revelation that was integral to the success of operation came to light in January 2024 when German police arrested the 36 year-old man in the city of Chemnitz according to Guido Limmer, deputy head of the Bavarian Criminal Police. Although information on the other suspects identified as part of Operation Stream is sparse, Limmer stated that investigators had also been able to identify a serial abuser in the United States.
The probe has been confirmed to have led to the arrest of 2 Canadian nationals. The Saskatchewan Internet Child Exploitation Unit announced the arrest of 23 year-old Edmund James Bellegarde Jr. after the execution of a search warrant in connection to his activity of Kidflix uncovered several electronic devices with child sex abuse material. Bellegarde Jr. has been charged with possession of child pornography and accessing child pornography and is set to appear in court on May 14th. Edmonton Police also confirmed the arrest of a 36 year-old man as part of Operation Stream. Though authorities did not release the name of the suspect, he is set to appear in court to face charged of possession of child pornography, accessing child pornography, and distributing child pornography. Despite the gravity of the Edmonton man's crimes, he has been released from police custody until his April 14th court date.
Operation Stream involved a total of 38 countries worldwide whose collective efforts were able to take Kidflix off of the Dark Web. Domestic law enforcement agencies involved in the operation spanned across Europe but also included the Department Of Homeland Security in the United States as well as others in Australia, Canada, Colombia, and New Zealand, highlighting the global reach of Kidflix and scope of the locations of pedophiles who used the platform.
#2
/\ Never gonna happen. Epstein and Maxwell were running a bilateral intelligence recruitment operation. "Grassy knoll" spotter will be revealed before Little Saint James facts are known.
[JustTheNews] The Food and Drug Administration is "finished." One of its leading boosters for accelerated approval of mediocre drugs left in a huff. Drug stocks are dropping.
The shared interests of regulators and the industry they often join after or between federal service became unmistakable in the past week amid the Trump administration's extreme makeover of the federal public health workforce and leadership.
It suggests the Big Pharma gravy train is derailing, and its passengers in and out of government are panicking, prophesying and pulling out in a flurry of sky-is-falling predictions, ad hominem attacks and investors fleeing companies whose novel therapeutics seem unlikely to keep zipping through emergency and full approvals.
Days after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced HHS would cut another 10,000 jobs for a total reduction of 20,000 – 24% of its workforce – its National Institutes of Health reportedly put five chiefs on administrative leave late Monday.
Two of them lead the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which funded Chinese research that may have unleashed SARS-CoV-2, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded gruesome transgender mice research and whose clinical director crusades for puberty blockers for gender-confused kids.
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya told staff Tuesday, when he was sworn in, that the reductions would require "an entirely new approach" to "communications, legislative affairs, procurement, and human resources" at NIH, which he'll focus on reproducibility, rigor, transparency and academic freedom, according to his email obtained by Nature.
NIH Deputy Director of Public Affairs Amanda Fine told Just the News on Thursday to file a Freedom of Information Act request for the email because "it’s considered an official record."
Some agency leaders were offered far-away transfers to the Indian Health Service, according to Nature, which said mass layoffs primarily targeted administrative staff. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention top officials were given the same IHS offer to relocate far from its Atlanta base, NOTUS reported.
"The FDA as we've known it is finished, with most of the leaders with institutional knowledge and a deep understanding of product development and safety no longer employed," former FDA Commissioner Robert Califf, known for hiding vaccine safety and efficacy data and promoting low-quality studies to justify federal recommendations, wrote on LinkedIn.
Califf worked as a part-time adviser, then full-time head of medical strategy and policy for Google parent Alphabet between serving as FDA commissioner in the Obama and Biden administrations. FDA ethics officers blessed departing COVID vaccine reviewers to influence the agency "behind the scenes" for their new employer, Moderna.
Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb, the first Trump administration's commissioner, warned this "cumulative barrage" on drug discovery "threatens to swiftly bring back those frustrating delays for American consumers" before the U.S. overtook Europe in drug innovation, "particularly affecting rare diseases and areas of significant unmet medical need."
Earlier wailing portrayed the slashing of indirect-cost payments on top of federal grants – which are far more generous than what private foundations pay and allegedly enrich administrators at the expense of researchers – as a mortal threat to scientific and medical progress.
Modern drug development has a poor track record for the time and money required, with 90% of drug candidates that make it to phase 1 clinical trials failing, not including failures in preclinical stages, and a 10-15 year process that costs $1-2 billion per approved drug, according to a 2022 peer-reviewed study by University of Michigan and Bristol Myers Squibb researchers.
University of California San Francisco epidemiologist Vinay Prasad showed little sympathy for the cuts to "bad science," such as erroneous practices by Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that he estimates cost taxpayers "hundreds of billions" a year.
"If any company wants to make an oral COVID vaccine" – Vaxart's trial now seems doomed – they should not receive federal money and the FDA should force them to "power their trial for hard endpoints," which would likely scare off investors, he said.
[JustTheNews] House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is threatening to sue Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott for having yet to schedule a special election to fill the seat of fellow Democrat Texas Rep. Sylvester Turner, who died last month.
Jeffries said in a Wednesday interview with NBC News that Democrats would “very likely" pursue legal action against Abbott.
He and other Democrats think Abbott is deliberately delaying holding the election. The seat cannot be filled until a special election for it is held and a winner is declared.
Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris said in a statement: “An announcement on a special election will be made at a later date.”
Turner died March 5. He was 70.
Christian Menefee, a Democrat and attorney who said he would run for Turner's congressional seat, also threatened legal action.
"Abbott’s silence is suppression," Menefee wrote on the social media platform X. "Doing nothing is disenfranchising. Time to fight!"
Texas law doesn’t appear to have a deadline to call a special election after such a vacancy, NBC also reports. Special elections typically take place in already-scheduled elections in Texas. The deadline to have a special election for Turner's seat in the state's coming May election has already passed, and the next election date is in November.
[BBC] The Slovak cabinet has approved a plan to shoot around a quarter of the country's brown bears, after a man was mauled to death while walking in a forest in Central Slovakia.
Prime Minister Robert Fico's populist-nationalist government announced after a cabinet meeting that 350 out of an estimated population of 1,300 brown bears would be culled, citing the danger to humans after a spate of attacks.
"We can't live in a country where people are afraid to go into the woods," the prime minister told reporters afterwards. "You ever seen Deliverance?"
A special state of emergency allowing bears to be shot has now been widened to 55 of Slovakia's 79 districts, an area that now covers most of the country.
The government in Bratislava has already loosened legal protections allowing bears to be killed if they stray too close to human habitation. Some 93 had been shot by the end of 2024.
The plans to shoot even more were condemned by conservationists, who said the decision was in violation of international obligations and could be illegal.
"It's absurd," said Michal Wiezik, an ecologist and MEP for opposition party Progressive Slovakia.
"The Environment Ministry failed desperately to limit the number of bear attacks by the unprecedented culling of this protected species," he told the BBC.
"To cover up their failure, the government has decided to cull even more bears," he continued.
Wiezik argued that thousands of encounters a year passed without incident, and he hoped the European Commission would intervene.
Slovak police confirmed on Wednesday that a man found dead in forest near the town of Detva in Central Slovakia on Sunday night was killed by a bear. His wounds were consistent with an attack.
The 59-year-old man had been reported missing on Saturday after failing to return from a walk in the woods.
Bears are common across the Carpathian mountain range, which stretches in an arc from Romania through western Ukraine and on to Slovakia and Poland.
#2
Bear bile has been a valuable and effective medicinal material in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for over 13 centuries. However, the current practice of obtaining it through bear farming is under scrutiny for its adverse impact on bear welfare.
#4
I suppose this means the Latin Language Copy of the report to the EU was improperly conjugated which will lead to the suspension of Fico's political career and Wiezik to immediately be crowned Prime Minister.
[Breitbart] Thousands of Haitian citizens marched through the streets of Port-Au-Prince on Wednesday to protest escalating gang violence and their government’s failure to control it.
Some of the protesters told Reuters they wanted to demonstrate their defiance of the gangs and their refusal to live in fear. Many of the protesters were armed with clubs and machetes, and some carried guns.
Others said there was plenty to be afraid of and they faulted their government for not doing enough to defeat the gangsters. Some wondered if government officials were actively colluding with the gang lords, who seem to have a great deal of money to spend despite Haiti’s general poverty.
“Do you see what is happening? Today, Haitian people will fight to be free already. We are free. Those men today cannot frighten me,” one Port-au-Prince resident told Reuters.
And fight they did, as police attempted to break up the demonstrations and gunfire rang out. At least a dozen of the protesters fired their guns at police near the offices of Prime Minister Alix Didier Fils-Aime and his transitional government in Port-au-Prince. The crowd panicked at the sound of gunshots.
Other demonstrators blocked roads with stacks of flaming tires and chanted “Let’s go and get them out!”
A protest organizer explained to the Associated Press (AP) that they wanted to “take over the prime minister’s office and burn down the CPT.” CPT stands for Conseil Presidentiel de Transition, the transitional governing council.
Gregoire Goodstein, chief representative for the U.N. International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti, said the surge of gang violence over the past month has displaced over 60,000 people.
“We have never observed such a large number of people moving in this short time,” Goodstein said.
Monday’s gang attack on the central Haitian town of Mirebalais seems to have galvanized the public to greater heights of both anger and despair. The attack included a raid on the local jail that freed about 500 prisoners. The IOM said over 5,900 people from Mirebalais and the neighboring town of Saut d’Eau were left homeless by the attack.
The Miami Herald spotted red-and-black flags in the crowd, traditionally the symbol of the Duvalier dictatorship, which ruled Haiti from the 1950s to the 1980s. The protesters have apparently embraced the flag as a means of expressing severe discontent with the current government, a grievance they also expressed by spray-painting “Down with the prime minister’s office” on the walls of buildings.
The Miami Herald noted that, awkwardly, one of the protest organizers is himself a police officer who works for the presidential palace unit, and also manages a “citizens’ self-defense brigade.”
Thursday was the one-year anniversary of the agreement that established the transitional government, which is currently mired in corruption allegations and has lost a great deal of public confidence by failing to schedule new elections.
The last election in Haiti was the one that sent Jovenel Moise on his ill-fated journey to the presidential office. The 2016 election was a do-over, after Moise won the 2015 election, but his victory was annulled by accusations of cheating.
Other demonstrators blocked roads with stacks of flaming tires and chanted “Let’s go and get them out!”
A protest organizer explained to the Associated Press (AP) that they wanted to “take over the prime minister’s office and burn down the CPT.” CPT stands for Conseil Presidentiel de Transition, the transitional governing council.
Gregoire Goodstein, chief representative for the U.N. International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti, said the surge of gang violence over the past month has displaced over 60,000 people.
“We have never observed such a large number of people moving in this short time,” Goodstein said.
Monday’s gang attack on the central Haitian town of Mirebalais seems to have galvanized the public to greater heights of both anger and despair. The attack included a raid on the local jail that freed about 500 prisoners. The IOM said over 5,900 people from Mirebalais and the neighboring town of Saut d’Eau were left homeless by the attack.
The Miami Herald spotted red-and-black flags in the crowd, traditionally the symbol of the Duvalier dictatorship, which ruled Haiti from the 1950s to the 1980s. The protesters have apparently embraced the flag as a means of expressing severe discontent with the current government, a grievance they also expressed by spray-painting “Down with the prime minister’s office” on the walls of buildings.
The Miami Herald noted that, awkwardly, one of the protest organizers is himself a police officer who works for the presidential palace unit, and also manages a “citizens’ self-defense brigade.”
Thursday was the one-year anniversary of the agreement that established the transitional government, which is currently mired in corruption allegations and has lost a great deal of public confidence by failing to schedule new elections.
The last election in Haiti was the one that sent Jovenel Moise on his ill-fated journey to the presidential office. The 2016 election was a do-over, after Moise won the 2015 election, but his victory was annulled by accusations of cheating.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Kiev regime is striking at Russian energy infrastructure with Western weapons. This was stated on April 3 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova.
The diplomat noted that Kyiv has completely lost its sense of self-preservation and connection with reality in its desire to disrupt dialogue between Russia and the United States at any cost, for which it attacks Russian energy facilities almost daily, using terrorist methods.
She clarified that such attacks are purely provocative and demonstrative in nature, adding that since the start of the moratorium on March 18, more than 30 strikes by Ukrainian forces on energy facilities in the Russian Federation have been recorded.
“It is important to emphasize that all of these strikes were carried out using Western weapons,” Zakharova added during a briefing.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Members of the Yemeni Ansar Allah movement (Houthis) launched a cruise missile and drone strike on a US Navy carrier group led by the aircraft carrier Harry Truman, which is in the northern Red Sea. This was stated on April 3 by Houthi spokesman Yahya Saria.
"The Yemeni navy, air force and missile forces carried out a joint military operation in which they attacked the US aircraft carrier Harry Truman and its accompanying warships in the northern part of the Red Sea," he said on Al Masirah TV channel.
The Houthis used cruise missiles and drones in the attack, Saria said.
An American MQ-9 Reaper reconnaissance and strike drone was shot down over the province of Al-Hodeidah. This was announced on April 3 by the Houthis from the Ansar Allah military-political movement ruling in northern Yemen.
"Yemen's air defense forces managed to shoot down a US MQ-9 drone that was carrying out hostile missions in the airspace of Al-Hodeidah province. The drone was shot down by a locally produced surface-to-air missile," Houthi spokesman Yahya Saria said on his Telegram channel.
It is noted that this is the second drone shot down by Yemeni air defense forces in 72 hours, and the 17th since the beginning of the escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip.
[HodhodYemenNews] The US forces renewed their aggression on 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... i territory on Wednesday, targeting eastern Saada in northern Yemen with a series of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s, local sources reported.
The US enemy forces renewed their aggression on Yemeni territory, targeting several provinces with a series of airstrikes, leaving several dead and maimed.
According to local sources, a US airstrike targeted a civilian vehicle in the Qahaza area, located south of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a.
The US enemy warplanes carried out 15 airstrikes on various areas southeast of Saada city, followed by two more airstrikes targeting the southeastern outskirts of the city.
Additionally, a US strike hit Ras Issa in al-Salif, northwest of Hodeidah province, killing one person and injuring another, the sources added.
According to the sources, the US enemy bombed a reservoir in the Mansouriya district, cutting off water to more than 50,000 people.
"As a result of enemy attacks on the al-Senif water reservoir and the Water Resources Administration building in the Mansouriya area, more than 50,000 citizens were left without water supplies," the sources said
In addition, the US enemy launched airstrikes targeting the telecommunications network in Jabal Nāmah in the district of Jableh, Ibb province, killing one citizen.
[NYPOST] A dangerous MS-13 local ringleader believed to be linked to nearly a dozen murders in the US was arrested on Long Island Tuesday night after four years on the run.
Joel Vargas-Escobar, who also went by ''Momia,'' was nabbed by FBI agents in Westbury, Nassau County, for his alleged role in 11 murders across Nevada and California, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada announced Wednesday evening.
The El Salvadoran national, who was in the country illegally, was the alleged leader of the Parkview clique, an MS-13 subset in Las Vegas, where he ordered the slaughter of at least two of the 11 victims in 2017, officials alleged.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/04/2025
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[11148 views]
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#1
Remember to remind all your liberal leaning contacts.
How the D's Leaders stood behind Open Borders, despite knowing full well what it was dangerously allowing in, and what it was doing to the US Citizens.
How (D's) stopped I.C.E. from doing its job, not a few 100 times, but 10.5+ MILLION Times.
How, any harm to, death of a US Citizen, caused by such Illegally entering persons and especially the known criminal gangs members, is totally the fault and responsibility of Illegal Biden Coup, with the Democrat Party's NGO's help.
How that it has been proven that the 2020 election was stolen by the (D's).
How they used over $100B in illegal backdoor NGO's funds to control certain US Court System judges, to abuse the US Constitution, and violate Millions of voters civil rights.
So I again ask the question, that we hear & read over and over each day.
When will we see Indictments, Arrests and trials for these Coup members and the illegal unauthorized Felony use of the President's Auto-signer for Pardons by suspected Biden White House staff?
Quoting Kyle S. Reyes 2025-04-03 Source: Law Enforcement Today As the owner of the largest group of law enforcement publications worldwide, and after having spoken with members of our Board of Advisors (the heads of the largest police groups in the country) I’d like to suggest another one to undo what many believe to be a national security threat.
Over the past year, most recently in New Mexico, Democrat-controlled legislatures, the same people who only five years ago sought to dismantle police departments nationwide, have passed legislation allowing noncitizens to become police officers, sheriff's deputies, or, in the case of Washington State, deputy prosecutors.
We believe this is a terrible idea for some 800,000 sworn law enforcement officers in the United States. We are asking President Trump to issue another executive order, this time blocking non-citizens from becoming police officers.
There are several reasons for this. Some who entered the country illegally but claimed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status are among those included in the legislation and permitted to be sworn police officers. By merely entering the country illegally, these aliens committed a crime, violating our border laws. Yet in some states, they will be allowed to deprive American citizens of their liberty rights.
Posted by: NN2N1 ||
04/04/2025
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[11153 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
How about we put disabled vets in wheelchairs on the helpdesk call center phones instead of offshoring to the unintelligible.
[FoxNews] 'Why are the Democrat attorneys general seeking out left-wing, blue swing districts?' Cruz asked
Senators Cruz and Klobuchar had a heated moment during a Senate Judiciary hearing Wednesday, and the Republican called federal injunctions a phase of lawfare. (C-SPAN)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., sparred during a hearing on federal judges' nationwide orders against the Trump administration, and the Democrat dismissed her colleague's claims of "lawfare."
"Understand this is the second phase of lawfare," Cruz said during the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing, "Rule by District Judges II: Exploring Legislative Solutions to the Bipartisan Problem of Universal Injunctions."
"Now that their efforts to indict President Trump and stop the voters from re-electing him have failed, they're going and seeking out individual radical judges," the Texas Republican claimed.
Klobuchar disputed this, telling Cruz the injunctions from federal judges were a result of President Donald Trump "violating the Constitution."
"Why would Trump-appointed judges …," the Minnesota Democrat began before being interrupted by Cruz.
"Why don't you file them in red districts?" Cruz asked. "Why are the Democrat attorneys general seeking out left-wing, blue swing districts?"
Klobuchar claimed the spike in nationwide injunctions from district judges halting Trump administration actions are not because "these judges are crooked or lunatics or evil." And she warned that making such claims could instigate threats and violence against them.
#2
At some point we will all start realizing that our "two party system" isn't a case of two parties arguing how best to improve the United States.
One party wishes to overthrow the US Constitution.
The other party has about 50% of their party that wishes to defend the Constitution. The other 50% can be bought...as long as they aren't called out on their defections.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Dozens of people, including civilians and soldiers, were injured as a result of massive attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on airfields in Syria. This was reported on April 2 by the Foreign Ministry, which is controlled by the transitional government of Syria.
According to the agency, the Israeli Air Force bombed five areas of the country for half an hour, practically destroying a military airfield in the Hama province.
"Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on five areas of the country over a period of 30 minutes, which resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Hama military airfield and the injury of dozens of civilians and soldiers," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It is noted that Israeli fighters carried out more than 20 strikes on airfields in the provinces of Hama and Homs. The main strike was on the former airbase near the city of Hama, 220 km from Damascus. The T4 airfield near Palmyra and a military facility in the Masaken Berzi area of Damascus were also attacked.
As reported by Regnum news agency, on March 22, the IDF struck the Syrian military bases of Tadmur and T4.
In February, the IDF Spokesperson's Office confirmed the attack on the border crossings between Syria and Lebanon. The IDF explained its actions by the need to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Lebanese Shiite organization Hezbollah. The Israeli military warned that it intends to prevent any threat to its state and to suppress all attempts by Hezbollah to restore its strength.
Posted by: badanov ||
04/04/2025
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[Breitbart] President Donald Trump criticized South Africa again on Wednesday — hours after the South African government claimed that it had clarified “misconceptions” about the country in meetings with senior White House officials.
“They’ve got some bad things going on in South Africa — you know, we’re paying them billions of dollars, and we cut the funding because a lot of bad things are happening in South Africa,” the president said in the Rose Garden. “The fake news ought to be looking at it — they don’t want to report it.”
Trump made his remarks as he explained that South African goods would be subject to a 30% tariff, as part of the reciprocal tariff policy he had introduced.
His words directly contradicted the claims made earlier Wednesday by South Africa’s foreign ministry, which calls itself the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO). DIRCO claimed that a delegation, led by director-general Zane Dangor, had explained to the White House and other U.S. officials why previous claims by the administration about human rights violations and potential land expropriation in South Africa were, in fact, wrong.
A statement from DIRCO did not announce any compromises offered to the U.S. government. Instead, it read:
The delegation clarified key issues and misconceptions in meetings with the National Security Council’s Africa Director, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, as well as Treasury Department representatives. We believe that these dialogues will assist to refine the current administration’s understanding of South Africa’s position on critical matters, fostering a more nuanced perspective.
The delegation directly addressed the perception that the South African Government’s policies are designed to violate the human rights of minorities in post-apartheid South Africa. Amongst the issues addressed was the matter of how the Expropriation Act’s nil compensation clause is not designed to facilitate unlawful land seizures and undermine property investment but rather to ensure that:
(1) where the land is not being used and the owner’s main purpose is not to develop the land or use it to generate income, but to benefit from appreciation of its market value.
(2) where an organ of state holds land that it is not using for its core functions and is not reasonably likely to require the land for its future activities in that regard, and the organ of state acquired the land for no consideration.
(3) where an owner has abandoned the land by failing to exercise control over it despite being reasonably capable of doing so.
(4) where the market value of the land is equivalent to, or less than, the present value of direct state investment or subsidy in the acquisition and beneficial capital improvement of the land.
During the cordial discussions the senior officials addressed misconceptions on what has been presented by some as race laws designed to undermine minority rights in South Africa. To this end the senior officials presented information, which highlights the persuasive racial and structural inequality that continues to divide South Africa in all areas of the nation.
There was no readout of the meetings from the American side, presenting the administration’s version of events.
DIRCO’s statement repeats the stance taken by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa early in the diplomatic crisis, when he described Trump’s policy as the result of “misinformation.” Rather than make compromises on its foreign or domestic policies, South Africa apparently believes it must simply explain to Trump why he is “wrong.”
But efforts to explain away land expropriation laws, for example, have been undermined by the government’s own actions, such as a new bill to redistribute land by race, and a tacit acceptance of genocidal anti-white rhetoric.
Dangor is seen by critics as having surrounded himself with a cohort of anti-American, anti-Israel officials sympathetic to radical and Islamist causes, leading South Africa to side with Iran and Hamas against Israel.
South Africa is also seen as too close to China and Russia, earning rebukes from both sides of the aisle in Congress.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The Ukrainian Armed Forces are holding back Russian attacks in the east and south of Ukraine.
The Russian invaders continue to be highly active in the Pokrovsky direction. Fighting is taking place in the areas of 11 populated areas.
Since the beginning of the current day and as of 16:00, 62 combat clashes have occurred on the front, which is two times less than yesterday's figure for the same time. This is evidenced by the data published by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Thursday, April 3.
Thus, in the Kharkov direction, the Russian army attacked once in the Kamyanka area.
In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy made two unsuccessful attempts to advance in the Zagrizovoye area.
In the Liman direction, the enemy attacked five times near the settlements of Grekovka, Novoye, and in the direction of Novomikhaylovka, Zelenaya Dolina. Two combat clashes are ongoing.
In the Seversky direction, five assaults were repelled in the Verkhnekamyansky area and in the direction of Ivano-Daryevka and Vyemka.
In the Kramatorsk direction, our defenders successfully stopped the attack towards Predtechino.
In the Toretsk direction, the enemy attacked 13 times in the areas of Dachnoye, Druzhba, Dilievka, Toretsk and Leonidovka. Four combat clashes are still ongoing.
The enemy remains highly active in the Pokrovsk direction - 22 assaults in the areas of the populated areas of Novokalinovoe, Tarasovka, Elizavetovka, Zvirovoe, Udachnoe, Novosergeevka, Nadievka, Uspenovka, Andreevka and in the direction of Romanivka and Alexandropol. 10 of these battles are still ongoing.
In the Novopavlovsk direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are repelling four assaults in the areas of Razliv and Constantinople.
In the Orekhov direction, the enemy advanced forward six times in the areas of the settlements of Stepovoye, Malye Shcherbaki and Kamyanskoye.
In the Dnieper direction, the Russians carried out one unsuccessful attack.
Four enemy attacks have been stopped in the Kursk region .
We remind you that in the course of 24 hours on April 2, Russia lost almost 1,400 fighters killed and wounded. The total losses of the occupation army are approaching 1 million people.
The Biden administration would have been thrilled to participate. President Trump is a horse of a different colour.
[AmuseOnX] The United Nations’ International Maritime Organization (IMO) has quietly embarked upon a bold initiative cloaked in the virtuous garb of climate responsibility. Ostensibly designed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping, this global carbon levy is, in reality, a veiled taxation mechanism poised to significantly burden American consumers and businesses. What may initially appear as prudent environmental stewardship reveals itself, under scrutiny, as a dramatic expansion of global taxation, circumventing American democratic processes and redistributing wealth under UN auspices.
So many questions: Is this under a specific program or treaty, or just generally being a member of the UN? As a member of the UN Security Council, can America veto it, whether in general or just for us? Can the IMO enforce collection, or must it rely on national governments to do so?
The mechanics of the tax are deceptively simple. Under the proposed framework, shipping companies would be required to pay a fixed fee per metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted during transoceanic voyages. This fee, expected to begin at a baseline of $100 per ton and scale over time, would be calculated based on the fuel used and the vessel's emissions profile. Crucially, this cost is not absorbed by the shipping conglomerates.
Fees never are.
It is passed down the chain of commerce—first to importers, then to wholesalers, and ultimately to the end consumers. The result is an invisible tax hike on every imported good that enters American ports, from smartphones assembled in Southeast Asia to agricultural produce from Latin America. The levy, in effect, operates as a consumption tax imposed by a foreign body on the American populace.
According to research by UNCTAD and DNV, this levy could escalate freight costs by between 71% and 85%, potentially doubling the price of shipping goods from overseas by mid-century. Such an increase is not mere statistical abstraction—it translates directly to elevated costs for everyday items, affecting everything from imported electronics to agricultural commodities. Shipping industry executives, from tanker operators to dry bulk carriers, have already begun expressing grave concerns, warning that these cost increments will inevitably cascade through supply chains, burdening American consumers and reducing corporate earnings in an already tenuous economic climate.
Beyond economic ramifications, the levy raises significant questions of democratic legitimacy. Traditionally, the power of taxation has been strictly the province of elected legislatures—explicitly, in the American context, the U.S. Congress. Yet the IMO’s method of implementing this tax is deftly designed to bypass such legislative oversight. By framing the carbon levy as amendments to MARPOL Annex VI regulations, the UN effectively sidesteps the requisite Senate ratification processes for international treaties. Consequently, this global levy could be implemented domestically through executive regulatory changes without meaningful Congressional debate or approval. This constitutes nothing less than taxation without representation, a principle that, ironically, once motivated the American colonies’ revolt against Britain.
To understand the long-term danger, one need only glance eastward across the Atlantic. The European Union, originally conceived as a common economic market to facilitate trade and prevent future conflicts, has gradually metastasized into a supranational government. What began as voluntary economic cooperation now resembles an unelected bureaucracy capable of overriding national parliaments. Today, from energy mandates to migration quotas, Brussels dictates terms to sovereign nations in ways unimaginable at the time of the Treaty of Rome. The European Commission—a body of unelected technocrats—wields more influence over member states’ laws than many of their own legislatures. The arc of integration has bent toward centralization, not consensus.
This should serve as a cautionary tale. The IMO’s carbon levy, though seemingly benign in scope, is an embryonic form of the same political dynamic. By establishing the precedent that an international body can impose direct economic obligations on sovereign nations without the consent of their legislatures, the levy lays the groundwork for a future in which financial sovereignty is no longer national, but global. What Brussels is to the Eurozone, the UN aspires to become for the world: an unelected arbiter of fiscal and regulatory policy.
Moreover, the levy stands to generate tens of billions of dollars annually, projected to reach between $40 and $60 billion by 2050. Alarmingly, these substantial revenues would flow directly into UN-controlled climate funds, notably entities like the Green Climate Fund. Such arrangements inherently dilute national sovereignty by placing substantial financial resources under international bureaucratic oversight, insulated from direct democratic accountability.
IMAGINE that all we knew about automobiles was that they had been created 100+ years ago, and they were all electric. And THEN a few years ago, somebody created the internal combustion engine.
Those creators would have offered the ability to expand range to 400 to 600 miles, regardless of weather or climate. The "recharge" time would be 5 minutes or so.
The "new" vehicles would weigh far less than the existing ones, and cause less damage to the existing roads. New vehicles wouldn't require charging stations--builders could sell their goods at a lower price.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[REGNUM] The so-called "Bucha massacre" was a monstrous provocation carried out by Kiev and its British supporters, said Dmitry Polyansky, Russia's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, during an informal meeting of the United Nations Security Council on April 2. Citing real facts and witness testimony,The diplomat emphasized that the staging of the massacre was undertaken by the Kyiv authorities in order to "prevent the establishment of peace, perpetuate the conflict and put pressure on other Western allies to force them to supply weapons to Ukraine."
The Russian side also described what atrocities by Kyiv militants the Russian military witnessed when they found themselves in the rear of the enemy, who occupied the border area of the Kursk region, on March 8. This news marked the new, 1134th day of the special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine.
Bucha is located 10 km from Kyiv, next to the Gostomel airfield. Three years ago, all the world's media published an urgent message: hundreds of bodies were found on the streets of this small Ukrainian city, all the dead with their hands tied. Since then, no independent public investigation has been conducted. Moreover, Ukraine and its supporters have not been able to provide a single reliable proof that the civilians were killed in Bucha by Russian troops, Polyansky noted.
"They have not disclosed even the most basic details of the incident, such as the names of the dead or the results of the autopsies. We have repeatedly requested this information, including through the UN Secretary General. All in vain," Polyansky emphasized, speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on April 2, 2025.
The provocation in Bucha looks especially blasphemous when viewed in light of the grave crimes and flagrant violations of international humanitarian law (IHL) committed by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Kursk region. The large-scale operation of Russian troops undertaken on March 8, 2025 did not allow the Kyiv militants to hide the traces of their crimes.
“There is also evidence that in some villages (for example, in Cherkasskoye Porechnoye) Ukrainian militants even mined the houses of local residents, animal corpses, children’s toys and the bodies of their ‘brothers in arms’,” Dmitry Polyansky informed the UN Security Council.
Among other facts of the inhumane behavior of the occupiers, he also cited entries from the diary of an elderly woman whose body was found in the liberated village of Martynovka : “ I lived and slept in a barn under a table… Every day I asked for death… I didn’t eat for 12 days… It was three degrees in the house, the end was near… After the war, find at least one bone and bury it near Svetka, and the soul will go to heaven.”
Meanwhile, in violation of the moratorium, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have deliberately attacked Russian energy infrastructure facilities twice in the last 24 hours.
“Against the backdrop of statements by various representatives of the Kiev regime, starting with Zelensky, about compliance with restrictions on strikes on Russian energy facilities, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are systematically launching strikes using UAVs and artillery systems on Russian energy infrastructure,” the Defense Ministry said.
On the night of April 3, air defense systems on duty destroyed 23 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles. Including six over the territory of the Bryansk region, five over the territories of the Oryol and Kursk regions, four over the territory of the Kaluga region, two over the territory of the Belgorod region, and one over the territory of the Smolensk region.
Father Evgeniy (a priest from Sudzha) confirmed the facts of organized looting by residents of the Sumy region. The Nazis from the Armed Forces of Ukraine who occupied the Kursk region sold them subscriptions to plunder Sudzha.
And although the occupation of Sudzha by Ukrainian occupiers has ended, its consequences continue to "surface" to this day. According to reports from local civilians, Ukrainian Nazis not only engaged in robberies and outright looting, but also organized entire excursions in Sudzha for residents of nearby Sumy.
There were quite a lot of people willing to pay for such a "safari", which is why the Ukrainians who paid for the trip were transported in whole buses. The militants themselves guaranteed the "tourists" complete safety, and as "souvenirs" they were allowed to organize looting and robberies.
According to local residents, this scheme existed until the very end of the occupation.
However, the price for this adventure turned out to be inevitable: many of the occupiers, who were somehow involved in the criminal scheme, were liquidated.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Russia will help the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) to increase its defense potential in the face of existing terrorist threats. This was announced on April 3 by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“I emphasized Moscow’s readiness to contribute in every way to building up the potential of the joint forces of the Sahel states, increasing their combat capability, the combat capability and national armed forces of each of the three countries, and training military personnel and law enforcement officers,” Lavrov noted following the talks with the heads of the foreign ministries of the ACS countries.
The diplomat also stressed that Russia is ready to assist states in the areas of security, economics, and international processes.
The Alliance will be supported in strengthening the position of the African continent and its inclusion in the emerging, more just multipolar world order, Lavrov added.
…island off the eastern coast of Russia, just north of Japan’s Hokkaido, with a population of about 500,000…
and must be stopped. This was stated by the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mali Abdoulaye Diop on April 3.
“These terrorists are supported by external actors, regional actors who are in our region, who help these terrorists, who organize the rear for them, for example, Ukraine,” he said following negotiations between representatives of the Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The diplomat noted that Ukraine is literally sponsoring terrorism, which requires immediate attention.
In turn, Lavrov noted that the country provides support to terrorist groups with the connivance of Western countries. He emphasized that in addition to Ukraine, some former colonizers also contribute to the destabilization of the region.
Even more from regnum.ru Zakharova announced Lavrov's meetings with the ministers of the "Sahel Troika"
The meeting of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with the ministers of the "Sahel Troika", as well as separately with the foreign ministers of Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso will take place in the "next few minutes". This was stated on April 3 by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.
“In these, one might say, remaining minutes, in the remaining time, the first meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov with the heads of the foreign ministries of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in a new format – Russia and the Alliance of Sahel States – is being prepared and will begin in Moscow,” she said during a briefing.
It is noted that issues of developing Russia's relations with these states, including political and sectoral interaction, will be discussed. The Russian Foreign Ministry also confirmed Moscow's desire to effectively support the alliance in the area of building an independent policy, regional security based on its own forces and taking into account the national interests of the alliance.
#1
I believe that is Sahara and not Sakhalin (autocorrect is NOT your friend). I did a ML translate of the original article...
Moscow, April 3, 2025, 15:33 — IA Regnum. Ukraine sponsors terrorists in the Saharaand must be stopped. Mali Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop announced this on April 3.
[FoxNews] Vance discusses case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs, Elon Musk's DOGE future
Vice President JD Vance called out Democrats and the mainstream media for what he called a "disgraceful set of priorities," citing their outrage over the Trump administration deporting illegal immigrants like alleged MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
"We do not ask permission from far-left Democrats before we deport illegal immigrants. We do the American people's business," the vice president said in an exclusive "Fox & Friends" interview on Thursday.
"This is such a weird, mistaken placement of priorities… What is it about congressional Democrats that get more angry at deporting violent gang members than they do at the victims of those violent gang members? I don't even understand where they're coming from. They've gone off the deep end, and they've got to come back to reality."
Sitting down with co-host Lawrence Jones, the vice president maintained that Abrego Garcia, who was deported to an El Salvador megaprison despite reportedly having protected status, is a member of the violent MS-13 gang despite outlets claiming the contrary.
"Back in 2019, an immigration judge looked at all the evidence, looked at the data and concluded that this allegedly innocent person that we sent to El Salvador was actually a member of an MS-13 gang. He had also committed some traffic violations. He had not shown up for some court dates. This is not exactly ‘Father of the Year’ here. This is a person that we don't think should be in our country," Vance said.
"Whatever the argument is, whatever the justification is…. Not even the crazy left-wing media criticized the idea that we could deport this person. They just took issue with the reasoning for why we deported this person."
Vance said even Democrats and left-wing media voices never disputed Abrego Garcia was an "illegal alien" and "broke the laws" to enter the U.S.
"This [is] unquestionably a person an immigration judge had found had zero right to be in the United States of America," he added.
The White House remained firm in their decision to deport Abrego Garcia following a report from The Atlantic that federal attorneys said that there was an "administrative error" in bringing him to CECOT men’s prison in El Salvador.
Court filings also show Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. in 2011 at the age of 16 after fleeing gang threats in El Salvador, the outlet reported.
Eight years later, a judge granted him a form of protected status known as "withholding of removal" after finding that he would likely be a target of Salvadoran gangs if deported to his native country.
News of his deportation ignited outrage among Democrats, leaving Vance to blast the group for allegedly showing more sympathy toward illegal immigrants than for murdered U.S. citizens like Georgia nursing student Laken Riley and Texas native Jocelyn Nungaray.
The vice president also discussed tariff concerns and rumors that Elon Musk could soon be departing DOGE, calling reports of the latter "total fake news."
#3
Boston DA Threatens ICE Officer With Contempt Charge, Gets Slam-Dunked by US Attorney for Massachusetts The fact that you disfavor ICE officers doing their jobs is not a basis for criminal charges. In fact, there is no legal basis for such charges. You may very well disagree with the enforcement of our federal immigration laws, but it is inappropriate to suggest to the public that federal officers can be criminally prosecuted by your office for performing their official duties. Any attempt or threat to interfere with the lawful actions of federal government agents will not be tolerated. It is a felony offense to assault, resist, oppose, impede, intimidate, or interfere with an immigration officer's efforts to duly execute the immigration laws of the United States.
[FoxNews] GOP leader says the 'disappointing stunt' shows a 'troubling disconnect' with voters, while Democrats blast Republicans for 'manufactured culture wars'
Georgia state House Democrats staged a walkout to protest a vote on a bill headed to the governor's desk for his signature prohibiting taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for inmates.
The bill passed on a 100-2 vote, and both recorded no votes were from Democrats.
The legislation, SB 185, sponsored by Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson, bars the Georgia Department of Corrections from providing taxpayer-funded transgender medical treatments, including surgeries and hormonal treatments, to prison inmates. Robertson contends there are about five inmates incarcerated in the DOC that receive treatments.
The bill now heads to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's desk for his signature.
"This disappointing stunt underscores a troubling disconnect between Democrats and the values of the people they serve," Republican House Majority Whip James Burchett told Fox News Digital. "They knew they had no response to the substance of the bill. So, rather than debate its merits, they chose to abandon their duties by leaving the chamber."
However, Democratic House Whip Sam Park contended it was Republicans playing politics, not Democrats.
"Republicans continue to waste time on their manufactured culture wars while Georgians struggle with increasing costs of housing, food, healthcare and an increasingly uncertain economy due to Republican leadership in D.C.," Park said. "We walked out to make it clear: Georgia Democrats are here to fight for working families, not political distractions."
Georgia Republicans have taken an aggressive approach toward transgender issues this legislative session with the introduction of several bills that seek to align with President Donald Trump's executive orders.
Some of those bills, in addition to SB 185, include blocking taxpayer-funded medical treatments for state employees, prohibitions on prescribing puberty blockers to minors and a ban on biological males competing in girls high school sports.
It's unclear how much cosmetic or surgical transgender treatments cost each taxpayer in Georgia, but the Gender Confirmation Center estimates alterations can be anywhere from $8,000 to $50,000, depending on the type of procedure.
Other states this year have moved to introduce similar bills banning taxpayer-funded transgender treatments for inmates, including Utah and Kentucky. California was among the first states to provide transgender procedures for prison inmates in 2017 after a legal battle launched by an inmate two years earlier.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Russia will continue to seek to remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism. This was stated on April 3 by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko at a meeting with Santiago de Cuba Governor Manuel Falcon Hernandez.
“Russia, as before, will seek to end the blockade and remove Cuba from the list of countries sponsoring terrorism... It is very important that Cuba objectively assesses the reasons for the SVO and supports Russia’s legitimate security demands,” he emphasized during a working visit to the republic.
It is noted that Havana supports Moscow's security demands, and both countries are well aware of what sanctions pressure is. Chernyshenko added that new American sanctions against Cuba are a manifestation of impotence.
As reported by the Regnum news agency, in January 2021, Washington added Cuba to the list of countries sponsoring terrorism. Then, in early 2023, the White House decided to resume contacts with the country at the level of law enforcement agencies.
In May 2024, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel called on the United States to remove the country from its arbitrary list of sponsors of terrorism and lift economic sanctions. It was noted that the republic was actively cooperating in the fight against terrorism.
In June of the same year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out that the US was thus trying to maintain its slipping international hegemony through economic, financial and diplomatic terrorism. He added that Moscow and Havana would continue to increase coordination on Latin America and the Caribbean.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Leonid Tsukanov
[REGNUM] Israel continues to be rocked by the scandal surrounding the leaks of confidential information from the Prime Minister's Office to Qatar (the so-called "Qatargate").
The prosecution argues that the leaks not only exposed Doha to some sensitive Israeli secrets, but also strengthened the position of the Palestinian Hamas, leading to a protracted operation in the Gaza Strip.
It is worth noting that the events surrounding Qatargate have accelerated exponentially.
Over the past few days, there have been "fan" interrogations of all currently known participants in the scandal (including the country's current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ). Several face-to-face confrontations and closed operational activities have also taken place - however, without any clear result.
It is noticeable that all parties to the scandal are tired of litigation and are looking for a way to quickly put an end to the case. However, while some are pressing for legal measures and looking for new defendants, others are trying to get out of the crisis literally "with a fight."
QUEUES FOR INTERROGATION
At first glance, little has changed in the Qatargate investigation. The main defendants remain former employees of the Prime Minister's Office - Eli Feldstein and Yonatan Urich. Law enforcement officials place the main responsibility for leaking classified information to Qatar on them, and they are the only ones in custody.
American lobbyist Jay Futlik, whose firm acted as an intermediary between Doha and the participants of "Qatargate", and Israeli businessman Gil Birger, who acted as an "accountant", are currently being used as witnesses in the case. Although Birger has been placed under house arrest, just in case.
However, this impression is wrong. In fact, the scandal has reached a new level.
There are already more than a dozen defendants in the case waiting to be questioned – politicians, businessmen, journalists and public figures – but the investigation does not yet have the authority to deal with them.
In addition, key figures in "Qatargate" give different testimonies, which further confuses the prosecution. Investigators admit that some participants in the scandal could have been used in the dark and, when transmitting classified information, believed that they were following orders "from above."
As for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is considered to be almost the key link in this scheme, he is currently separated from the main group of defendants - they are working with him carefully and individually. They are in no hurry to bring forward direct accusations.
However, given that the prime minister's interlocutor is police colonel Momi Meshulam, who previously investigated at least two corruption scandals involving him, the prosecution's hint is quite clear. Netanyahu is being taken seriously again.
At the same time, they are shaking up the journalist pool in search of those through whom additional leaks could have occurred. Over the past few days, the security services have interrogated (and then placed under house arrest) the editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, Tzvika Klein, and the diplomatic correspondent of Israel Hayom, Shirit Avitan Cohen.
The journalist and columnist Yossi Yehoshua (Yediot Ahronot), who wrote columns based on leaks from the chancellery, was under surveillance. However, his informant Ari Rosenfeld (who is also formally involved in Qatargate), as it turned out later, transmitted information in a distorted form, which made it difficult to bring charges against Yehoshua.
The interrogations are being conducted in a rush and with obvious procedural violations, which is causing criticism not only from Netanyahu's camp, but also from the opposition. The prime minister's parliamentary opponents are asking the intelligence services not to overdo it and to act within the law.
THE MAIN WINNER
Maintaining the constant hype around "Qatargate" are Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and Knesset attorney general Gali Baharav-Miara. Both have fallen out of favor with Netanyahu and are about to leave their posts, and are using their remaining leverage to make the prime minister's office more difficult to operate.
Moreover, the main beneficiary of "Qatargate" is rather Bar. The existence of a scandal of such scale (which he was also previously authorized to investigate) will allow him to nullify the government's decision to resign and remain at the helm of the Shin Bet. And in a more optimistic scenario - to also retain his post after the early elections, in which the triumph of the opposition is increasingly predicted.
Netanyahu pays his opponents back in kind, bringing to light inconvenient facts from their biographies.
For example, he recalled to Bar a series of informal visits to Qatar in 2018, when the head of the Shin Bet visited the country (which he has recently publicly called “hostile”) to provide “some services” and conduct informal negotiations.
Netanyahu also hints that Bar's model of informal negotiations was little different from the one around which today's "Qatargate" is built.
This means that the attempt to blow up a scandal out of Israel's behind-the-scenes work with a potential Arab ally is nothing more than a political witch hunt. Feldstein and Urich's lawyers hold the same position, which significantly strengthens the line of defense. Colleagues in the industry, although they do not voice this publicly, are waiting for an explanation from Bar.
THE WAR DOES NOT STOP
While Netanyahu's opponents wage battles in courtrooms, the prime minister prefers to act "on the ground."
The new Israeli operation in Gaza is gaining momentum and in the south of the enclave has already covered not only the outskirts of the border Rafah, but also the neighboring areas. The prime minister is "directing" the military actions - sometimes personally, and sometimes through the Minister of Defense and the Chief of the General Staff.
Netanyahu does not hide the task facing the troops: to create a new separation corridor in the south of the Gaza Strip, which the authorities have already named the “Morag corridor.”
It will run north of the existing Philadelphi Corridor on the strip's border with Egypt and will separate Rafah from Khan Yunis, creating an expanded security zone in the area.
This, in turn, should weaken Hamas' fighting ability, forcing them to accept all Israeli conditions.
The operation is quite daring and does not guarantee immediate success.
However, while the investigation into Qatargate has reached a dead end, the prime minister is seeking to inflict maximum defeat on Hamas, both militarily and politically, in order to remove from the agenda the thesis about strengthening the position of this movement.
Netanyahu remembers the old folk wisdom well: winners are not judged. Even if the triumphant leader is followed by a trail of controversial decisions and scandals with a spy flair.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Igor Ivanenko
[REGNUM] Famous Hollywood actor Jean-Claude Van Damme has become a defendant in a criminal case in Romania, initiated on suspicion of trafficking minors.
Law enforcement officials in that country are investigating an accusation brought against him on behalf of a 26-year-old woman from the city of Iasi. She and four other Romanians were allegedly forced to provide sexual services to the actor in Cannes, France.
They were taken to France while still minors under the pretext of participating in the modeling business, but were subjected to “sexual exploitation using psychological coercion” there.
According to the victim, Van Damme knew about these circumstances of her involvement in prostitution. The organizer of the criminal scheme was a friend of the former movie star - Romanian businessman and owner of the modeling agency Morel Bolea.
This scandal has already caused a great stir and will probably be used by the US authorities in an information campaign to combat illegal migration of Romanians.
As opposed to the illegal migration of any other nationality?
Recently, the American conservative television channel Fox News reported that the main increase in illegal entry into the US from Canada is accounted for by citizens of the Danube-Carpathian Republic.
Seriously? That’s not good. Nothing against Romanians as such, but one never wants one’s countrymen to take the lead in illegality, right?
Romanians are taking advantage of the visa waivers available to them in Canada and are moving en masse to the US via the "Maple Leaf Country". The previous US administration may not have made a tragedy out of this circumstance, but Donald Trump's team has a different point of view.
What a point of 20/80 differentiation: the Democrats are strongly for white slave trafficking from Eastern Europe, the Republicans want to send those beautiful, bereft girls back home to their families. The campaign commercials write themselves.
The reason for this is that official Bucharest is ignoring the discontent of American conservatives over the de facto removal of Calin Georgescu from the second round of the presidential elections in December 2024. The refusal to register this candidate from the sovereign conservatives in the new elections for the leader of Romania has become a clear demarche against Washington.
Eh?
The visa-free travel program for Romanian citizens to the United States was supposed to start in early April 2025. It was sanctioned by the Joe Biden government. However, its entry into force has been postponed for two months "for technical reasons."
One of the looooong list of Biden orders the new administration is reviewing before allowing to be exercised. While not all will be revoked, it is understandably hard for the subjects to wait in limbo.
The US Department of Homeland Security recently announced that it was reviewing Romania's inclusion in the visa waiver program "in line with the Trump administration's national security priorities."
The ruling elites of Bucharest, accustomed to maneuvering between Brussels and Washington, feel uncomfortable in this situation. The future of the military-technical alliance with the United States is in question. In addition, the withdrawal of the Americans from Romanian politics makes Bucharest less independent in its relations with the EU bureaucratic structures.
This is intensifying the contradictions within the ruling coalition of Social Democrats and National Liberals.
The head of government and leader of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Marcel Ciolacu blames the lack of dialogue with the Trump administration on Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu, nominated by the National Liberal Party (NLP).
As an option, Ciolacu is lobbying for the introduction of the post of high representative of Romania for relations with the United States.
How is that different from an ambassador? Why would we need both?
Meanwhile, American conservatives clearly understand that Bucharest's interest in the continued existence of the American-Romanian alliance is much stronger than Washington's.
For example, The American Conservative, a newspaper popular among Republicans, calls for the withdrawal of American troops from the Romanian Mihail Kogalniceanu air base and an end to support for this large-scale NATO infrastructure development project.
“Romania still seems to think America needs the base, which may explain why it… defied the Trump administration’s wishes for Georgescu… But from a foreign policy perspective that cares about national interests, America has little to gain from being there,” the newspaper believes.
He is echoed by another influential conservative publication, The National Interest, which believes that the implementation of Biden’s plans to expand the presence of American troops in Romania will not only increase tensions in relations with Moscow, but will also “tie Washington to an increasingly undemocratic government in Bucharest.”
Meanwhile, the prospects of this coalition government of the PSD and the PNL, which discredited itself with its actions against the extremely popular Georgescu, are becoming increasingly dim.
Recent sociological surveys show that it will be very difficult for the coalition candidate Crin Antonescu to make it even to the second round of elections, since he is inferior in popularity to the candidates from both the conservatives and the left-liberals.
Antonescu's failure in the presidential race will almost certainly lead to the fall of the current pro-European government in Bucharest.
This follows from the words of the leader of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (DUH) Hunor Kelemen. Two dozen votes from the elected representatives of Transylvanian Hungarians in the Chamber of Deputies are critically important for preventing a vote of no confidence in the Çolak cabinet. Acting with an eye on official Budapest, Kelemen makes it clear that he will not stand in the way of the pro-presidential majority.
But the formation of a new coalition does not promise to be easy. After all, the same Romanian sovereignists and Transylvanian Hungarians, who are ready to act in Trump's interests, are divided by sharp contradictions.
Thus, the current US administration is quite capable of destabilizing the political system in Bucharest, but it has little opportunity to establish a regime that is absolutely loyal to itself.
At least as long as the globalist-minded EU leadership opposes this.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:36 A crew of the Molniya-2 UAV from the Ivanovo Airborne Division destroyed a concentration of enemy manpower.
Direction of the Chasov Yar -video.
20:57 A 122mm D-30 howitzer crew from the Dnepr group of troops destroyed an enemy UAV control point on the right bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region
The main task of the 122mm towed gunners is to support motorized rifle units. Russian servicemen destroy observation posts, UAV control posts, armored vehicles, artillery guns and personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces —video.
20:25 Destruction of T-72 Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of the settlement of Liptsy in the Khar'kov region using an FPV drone on fiber optics —video.
19:22 Assault operations of the 4th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces —video.
18:48 Destroyed armored vehicles of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Belgorod region —photo.
18:29 Russian fighters' Mavik destroyed a Ukrainian Armed Forces ammunition depot in the Petropavlovka area in the Kupyansk direction by dropping it —video.
17:56 Russian Ministry of Defense:
In the period from 13:20 to 15:05 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed three Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles:
Two over the territory of the Kursk region and
One over the territory of the Belgorod region.
17:29 UAV operators of the Center and Yuzhnaya groups continue to destroy military equipment, drone control points, dugouts and concentrations of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel —video.
16:53 Drone operators destroyed enemy electronic warfare station
In the Sumy region, servicemen of the North military group discovered a ground electronic warfare station of a Ukrainian Armed Forces unit.
The detected target was quickly destroyed by the operator of the FPV drone on fiber optics -video.
16:27 Tor air defense missile system crews of the Vostok group of forces provide round-the-clock coverage for motorized rifle units, destroying air targets in the South Donetsk direction —video.
15:05 Around 13:20 Moscow time, air defense systems on duty destroyed Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle over the territory of the Belgorod region.
14:28 Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continue to defeat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces formations in the Kursk region.
During offensive operations, units of the North group of forces defeated formations of a mechanized unit, three airborne assault brigades and a territorial defense brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the areas of the settlements of Gornal, Guevo, and Oleshnya. One enemy counterattack was repelled.
Strikes by operational-tactical and army aviation and artillery fire hit enemy manpower and equipment in the areas of the settlements of Gornal, Guevo, Oleshnya, as well as Basovka, Belovody, Varachino, Vladimirovka, Vodolaghi, Zhuravka, Loknya, Miropolye, Novonikolaevka, Sadki, Yunakovka and Yablonovka in the Sumy region.
Over the course of 24 hours, the Ukrainian Armed Forces lost more than 180 servicemen, an infantry fighting vehicle, two armored combat vehicles, 11 vehicles and two mortars were destroyed, as well as five UAV control points and an ammunition depot.
14:10 Around 12.35 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle over the territory of the Belgorod region.
13:50 Around 12:15 Moscow time by air defense systems on duty destroyed Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle over the territory of the Belgorod region.
13:30 Summary of the Russian Ministry of Defense on the progress of the special military operation as of 04/03/2025
"Units of the Vostok group of forces continued to advance into the depths of the enemy's defenses and liberated the settlement of Veseloye in the Donetsk People's Republic," it is said in a statement from the department.
The losses of the Ukrainian Armed Forces over the past day amounted to the Armed Forces of Ukraine up to 1,000 servicemen, four tanks, 12 field artillery guns, five ammunition depots, 21 pickup trucks, five armored vehicles, two armored personnel carriers and electronic warfare stations.
In addition, units of the Dnepr military group liberated the village of Lobkovoe in the Zaporizhia region.
Units of the Russian Federation military groups carried out strikes on the Ukrainian Armed Forces and equipment in various regions of Ukraine. In addition, strikes were carried out on the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions.
In addition, Russian aviation and artillery attacked missile and space industry facilities and ammunition depots on Ukrainian territory.
13:18 Kherson direction. Right bank, village of Burgunka. Air strike of the Russian Armed Forces on the location of Ukrainian UAV operators —video.
12:55 Russian Ministry of Defense:
Over the past 24 hours, the Armed Forces of Ukraine committed four attacks on Russian energy infrastructure.
– On April 2 at 00.43 in Lugansk, as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian attack UAV on the gas distribution station "Svatovo" of the branch of OOO "Chernomornaftogaz" - Management of Trunk Gas Pipelines "Luganskgaz" equipment was damaged and caught fire. Gas supply to more than 11 thousand consumers was cut off.
– In the Kursk region at 02.11 as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian attack UAV on the power facility of the branch of PJSC Rosseti Centre – Kurskenergo, the high-voltage line 110 kV Seimskaya – Klyukva No. 1 was disconnected. More than 1.2 thousand household consumers in the Kursk region were left without power supply.
– At 12:06 in the Belgorod region, as a result of artillery shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine of the 110 kV substation "Maksimovka" of the branch of PJSC "Rosseti Centre" - "Belgorodenergo" and the failure of the transformer, more than 1.7 thousand household consumers in the Shebekinsky district were left without electricity.
– In the Zaporizhia region at 18:00, as a result of an attack by a Ukrainian attack UAV on the 35 kV electrical substation “Vasil’evka” of the State Unitary Enterprise “Tavria Energo”, an oil circuit breaker caught fire, cutting off the power supply to about 9 thousand household consumers in the city of Vasil’evka and the Vasil’evskiy district.
The daily unilateral strikes by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Russian energy infrastructure facilities confirm the complete incapacity of the current Kyiv regime to comply with any possible agreements on resolving the conflict in Ukraine.
12:26 Ixovods of the 238th Artillery Brigade of the Russian Armed Forces detected and destroyed a mortar crew of the Ukrainian Armed Forces using the Lancet UAV —video.
11:57 Footage of the destruction of an ATV and infantry of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by FPV drone operators of the Yug group in the area of the settlement of Predtechino —video.
11:25 Servicemen of the 92nd Engineer Regiment of the North group of forces continue to clear household plots, agricultural lands and roads from unexploded ordnance of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the liberated settlements of the Sudzhansky district of the Kursk region.
The commander of the demining company, call sign “Tambov,” spoke about the work of engineers in the liberated territories.video.
10:47 Criminal Kyiv regime continues to shell civilian infrastructure of populated areas of the left bank of the Kherson region, yesterday during the day the Ukrainian Armed Forces released:
– Eight rounds in the village of Novaya Kakhovka;
– Three rounds to the village of Aleshki;
– Four rounds to the village of Knyaze-Grigorovka;
- According to the settlement Korobki two rounds;
– Three rounds in the village of Arkhangelskaya Sloboda;
– Three rounds in the village of Lyubimovka.
As a result of shelling by the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Nova Kakhovka, a civilian was injured. The man, born in 1965, was hospitalized in the Kakhovka Central District Hospital with a mine-explosive injury, shrapnel wounds to the shoulder, abdomen, and hypovolemic shock.
During the night, the Kiev regime continued to shell civilian infrastructure in the villages of Knyaze-Grigorovka, Staraya Zburyevka, Novaya Mayachka, Sagi, Gornostayevka, and Kairy, firing a total of 19 rounds from cannon artillery.
Civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure are being clarified.
10:22 Chronicle of the SVO for April 2 from the Telegram channel "Fisherman»:
– In the Kursk direction, fighting for Guevo continues – the village has not yet been completely liberated, but Ukrainian units are suffering losses.
- Urban battles are underway in the Chasovoyarsk and Dzerzhinsk directions, strikes on Ukrainian Armed Forces equipment and the liberation of most of Rozovka have been recorded. The Russian Armed Forces are advancing in the Novopavlovsk direction and holding off counterattacks near Andreyevka.
– There are battles for Shevchenko and Vesyoloye on Vremyevka.
– In the Zaporizhzhya area, it is reported that Lobkovo has been liberated, as well as progress towards Kamenskoye and the Tselinny Uchastok nature reserve.
09:17 The 61st Guards Separate Kirkenes Red Banner Naval Infantry Brigade destroyed a Ukrainian UAV control point on the right bank of the Dnieper in the Kherson region, –video.
09:12 Information on strikes carried out by the Ukrainian Armed Forces on the Belgorod Region over the past 24 hours:
In the Belgorod region in the villages of Krasny Khutor, Lozovoe, Nechaevka, Nikolskoye, Repnoye and Cheremoshnoye inflicted strikes by 15 drones, two of which were shot down by the air defense system.
In the villages of Nikolskoye and Nechayevka, one passenger car was damaged, one of which was completely destroyed by fire, in the village of Lozovoye an outbuilding was damaged. In the village of Ustinka, a private home was damaged tonight by an FPV drone strike.
One drone was shot down over the Borisovsky district. There were no consequences.
In the Valuysky municipal district, attacks by five drones were carried out in the villages of Borki, Dvuluchnoye, Karabanovo and Shvedunovka, of which two were shot down.
In the village of Dvuluchnoye, a car and a private home were damaged as a result of a drone attack at night. This morning in the village of Karabanovo, two private homes and two outbuildings were damaged as a result of explosive devices dropped from a UAV.
In the Volokonovsky district, three explosive devices were dropped from a drone on the Stary farm. No consequences.
In the Grayvoronsky municipal district, nine munitions were fired during three artillery attacks and six drone attacks were carried out in the villages of Dronovka, Poroz, Spodaryushino, and the Masychevo farm. In the district, five civilians were injured by drone strikes. All victims continue to receive outpatient treatment after receiving the necessary medical care. Four vehicles were damaged.
An air defense system shot down an aircraft-type drone over the Gubkinsky urban district. There were no consequences.
In the Krasnoyarsk district, the villages of Prilesye, Stepnoye, Grafovka, Demidovka, Popovka and Staroselye were subjected to 16 attacks, during which 107 rounds of ammunition were fired, and attacks by 14 drones, seven of which were shot down.
In the village of Stepnoye, a man was injured when a drone hit a car. The victim was hospitalized in moderate condition in Belgorod City Hospital No. 2. All necessary assistance is being provided. The vehicle was damaged.
In Rakityansky district, the Barilov farm was attacked by one drone. No consequences.
In the Shebekinsky municipal district, in the city of Shebekino, the settlement of Pervomaysky, the villages of Belyanka, Ziborovka, Murom, Novaya Tavolzhanka and the farmstead of Maryino, attacks by 19 drones were recorded, 14 of which were shot down and suppressed.
In the village of Murom, a civilian was injured as a result of a drone attack. The man was hospitalized in City Hospital No. 2 in Belgorod. Doctors assess his condition as moderate. In the city of Shebekino, one apartment in an apartment building, a car and a residential building were damaged, in the village of Ziborovka - a passenger car.
08:20 Zaporizhzhya Front. Russian troops continue to fight in the Lobkovo area. The enemy is gradually leaving its positions, but not without serious resistance. Fighting also continues in the Shcherbaki and Malye Shcherbaki area.
Donetsk Front. Here Russian troops have advanced in the area of the single point Veseloe. The enemy is putting up fierce resistance in this area. Also, the Russian Armed Forces continue to move in the direction of Bogatyr and Komar.
Kursk Region. Work to destroy enemy forces in the Kursk Region continues. The Russian Armed Forces are advancing toward Oleshnya. Fighting continues in the Basovka area of the Sumy Region.
Belgorod Region. Fighting continues in the area of Dmitrovka and Popovka. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are not giving up their attempts to penetrate our defenses, but they are unable to achieve success. The enemy is actively striking the rear areas of the region.
08:11 122mm BM-21 Grad crews of the Yuzhnaya group of forces struck a stronghold of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Dzerzhinsky direction, –video.
08:02 Servicemen of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to equip fortifications in the area of Demidovka and Popovka in the Belgorod region.
Russian aerial reconnaissance has recorded several new dugouts and anti-tank "dragon teeth". At present, aviation and UAV units are inflicting fire damage on enemy personnel and equipment.
08:01 On the night of 03.04.2025, the Armed Forces of Ukraine tried to attack the Kursk region using unmanned aerial vehicles.
According to preliminary information, the UAV crashed in the area of Stantsionnaya Street. There were no casualties, and it was possible to avoid destruction of buildings and structures.
Another drone crashed in Zheleznogorsk. As a result, part of the wall of a rubber products plant was broken. There were no casualties.
[EngMilRu] In Belgorod direction, units of the Sever Group of Forces hit manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, one motorised infantry brigade, two assault regiments of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and two territorial defence brigades close to Miropolskoye, Prokhody, and Petrushevka (Sumy region).
The AFU losses were up to 75 troops, one tank, one armoured fighting vehicle, four motor vehicles, three field artillery guns, and one electronic warfare station.
The Zapad Group of Forces' units improved the tactical situation along the front line. Russian troops inflicted fire damage on manpower and hardware of one tank brigade, two mechanised brigades, one assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and one territorial defence brigade near Kamenka, Kondrashovka, Zagoruykovka, Novaya Kruglyakovka (Kharkov region), Novomikhailovka, Redkodub, and Novoye (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses were more than 200 troops, two tanks, one armoured fighting vehicle, four pickup trucks, and six field artillery guns, including one U.S.-made 155mm M-198 howitzer. Three enemy ammunition depots were destroyed.
Units of the Yug Group of Forces took more advantageous lines and positions. Russian troops launched attacks on three mechanised brigades, one assault brigade of the AFU, one territorial defence brigade, and one National Guard brigade close to Seversk, Minkovka, Verolyubovka, Chasov Yar, Kurdyumovka, Konstantinovka, and Pleshcheyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses were up to 235 troops, one tank, one armoured personnel carrier, seven pickup trucks, and four field artillery guns. One electronic warfare station and two ammunition depots were neutralised.
Units of the Tsentr Group of Forces improved the tactical situation. Russian troops hit on manpower and hardware of two mechanised brigades, one jaeger brigade, one air assault brigade, one UAV brigade, one assault regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, one naval infantry brigade, two National Guard brigades, and the Omega Special Operations Center Formation close to Dimitrov, Krasnoarmeysk, Kotlino, Lenina, Udachnoye, Preobrazhenka, and Alekseyevka (Donetsk People's Republic).
The AFU losses were up to 440 troops, one German-made Leopard tank, four armoured fighting vehicles, including one U.S.-made M113 armoured personnel carrier and one French-made VAB armoured personnel carrier. Seven motor vehicles and two artillery guns were neutralised.
The Vostok Group of Forces' units continued advancing into the depths of enemy defences and liberated Veseloye (Donetsk People's Republic).
Russian troops delivered strikes at manpower and hardware of one tank brigade, three mechanised brigades, one infantry brigade, one airmobile brigade of the AFU, and one territorial defence brigade near Razliv, Yalta, Otradnoye, Volnoye Pole (Donetsk People's Republic), and Yanvarskoye (Dnepropetrovsk region).
The AFU losses were up to 125 troops, three motor vehicles, and four field artillery guns, including one Polish-made 155mm Krab self-propelled artillery system.
As a result of resolute actions, units of the Dnepr Group of Forces liberated Lobkovoye (Zaporozhye region).
Russian troops inflicted fire damage on formations of one mechanised brigade, one mountain assault brigade, three coastal defence brigades of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and two territorial defence brigades close to Orekhov (Zaporozhye region), Ponyatovka, Nikolskoye, and Yantarnoye (Kherson region).
The AFU losses were up to 60 troops, seven motor vehicles, and one electronic warfare station.
Operational-Tactical Aviation, attack drones, Missile Troops and Artillery of the Russian Groups of Forces engaged a Ukrainian missile and space industry enterprise, shops for manufacturing unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition depots as well as clusters of enemy manpower and hardware in 148 areas.
Air defence systems shot down one guided JDAM aerial bomb and three U.S.-made HIMARS MLRS projectiles as well as 138 unmanned aerial vehicles.
In total, since the beginning of the special military operation, the AFU losses amounted to: 660 aircraft, 283 helicopters, 49,562 unmanned aerial vehicles, 601 anti-aircraft missile systems, 22,644 tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles, 1,533 MLRS combat vehicles, 23,198 field artillery guns and mortars, 33,624 units of special military vehicles.
In the course of offensive actions, the Sever Group of Forces' units inflicted fire damage on formations of one mechanised brigade, three air assault brigades, and one territorial defence brigade of the AFU near Gornal, Guyevo, and Oleshnya. One AFU counter-attack was repelled.
Operational-Tactical and Army aviation, and Artillery strikes engaged AFU manpower and hardware close to Gornal, Guyevo, Oleshnya as well as Basovka, Belovody, Varachino, Vladimirovka, Vodolagi, Zhuravka, Loknya, Miropolye, Novonikolayevka, Sadki, Yunakovka, and Yablonovka in Sumy region.
Over the past 24 hours, the AFU losses were more than 180 troops, one infantry fighting vehicle, two armoured fighting vehicles, 11 motor vehicles, two mortars as well as five UAV command posts and one ammunition depot.
Since the beginning of hostilities in Kursk direction, the AFU losses amounted to: more than 71,750 troops, 403 tanks, 330 infantry fighting vehicles, 293 armoured personnel carriers, 2,244 armoured fighting vehicles, 2,602 motor vehicles, 592 artillery guns, 53 MLRS launchers, including 13 of HIMARS and seven of MLRS made by the USA, 26 anti-aircraft missile launchers, one self-propelled anti-aircraft system, ten transport-loading vehicles, 123 EW stations, 18 counter-battery warfare radars, ten air defence radars, 56 units of engineering and other materiel, including 23 counterobstacle vehicles, one UR-77 mine clearing vehicle, five bridge launchers, one engineering reconnaissance vehicle as well as 15 armoured recovery vehicles, and one command post vehicle.
The operation to neutralise the AFU units is in progress.
Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 22:15 Ukraine will receive additional F-16 fighters from its partners, which are already being prepared for transfer. This was stated by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Christopher Cavoli.
He recalled that Ukraine already has several F-16s that were handed over by its partners. Several Ukrainian pilots have also been trained to fly such fighters.
"There are more F-16s getting ready to deploy. There are more pilots getting trained," Cavoli said.
21.20 President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Chernihiv and Sumy regions, spoke with commanders about basic needs and supplies of equipment.
The head of state recalled that since August last year, Ukrainian units have been conducting combat operations on Russian territory. He called the Kursk operation one of the greatest Ukrainian results during this war.
"It is absolutely fair to transfer the war to where it came from. We spoke today with the commanders of our units in this direction - basic needs, additional supplies, equipment supplies, drones, operational issues. We are working to protect our positions. We know what the enemy is counting on," Zelensky said.
20.55 Ukraine has managed to solve the problem of the lack of soldiers on the battlefield. In particular, this was facilitated by lowering the mobilization age. This was stated by the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Christopher Cavoli.
"The Ukrainians, for their part, have taken up very strong defensive positions, well fortified, and it appears that they have resolved some of their manpower problems, which were particularly acute last fall," he said.
According to Cavoli, Ukraine has increased the pool of people available for mobilization. The pool of those available for voluntary recruitment has also been increased. At the same time, the military command has managed to effectively move people from headquarters to the front lines.
14.38 The United States continues to support NATO and remain its active member. This was stated by US Secretary of State Mark Rubio in Brussels before the start of the meeting of the Alliance's foreign ministers. According to him, the hysteria and speculation in the global media about the possible withdrawal of the United States from NATO are unfounded.
14.14 The Czech Republic will ensure the supply of ammunition to Ukraine by September this year thanks to a new initiative. This was announced by the head of the Czech Foreign Ministry Jan Lipavsky.
"We were able to secure funding, so this initiative now has enough funds to send ammunition to Ukraine on a monthly basis until September," Lipavsky said.
13.57 Slovaks, as part of the charitable initiative Ammunition for Ukraine from April 2024 to February 2025, have collected 5.1 million euros for ammunition for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, contrary to the position of the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico. This was reported by the charitable foundation All for Ukraine – Support of Ukraine.
13.08 The EU countries managed to find more than 50% of the necessary amount to purchase at least 2 million shells for Ukraine. This was stated by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas. In total, 5 billion euros are needed for this initiative.
12.40 Russian troops carried out assault operations in the area of the settlement of Andreyevka in the Donetsk region. The losses of manpower of the Russian occupiers have been confirmed: 18 people were killed, and seven were wounded. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which published a video. The enemy used about two platoons of personnel and armored vehicles. The result of the effective actions of Ukrainian soldiers is that the enemy's losses in armored vehicles have been confirmed: 12 units were hit, seven of which were completely destroyed.
12.23 In a number of Ukrainian cities, support centers for families of prisoners of war and missing persons have begun operating. Assistance will be provided by regional representatives together with other specialists.
12:13 The Ministry of Defense has codified the Ukrainian-made Amaga-10 unmanned aerial systems. This was reported on April 3 by the press service of the Ministry of Defense. It is noted that the drones of the system are fast and maneuverable, capable of carrying a combat load sufficient to destroy armored vehicles with additional protection, and operate in manual or semi-automatic control mode.
11:01 On the morning of April 3, Russian troops attacked Krasnopolye in the Sumy region, causing fires as a result of the strikes. This was reported by the regional police. It was noted that as a result of the strikes, civilian infrastructure was damaged, but there were no casualties.
10:42 In the Sumy region, law enforcement officers detained a Russian informant who was passing on intelligence to the occupiers about the bases and movements of the Defense Forces in the territory bordering the Kursk region. This was reported on April 3 by the SBU. The defendant was the deputy director of one of the local educational institutions, who lived in a frontline village and expected the Russians to seize the entire northeastern region of Ukraine.
9:50 Ukrainian Defense Forces shot down 28 Russian drones, and seven more enemy drones were lost. This was reported by the Ukrainian Air Force. The aftermath of the attack was recorded in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
9:27 Ukrainian drones, after they are captured by Russian occupiers, infect enemy systems with malware. This is reported by Forbes.
8:31 The occupiers carried out most of the assaults in the Pokrovsk direction - 80 attacks by the aggressor. In total, in one day, on April 2, 216 combat clashes took place on the front in Ukraine. This is stated in the morning report of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
7:58 The number of victims in Kryvyi Rih as a result of rocket attacks on April 2 has increased. The Russians also attacked several other communities in the Dnipropetrovsk region. This was reported by the head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration (OVA) Serhiy Lysak.
7:44 Russian invaders have lost 1,390 soldiers at the front over the past 24 hours. This is evidenced by data from the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
00:04 Russian troops launched a massive drone attack on Kharkiv on Wednesday evening. Over the course of 40 minutes, 14 drone strikes occurred in the city - at five locations in the city, all in the Kyivsky district. There were no casualties, but there was damage to housing and transport infrastructure.
[IsraelTimes] Hungarian PM invited Netanyahu day after court issued warrant for his arrest; Budapest says while it ratified statute that formed body, it ‘was never made part of Hungarian law’
Minutes before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was received by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban Thursday, Budapest announced that it was withdrawing from the International Criminal Court, which in November issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli premier.
"The withdrawal process will begin on Thursday, in line with Hungary’s constitutional and international legal obligations," Orban’s front man Zoltan Kovacs said.
Orban invited his Israeli counterpart to Budapest in November, a day after the ICC issued its arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes 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 launched its offensive following a brutal massacre by Hamas ..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,... -led bully boyz in southern Israel.
Israel has rejected the accusations, which it says are politically motivated and fuelled by antisemitism. It says the International Criminal Court has lost all legitimacy by issuing warrants against a democratically elected leader of a country exercising the right of self-defense.
As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone subject to a warrant from the court but Orban made clear that Hungary would not respect the ruling which he called "brazen, cynical and completely unacceptable."
Hungary signed the ICC’s founding document in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, but the law has not been promulgated.
Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s chief of staff, said in November that although Hungary ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it "was never made part of Hungarian law," meaning that no measure of the court can be carried out within Hungary.
On Thursday, Gulyas told state news agency MTI that the government would launch the withdrawal process later in the day.
Orban had raised the prospect of Hungary’s exit from the ICC after US President Donald Trump ...Perhaps no man has ever had as much fun being president of the US... imposed sanctions on the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February.
"It’s time for Hungary to review what we’re doing in an international organization that is under US sanctions," Orban said on X in February.
The bill on starting the year-long process of withdrawing from the ICC is likely to be approved by Hungary’s parliament, which is dominated by Orban’s Fidesz party.
Netanyahu has enjoyed strong support over the years from Hungary’s Orban, an important ally who has been ready to block EU statements or actions critical of Israel in the past.
[Rudaw] Iraq’s justice ministry said on Thursday that hundreds of people are being released across the country daily after a recently approved general amnesty law entered implementation.
"The implementation of the general amnesty law continues. Just yesterday, more than 800 beneficiaries of the law were released," ministry spokesperson Ahmed al-Luaibi told Rudaw.
According to the ministry’s statistics, there are 30 prisons in Iraq with some 67,000 inmates, 1,600 of which are foreigners.
The number excludes the Kurdistan Region’s prisons and those held by security forces and different gangs across the country.
"The process continues even during the [Eid al-Fitr] holidays," Luaibi added, explaining that the release of prisoners is not under their jurisdiction but rather the Supreme Judicial Council’s.
The general amnesty, submitted by Sunni politicians, amended the 2016 law’s definition of affiliation with terrorist organizations. This change was a key prerequisite for Sunni blocs to agree to join the ruling State Administration Coalition. Sunnis argue that thousands from their community have been unjustly imprisoned in Shiite-dominated Iraq since 2003 over alleged terrorism links.
In mid February, the controversial law went into effect after being published in the Official Gazette of Iraq, along with two other controversial laws demanded by Shiite and Kurdish politicians - the personal status and land restitution laws, respectively.
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) seized control of vast swathes of Iraqi territory in 2014. During the liberation process, thousands of people were arrested for alleged links to the jihadist group, especially in Sunni areas like Nineveh province.
[FoxNews] "Always, we’re going to let go of people we don’t like, or people we don’t think can do the job, or people who may have loyalties to somebody else"
President Donald Trump confirmed that multiple employees within the National Security Council were fired Thursday, adding to National Security Advisor Mike Waltz's recent political woes that have snowballed since Democrats first slammed him over March's Signal chat leak.
"Always, we’re going to let go of people we don’t like, or people we don’t think can do the job, or people who may have loyalties to somebody else," Trump said from Air Force One when asked about reports on the NSC firings.
Trump confirmed that NSC members had been fired, but remarked it was not many individuals.
Trump added that he continues to trust his NSC team, remarking that they've "done very well" and "had big success with the Houthis."
Waltz, who previously served as a Florida congressman and as a decorated combat Green Beret, has come under fire from Democrats and critics since March, when the Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg published a firsthand account of getting added to a Signal group chat with top national security leaders, including Waltz, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, while they discussed strikes against Yemen terrorists. Trump and his administration have repeatedly defended the national security leader amid criticisms over the chat leak.
Signal is an encrypted messaging app that operates similarly to texting or making phone calls, but with additional security measures that help ensure communications are kept private to those included in the correspondence.
#3
The Signal story is dead, but Fox needs something to be shocked about.
These firings may or may not be related to this, but President Trump has made it quite clear that he is not going to tolerate incompetence or dishonesty.
#5
More like a snowballs chance in hell. Great work by Laura Loomer to ferret out the disloyal cucks and if she also was able to get some personal satisfaction then good for her. Funny how the Democrats don't like it when someone plays the game the same way the Democrats do.
#6
signal should have been customized for govt use in a way that would prevent unauthorized attendees on chat
Signal was approved for govt use during the Biden admin that didn't do that but now this customizing should be done pronto
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
04/04/2025 11:05
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#7
Why do I think this reflects a pre-planned entrapment of planted deep-state assets to better purge the IC resistance. Counter-intelligence requires active misbehavior to trigger the plan.
I don't think they got the memo that their Wedge Play was exposed to a reasonable amount and the story needs to be dropped as the full scope will become exposed. Or they did, and it is so frogged all they can do now is throw slurs.
Karmelo Anthony posted the photo on the right just hours before st*bbing Austin Metcalf to de*th. The other photo was shared six weeks ago. pic.twitter.com/xC5ipTc7U2
#3
Frisco is a booming North Texas town with a A baseball park, Toyota Football (soccer) stadium, Dallas Cowboys practice facility, a busy mall, and even an IKEA. Two of our children and their spouses, with three grandchildren, live about a mile from the high school the killer attended.
There are many apartments, of course, and a small trailer park, just off a busy six lane street. And apparently some smoldering, old-south tensions.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/04/2025 11:05
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#4
That's a *Double A*, Frisco Roughriders, Dr. Pepper Stadium, a lovely place to watch Texas Rangers AA baseball.
PIMF, sometimes.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/04/2025 11:08
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[IsraelTimes] New military spokesman announces operation to cut off Rafah, but is coy on plans; army warns civilians to evacuate areas around Gaza City; Islamic Jihad-claimed rocket intercepted
The military said it was entering "a new stage" of fighting against the Hamas ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... terror group 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 on Thursday, as troops prepared to cut off the southern city of Rafah and warplanes carried out extensive strikes across the enclave, amid warnings of further attacks.
Hamas-controlled health authorities in the Strip reported dozens killed in Israeli strikes over the previous 24 hours, including 27 people who died when three missiles hit a former school building in the al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, though the tolls could not be confirmed.
Since the resumption of fighting in Gaza on March 18, Israel has struck more than 600 targets in the Strip and killed over 250 terror operatives, including 12 bigwigs in Hamas’s military wing and politburo - all gunnies and participated in the October 7 massacre.
Israeli authorities said warplanes had targeted "key Hamas terrorists" inside a command center used to plan and execute attacks against Israelis and that it had taken steps to mitigate harm to civilians.
The intensification in fighting came a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that troops would carve out a new security corridor that will seemingly cut off Rafah as it seeks to pile pressure on Hamas, which continues to hold 59 Israeli hostages kidnapped on October 7, 2023.
"In recent days, we have advanced to a new stage in the operation," Israel Defense Forces front man Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told news hounds Thursday in his first briefing since assuming the post earlier this week. "The plan serves the goals of the war: returning the hostages and destroying Hamas’s military and governing capabilities."
He spoke a day after the IDF deployed a new division into southern Gaza, bringing the number of divisions operating in the Strip to three.
Defrin said the newly expanded campaign had involved more than 60 Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s aimed at degrading Hamas’s capabilities and paving the way for ground troops to move into areas in the north and south of the Strip.
"We are now cutting off the Strip and we are increasing the pressure step by step... so they will give us our hostages. The longer they refuse to give them up, the more the pressure will increase until they do," Netanyahu said.
"We have broadened our activities in southern Gaza to surround and cut off the Rafah area," he added. "Beyond that, we’re maintaining operational ambiguity so we can surprise the enemy and bring about significant achievements."
Thursday also saw a rocket fired at Israel from central Gaza, setting off sirens in the border community of Nahal Oz. The projectile was intercepted by air defenses, the army said.
There have been a number of sporadic rocket attacks from Gaza since the IDF resumed its offensive last month, after a ceasefire and hostage release deal in place since January fell apart, with Israel vowing to ratchet up military pressure on Hamas to free the remaining hostages. The war, which has devastated the Strip, was sparked when thousands of Hamas gunnies invaded southern Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and kidnapping 251. Most victims were civilians.
The army also said Thursday that a strike a day earlier against a Hamas command center in northern Gaza’s Jabalia had killed at least four operatives, including a terrorist who participated in the October 7 onslaught and another Paleostinian who was involved in the release ceremony of hostage soldier Agam Berger. Two Hamas members involved in launching rockets were also killed, the army said.
Paleostinians had reported that 19 people were killed and claimed the site was a clinic run by the UN agency for Paleostinian refugees.
According to Defrin, since the resumption of fighting in Gaza on March 18, Israel has struck more than 600 targets in the Strip and killed over 250 terror operatives, including 12 bigwigs in Hamas’s military wing and politburo.
"They are all gunnies and participated in the October 7 massacre," he said of the bigwigs.
Following the rocket fire Thursday, which was claimed by the Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... terror group, the IDF warned residents of several Gaza City neighborhoods to flee, saying it was issuing a "final warning" before strikes there.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of residents streamed out of the Gaza City suburb of Shejaiya after Israel warned civilians to evacuate ahead of strikes. Some were seen carrying their belongings as they walked, while others were on donkey carts and bikes or in vans.
Throughout the war, the IDF has issued evacuation orders for various areas, advising residents to head for safe zones to avoid being caught up in the fighting. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields by embedding its fighters among the population.
Paleostinians said people in Rafah who tried to leave the city Thursday were hampered by Israeli strikes along the western coastal road linking Rafah to Khan Younis, where many displaced Gazooks have already moved to. Most Gazooks had already fled the city when Israel resumed its campaign last month.
Rafah "is gone, it is being wiped out," a father of seven who fled from Rafah to Khan Younis told Rooters via a chat app.
"They are knocking down what is left standing of houses and property," said the man, who declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.
On Wednesday, Netanyahu said Israel was "shifting gears" in Gaza and seizing a belt of land known as the "Morag Corridor," cutting off access between Rafah and the city of Khan Younis to the north. The move will essentially isolate Rafah, which is bounded on the south by the Israel-controlled Philadelphi Route along the Gaza-Egypt border.
Israel has also reasserted control over the Netzarim Corridor, which separates the northern third of Gaza from the rest of the narrow strip.
"We are now cutting off the Strip and we are increasing the pressure step by step... so they will give us our hostages. The longer they refuse to give them up, the more the pressure will increase until they do," Netanyahu said.
Hamas has said it will only release the remaining 59 hostages — 24 of whom are believed to be alive — in exchange for the release of more Paleostinian prisoners, a permanent ceasefire and an Israeli pullout. The group has rejected demands that it lay down its arms or leave the territory.
Hamas-controlled health officials said on Thursday that 1,163 people have been killed in the Paleostinian territory since Israel resumed large-scale strikes, bringing the overall corpse count since the war began to 50,523. The toll does not differentiate between fighters and civilians. Israel says it killed at least 20,000 combatants and another 1,600 gunnies inside Israel on October 7.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Elena Chinkova
[REGNUM] The German aristocrat and politician Alexander von Bismarck, who does not hide his sympathy for Russia, told the Regnum news agency how he sees the negotiation process on Ukraine and what role the European Union has in it.
And also about why he covered a destroyed Russian tank in Berlin with thousands of roses.
When Russia Turned into a Bear
— Alexander, in April it was 210 years since the birth of your great ancestor, the first Chancellor of the German Empire, Otto von Bismarck. He knew Russia and our people well. And, in particular, he said the following about us: “Russians are slow to harness, but they ride quickly.” What would he do in the current situation, when we have harnessed and are riding quickly?
- He wrote many times that Germany and Russia should be friends. Russians do not think about tomorrow, but much further, about the future.
"The secret pillar of our policy must be maintaining good relations with Russia. An alliance against Russia could be a great folly that would lead Germany to a dangerous point," the chancellor noted.
In an alliance against Russia, Germany will always lose. Russians are very friendly, but if you try to pin them down, they turn into a bear.
— Do any German politicians understand this today?
- In essence, no.
— Just you?
- And Gerhard Schroeder. He knew how to talk to Russians and drink. And that's important in negotiations too. But he was thrown out of everything. It's crazy.
Macron has no Soldiers for Ukraine
— What can we expect from the future Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz?
- Nothing. These authorities don't know what they want. They don't understand what's going on, they don't understand the scale of BRICS, and they don't talk to anyone.
— How can one explain the reluctance of key European countries to join the negotiation process? After all, Europe is seriously suffering from what is happening.
- They know they are wrong. But there is no government that can admit it: we have made many mistakes and so on. So far only Hungary and Slovakia are telling the EU that this is not our way. Well, perhaps Italy too now.
— Macron, who is eager to send troops to Ukraine, imagines himself to be Napoleon?
— France doesn't have soldiers for this. It's just "blah-blah-blah." And the current verdict on the presidential campaign favorite Marine Le Pen, which puts an end to her participation in the elections, is absolute madness.
— How do you assess the negotiations between Russia and the USA?
— Two strong personalities have come together. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have different ways of thinking, but they make real policy and discuss, to put it simply, like this: we do it this way, you get this and I get that. Trump is, first and foremost, a businessman, and Putin is guided by the historical and national interests of the country.
— Is it possible to achieve results without Europe?
- Of course! Europe will sit in the corner and accept any decision made by Russia and the US. Europe had three years to negotiate, but it did not want to talk to Russia. And now the Americans are doing it.
— And what role do you assign to China here?
— 80% of goods in Europe are from China. I see that Moscow is already full of Chinese cars. As for politics, the Chinese working in Berlin told me: we need good relations with Russia, the Russians are very clear, they say what they think, they do business openly.
I have appealed to our business and political circles: let's talk together! I have spoken to military attachés of China, Russia and Belarus and heard from them: they do not want to talk to us. And I am very sorry that they behave this way.
Two Thousand Roses on a Russian Tank
— In February 2023, Ukrainian activists placed a disabled Russian T-72 tank near the Russian embassy in Berlin, pointing its barrel at the diplomatic mission. And in response, you organized a touching action — you showered the tank with two thousand roses. Did you suffer greatly for your sympathy for Russia?
— In the media, yes. For several weeks in a row, I was accused of Putin's propaganda. But otherwise, no — I am a free businessman. Sometimes my friends tell me about another publication: "Alex, have you read this?!" I answer: "Yes, but I have already forgotten!"
If no one says anything, we will find ourselves in a situation that no one really wants. Many ordinary people are already declaring the need to normalize relations with Russia and are taking to the streets for peaceful demonstrations.
My good friend from the European Parliament, also a representative of an aristocratic family, Michael von der Schulenburg, has long-standing friendly ties with Russia, as does my family. In my opinion, he would be a suitable candidate from Germany to conduct a dialogue with Russia.
— When do you expect the conflict to end?
— When Putin and Trump say: “We need a week or two,” when they have a single and clear understanding of the settlement, then it will be over. And Ukraine and Europe will have nothing to say. I think that negotiations are ongoing every day, and it will happen very soon. I would like it to happen by May 9. And Donald Trump and Xi Jinping would be present at the Victory Parade in Moscow.
Alexander von Bismarck was born in 1951 in Reinbek (FRG). He has a law and economics education. In 1972–2017, he was a member of the Christian Democratic Union. Businessman, public figure, founder of the Russian-German public project "Bismarck Dialogue". He is married to the Russian violist Irina von Bismarck and has a son.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Ivan Lizan
[REGNUM] US President Donald Trump has imposed import tariffs on products from virtually every country in the world, triggering a global trade war. The rates are tied to the US trade deficit with each individual country and are adjusted for political factors.
Everyone without exception was affected, the only question is the duty rate: the minimum is 10%, the maximum is 49%.
The countries with which the United States has small volumes of mutual trade and does not have a pronounced trade deficit are subject to minimal duties.
For example, 10% tariffs would apply to Russia, Belarus, Iran, and North Korea — the United States has no trade relations with them, but there are a number of diplomatic issues that need to be resolved. Introducing tariffs against these countries would not give the United States any advantages, but would create additional problems.
The totality of duties is intended to prevent circumvention of restrictions through other countries. This explains the exorbitant duties for Cambodia and Vietnam - 49% and 46% respectively. These countries were used by Chinese businesses to circumvent the restrictions.
And the duties on penguins from uninhabited islands, which have caused widespread discussion and ridicule, were introduced to prevent Australian businesses from registering in these territories.
NEW AMERICAN RULES
The introduction of restrictions is justified both at the ideological level and at the economic level.
At the ideological level, the tariffs are positioned as an act of economic liberation for the United States and the restoration of justice. The logic of the Washington administration is simple: the United States created the modern system of world trade, and all other countries should be grateful to them for this.
But instead of gratitude, they “abuse” the export of their goods to America and do not want to buy American goods.
The fact that such changes in world trade are absolutely normal, and that the United States itself became a superpower at the expense of weakening other states, such as the British Empire, is ignored.
At the economic level, there is also a solid rationale: the US's sky-high trade deficit and record levels of external debt no longer allow it to pursue the policies that many still consider the norm.
The United States urgently needs to solve four problems. The first is to correct the trade balance, reducing its deficit, and ideally, to ensure a surplus in foreign trade.
The second is to reduce the cost of servicing the government debt, as well as attracting new borrowing.
The third is to ensure an influx of investment into the country for its subsequent reindustrialization.
The fourth is to inflict economic damage on your economic and geopolitical opponents.
In theory, Trump's trade war allows achieving these goals. Tariffs will cut off some imports from the American market, making them uncompetitive or too expensive. Against the background of the adjustment of the trade balance, the cost of servicing the American debt will decrease.
The reduction in imports, together with budgetary savings measures, will lead to a reduction in the size of the federal budget deficit, and therefore reduce the need for borrowing.
The strong dependence of many countries and corporations on the American market will force them to accept Trump's conditions or resign themselves to the transfer of production to the United States, that is, they will contribute to the reindustrialization of America.
Countries unfriendly to the United States, such as China, will be denied access to the American market, which will contribute to their economic weakening.
But in exchange for this you will have to sacrifice something.
SIDE EFFECTS
First, the US will cease to be the only superpower. In fact, they are no longer one, since they have ceased to influence many countries and processes in the world.
If Trump succeeds in implementing his reforms, the United States will remain only a major regional power with its own sphere of political and economic influence, under which countries dependent on it will fall.
Secondly, the dollar as a global currency will have to be sacrificed – after all, what good is the dollar if the US is reducing trade volumes with 185 countries and also betting on weakening its currency to stimulate import substitution and exports? In such conditions, a weak dollar will be a competitive advantage for American goods.
Third, it will be necessary to sacrifice membership in international institutions and stop observing the rules of decency in relation to small countries. The US blocked the work of the WTO at the end of Trump's first term, and Joe Biden has done nothing to restart participation in this organization.
The States will pump money out of their recent partners, who will now become donors. And here a striking example is the transformation of Ukraine from a partner, which was financed free of charge, into a hopeless debtor. But it will be possible to take Greenland by force.
But what is far more dangerous for Trump at the moment is that public support will have to be sacrificed.
The stock market will deflate: the capitalization of many corporations, around which stock market bubbles have been inflated for years, will be greatly reduced; the stock market will be dominated by bears, not bulls.
The trade war with the rest of the world will cause inflation in the US to rise sharply, as the dependence on imports is stronger than it seems, and supply chains are usually longer and more intertwined than officials assume.
At the same time, the awareness will grow that import duties are not the same as exemption from imports: import substitution does not occur automatically when imported goods become more expensive; it is a delayed consequence of investments by the state and business, stimulated by sound tax policy and government support measures.
It is much more difficult to prescribe these measures and create such a tax policy than to introduce import duties. It is even more difficult to launch such a mechanism, while simultaneously solving a host of infrastructure, technological and personnel problems.
In any case, it will be the American consumer who pays for American import substitution, and the corporations who get rich from it.
And if the rate of American consumer spending exceeds the rate of growth of his income from the creation of new jobs, then Trump will face a drop in approval ratings and a decrease in the level of social support.
In that case, the American oligarchy will betray him at any favorable offer from its opponents. And the Democrats who return to power will partially roll back Trump's reforms.
Therefore, the current administration will try to make the reforms irreversible and is already combining them with a comprehensive attack on the Democrats.
The Trumpists are cutting budget expenditures that fed the Democrats, reforming the electoral system, trying to take control of the courts, protecting their officials from media attacks and engaging in them themselves, conquering the information space.
Overall, Trump's plan can be described as risky but rational.
EUROPE IS IN DESPAIR
Naturally, the leadership of other countries will not sit silently and watch what is happening.
In trade wars, countries with a trade deficit have the advantage - the trade war between the US and China, which has been going on since 2018, is proof of this.
It will be more difficult for the affected countries to reduce their imports of American goods - they are often very specific, like the same civilian aircraft, software and hardware. And not all goods, such as food and energy, can be replaced.
Weak countries and those who were given 10% will not respond - either they have nothing to respond with, or there is no need, since there is an opportunity to replace someone else’s reduced share of the American market.
Large countries and blocs will certainly respond, since they cannot demonstrate weakness.
The trade war with China will reach a qualitatively new level, but the US is no stranger to it. Nor is China, for that matter.
Beijing will try to compensate for the loss of the American market by redirecting exports to other countries, including not the richest, but promising ones - the same African states. But it is worth noting that China is already suffering - there is deflation in the country.
Relations with the EU will continue to rapidly deteriorate. In the EU countries affected by the tariffs, industrial production will decrease, GDP will shrink, unemployment and social discontent will increase.
But it will be aimed more at the US and Trump personally, and it will definitely not bring the right to power. The EU has learned to fight them with both legal and illegal means, while ignoring the moralizing of Trump and J.D. Vance.
However, Europe's margin of safety is very small: relations with Russia have been damaged, its sales markets and energy resources have been lost, as has the previous harmony in relations with China, which has become a strong competitor for European companies.
Therefore, the EU will be the most affected party in this war, which will face capital flight to the US and the transfer of production there.
Left out of this story is a group of rogue states and Russia.
Globally, Trump is doing through tariffs what was done to Russia through sanctions: cutting it off from global trade. But they wanted to punish Russia, forcing it into submission, while for the US these measures are positioned as a benefit — different places in the global trade system are having an effect.
At first glance, Trump's trade war does not affect Russia: big deal, 10% duties with minimal trade volumes and an exorbitant number of sanctions imposed. But there is a nuance.
Firstly, Trump is chaos, and you can expect anything from him. The attention of the domestic bureaucracy is not unlimited, and its forces are limited. In this regard, Biden was much more predictable, since he would continue the inertial policy and would not break world trade through his knee.
Secondly, Trump risks plunging the global economy into recession. And this will result in a reduction in demand for many raw materials and energy products, and at the same time provoke an increase in the number of various restrictions. There is no longer any room to move on the global market: production exceeds demand, and countries are closing their markets one after another.
The only thing that gives hope is the Trumpists' awareness of the fact that America is not all-powerful, which means that other countries have the right to their spheres of influence. But will it be possible to bite out such a sphere from the US?
And the number of people wishing to return to the Russian market will also increase, but will we be happy to see all those who return?
The number of countries claiming sovereignty will also grow: some will find it more profitable to grow up and separate from the US than to be endlessly dependent on the antics of Trump, who is turning from a kind patron into an evil racketeer.
In any case, if after 2014 world trade was disrupted and was not free in relation to sovereign countries, then now it can safely be buried for the rest of the world.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Mark Leshkevich
[REGNUM] In the last days of March 1945, when the Reich was already clearly doomed, but had not yet surrendered, General Gustav Fritz Julius von First, who was “languishing” in comfortable American captivity, received the order to “get your things out.”
This former commander of the 5th Panzer Army of the Wehrmacht was captured near the African Bizerte back in May 1943. Furst "unconditionally surrendered" his broken troops and armored vehicles to the American General Omar Bradley (the same one after whom the modern infantry fighting vehicle is named) and was taken to the United States, under guard at a base in Clinton, Mississippi. It was here in the spring of 1945 that people in civilian clothes and uniform arrived, who at the end of the war showed a sudden interest in the competence of captured Germans.
In addition to First, these were: infantry general Theodor von Sponeck, captured at El Alamein, another infantryman, a "trophy" of the British allies, Karl von Liebenstein, and a whole group of valuable Wehrmacht personnel. Who were taken into development with all delicacy by the War Ministry, the State Department, and the intelligence services simultaneously.
"HILLBILLY" WITH THE TOP SECRET STAMP
In early April 1945, prisoners of war moved to a new location “with furniture and accumulated property,” notes American historian Derek Mallett, who in recent decades has been researching previously top secret documents about the US Army’s collaboration with the Nazis.
More precisely, about the cooperation in which the entire Anglo-Saxon bloc of the anti-Hitler coalition participated. On May 22, 1945, the British military leadership presented Prime Minister Winston Churchill with a plan for Operation Unthinkable - a surprise attack on the USSR. A kind of British, or rather, British-American blitzkrieg, since both Atlantic allies participated in the development in the spring and summer of 1945.
Simultaneously with the creation of the "Unthinkable" plan, the Hill project was launched in the United States. Generals von Furst, von Sponeck and other "trophy" military leaders agreed to share their experience with the American, British and Canadian intelligence services.
And the new home they moved to (or rather, one of the new homes) was Camp Ritchie, a base lost on the forested southwestern slope of the Blue Ridge in Pennsylvania.
The project was overseen by the British Director of Military Intelligence, future head of MI6, John Alexander Sinclair, and Major General Clayton Bissell, the Pentagon representative to the US Joint Intelligence Committee.
The wards were jokingly called hillbillies. But it is clear that this was a "hillbilly" classified as "secret". American society and residents of allied countries, for obvious reasons, did not suspect the existence of the Hill project for decades.
According to declassified Mountain documents, Washington and London were interested in Wehrmacht “methods” that could “potentially improve the structure and procedures” of the Western Allied armies. Detailed reports on German and Japanese military strategy, technology and engineering were passed on to the Americans, British and Canadians.
In September 1945, fresh secret bearers from Anglo-American prisoner-of-war camps joined First and his comrades. On September 25, 38 former Wehrmacht officers boarded the US Navy ship West Point, including 27 high-ranking military officers, from colonels to generals. Soon the total number of protégés rose to two hundred.
In particular, Major General Wolfgang Thomale, who had extensive knowledge of tank battles, joined Project Hill in 1946. Incidentally, he gained his basic experience in the Soviet Union, at the Kama training center, where Reichswehr tank officers gained experience from 1929 until the Nazis came to power, bypassing the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty.
During the last two years of the war, Thomale served as Chief of Staff to Colonel General Heinz Guderian after the latter was appointed Inspector General of Panzer Troops in 1943. Thomale, whom Guderian called a "phenomenal tank officer", made significant contributions to the project's research into tank training and tank warfare.
A particularly valuable acquisition was Luftwaffe General Karl Peter Bernhard Kehi, who had served in both the ground forces and the Kriegsmarine, the navy, before joining the Air Force.
Officially, it was about “defending Western Europe from a potential invasion by the Red Army.” But in reality, it was about continuing the world war – only now a war with the Soviet Union.
"BARBAROSSA" 2.0
As modern American scientists note, the Nazis passed on to their recent enemies information that fit on 3,600 pages. Among them: German experience of mobilization and building logistics at the level of the high command, fortification technologies, operational intelligence and much more.
One of the operational studies of the multi-hundred-page Hill project was the study of German tank breakthrough practices. Here, the experience of Guderian's "phenomenal" protégé Wolfgang Thomale and captured translations of documentation from the 1st Panzer Group (later the 1st Panzer Army) of Ewald von Kleist at the planning stage of Operation Barbarossa came in handy.
The focus was on the first eighteen days of the campaign, when the First Panzer Group was responsible for "the subsequent overcoming of the initial Russian defensive line and the strategic breakthrough."
Let us turn to the English plan “Unthinkable”, one of the main points of which was, using the element of surprise, to launch two attacks from the borders of the western occupation zones in the directions of Stettin – Schneidemühl – Bydgoszcz and Leipzig – Cottbus – Poznan – Breslau (Wroclaw).
After the debut of the blitzkrieg, the main tank battles were to unfold east of the Oder-Neisse line, in the operational space of Poland, with access to the front line from Danzig to Wroclaw. Here the knowledge and skills of those who conducted the blitzkrieg campaigns of 1939, 1940 and early 1941 could well come in handy.
The strategic goal was to “impose the will of the United States and the British Empire on Russia.” The Western allies were counting on “quick success” that “might induce the Russians to submit.”
PROVEN PERFORMERS FOR TOTAL WAR
"The only way we can achieve our goal with certainty and lasting results is through victory in total war," the document says.
By total war (at this point one inevitably recalls Joseph Goebbels’ slogan after the defeat at Stalingrad: “Total war is the shortest war”) the British mean the occupation of “such territories of the Russian metropolis where the country’s military potential will be reduced to such an extent that further resistance will become impossible.”
The plan's developers wanted " such a decisive defeat of Russian troops on the battlefield that would make it impossible for the USSR to continue the war."
According to the plan's authors, British and American troops were to receive full support from the Polish Home Army, German labor, and the remnants of the Third Reich's industry.
Already in May 1945, Western strategists understood that "achieving a decisive defeat for Russia in a total war would require, in particular, the mobilization of manpower to counteract their present enormous manpower resources. This is a very long-term project that will require the deployment in Europe of a significant part of the enormous resources of the United States," as well as "the re-equipment and reorganization of the German army and all Western allies."
One of the real goals of Project Hill fits into this task: the use of German command personnel to reorganize the Wehrmacht, including its undisarmed (as of spring 1945) part, for the occupation of Soviet territories.
After Germany's capitulation, a mass of experienced German commanders, non-commissioned officers and soldiers, charged with hatred of "Moscow Bolshevism," could well have been used as cannon fodder in a conventional war - that is, a normal, non-nuclear war between the Atlantic bloc and the Soviet Union.
The key word is non-nuclear.
PLANS CHANGE, METHODS REMAIN THE SAME
Plan Unthinkable was formally shelved when Churchill stepped down as prime minister following the Conservatives' election defeat in the summer of 1945.
But Clement Attlee's Labour government continued to develop plans for war with the Soviet Union, coordinating these plans with US President Harry Truman, future White House chief Dwight Eisenhower (at that time, commander-in-chief of American-British forces in Europe) and Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King.
On the Attlee cabinet side, bridges with the Americans were built by Field Marshal Henry Wilson, a participant in Yalta and Potsdam and commander of British troops in Iran, which bordered the USSR.
At a meeting on Eisenhower's yacht off the coast of the United States in September 1946, representatives from Washington and London came to the conclusion that the allies (apparently even reinforced by the "sponsored" Germans) would not be able to contain the counteroffensive of the Soviet army in Europe.
But the US and Britain did not refuse to creatively borrow the experience of other armies.
In 1949, the USSR acquired an atomic bomb. This meant that a war between Western countries and the Soviet Union no longer meant "taking out the enemy in one go" - a nuclear conflict meant the prospect of mutual annihilation. Therefore, NATO war scenarios also implied conducting conventional actions, without a bomb. And here the experience of fighting on the ground was quite appropriate.
Thus, South Korean military strategies developed during the Korean War of 1950–53, including the use of air power, logistics, and propaganda, were later used by the Pentagon to prepare for a possible conflict with the USSR.
And it is unlikely that the former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhny, a general with experience in large-scale modern conventional warfare in the European theatre of military operations, was simply sent “for safekeeping” to London.
BEAT THE ENEMY WITH HIS OWN WEAPON
The logic of military confrontation implies that we must have the same or comparable weapons as a potential enemy. This also applies to “trophy” brains and borrowed military technologies. And there is no time for playing in white gloves.
For example, the team of SS-Sturmbannführer Werner von Braun was balanced by 400 German physicists working for the USSR, among whom was Manfred von Ardenne, SS-Standartenführer and holder of the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. He was also a laureate of two Stalin Prizes in 1947 and 1953.
The same applied to those with experience in conventional military strategy and tactics. Against the information of the "people from the Mountain" (including those who told the Americans about Ewald von Kleist's blitzkrieg tactics), the Soviet Union could use the knowledge received from Field Marshal von Kleist himself.
And also from two other military leaders of the same rank: Friedrich Paulus and the Fuhrer's favorite Ferdinand Schörner.
As for the “ordinary” generals, there were 373 of them in our captivity.
The documents of the American Hill project number thousands of pages, and the information transferred by the "trophy" Germans to the Americans is much more voluminous. But let us recall: in the mid-2010s, the Russian Defense Ministry opened an archive of documents captured from the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War or found in the Soviet occupation zone.
This archive contains no less than 28 thousand storage units. Only the translated documentation transferred to the General Staff of the Red Army fit into 341 weighty folders.
As for using a former enemy against a new enemy, let us recall that the National People's Army of the GDR was considered one of the most combat-ready forces of the Warsaw Pact.
And although the "first German state of workers and peasants" officially disavowed the legacy of Prussian militarism, the Nazionale Volksarmee was in many ways a continuation of the old German army. So, in terms of "its Germans," the Eastern bloc balanced the Western one.
Now, when our relations with the West can only be called a second edition of the Cold War, and when Russia is waging a proxy war with its former “European partners,” the use of foreign, including enemy, experience is acquiring new relevance.
[IsraelTimes] Senior Iranian official tells British newspaper that Tehran is scaling back its support for regional proxy groups to focus on direct threats emanating from Trump administration
Iran has reportedly ordered its military personnel to leave Yemen and is pulling back its support for the Houthis amid extensive US airstrikes on the rebel group.
The British Telegraph newspaper on Thursday cited a “senior Iranian official” saying that Tehran is scaling back its support of its regional proxies to focus on the direct threats emanating from the US administration.
“Every meeting is dominated by discussions about [US President Donald Trump],” the official was quoted as saying.
According to the official, Iran’s pullback from Yemen was designed to avoid the possibility of escalation if an Iranian soldier is killed in US airstrikes there.
Tehran is focusing its efforts instead on how to respond to Trump and his litany of threats, and “none of the regional groups we previously supported are being discussed,” the official said.
“The view here is that the Houthis will not be able to survive and are living their final months or even days, so there is no point in keeping them on our list.”
“They were part of a chain that relied on Nasrallah and Assad, and keeping only one part of that chain for the future makes no sense,” the official continued, referring respectively to the former leaders of the Hezbollah terror group and Syria.
The Telegraph report came amid a US aerial campaign agains the Houthis that has seen near-daily strikes in rebel-held areas of Yemen since beginning on March 15. The strikes are aimmed at stopping the Iran-backed group from attacking commercial shipping in solidarity with Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.
On Thursday, the Houthis said a strike they blamed on the United States killed a guard at a communications tower, among more than 30 strikes on rebel-held parts of Yemen.
“An American aggression targeted the communications network in… Ibb governorate, leading to the martyrdom of Abdulwasim Abdulwahab Zahir, the communications tower guard,” Houthi health ministry spokesman Anees Alasbahi said on social media.
Earlier, the Houthis’ Al-Masirah television said more than 20 strikes had hit Saada province, the rebels’ stronghold in the northern mountains.
It said Washington had carried out two strikes on vehicles, one south of the rebel-held capital Sanaa and another in Saada province.
In a video statement, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the United States had launched “over the past few hours more than 36 air strikes” in different parts of the country.
Saree said the group had targeted US aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in response.
He also claimed the group had shot down an “American MQ-9 drone” as it was “carrying out hostile missions” in Hodeida province on the Red Sea coast.
[Rudaw] The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Damascus-affiliated forces on Thursday began the process of swapping nearly 250 prisoners as part of a recent agreement between both sides, state media reported.
“The process of releasing prisoners has begun between the internal security directorate in Aleppo and the Syrian Democratic Forces, with the number of prisoners reaching approximately 250 individuals,” Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said, citing its Aleppo correspondent.
The SDF and the the new leadership in Damascus on Tuesday struck an agreement to exchange all prisoners and keep the SDF-affiliated internal security forces (Asayish) in Aleppo's predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsood, said Bedran Ciya Kurd, advisor to the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), on X.
“This will be done in coordination with the relevant service and security institutions in Aleppo, and special mechanisms will be established to achieve this,” said Kurd, also a former co-president of the Kurdish-led administration’s foreign affairs department.
“The Syrian authorities in Aleppo bear responsibility for any threats the two neighborhoods may face, while ensuring joint efforts to mitigate these risks,” he emphasized.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor that relies on a network of sources within Syria, said on Tuesday that 170 SDF prisoners and a number of the bodies of its members who had died during armed clashes in the past will be released. In return, the Kurdish forces will release around 400 detainees and bodies of security forces affiliated with Damascus.
A coalition of opposition groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, in early December toppled the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In late January, Sharaa was appointed as Syria’s interim president.
The SDF maintained hold over Sheikh Maqsood and Ashrafiyeh as HTS-led forces were marched on Aleppo. No clashes have occurred between them.
Sharaa and SDF chief Mazloum Abdi signed a landmark agreement on March 10 to integrate the SDF into the Syrian state apparatus. The agreement recognizes the Kurds as an integral part of Syria, includes a countrywide ceasefire, and stipulates the return of displaced Syrians to their hometowns.
We know exactly what's going on in Europe, and lately it's been especially spicey in Amsterdam, capital city of the Netherlands.
They have a car problem.
Europeans cars drive into crowds, and now they have cars that try to blow themselves up in the middle of public squares packed with people going about their day.
You can see the small explosion in the little red Fiat-looking car in the bottom right of the screen, just to the left of the monument.
What a frickin' miracle this one was a misfire and only set the failed terrorist aflame.
Video emerging from the scene showed the small red vehicle engulfed in flames, with reports the driver crawled out of the vehicle alight before members of the public ran to assist the dazed driver.
Thick smoke could be seen billowing into the sky, with passers by unsure of the events unfolding in front of them - as locals ran from the scene.
Further footage of the incident showed the dazed driver clambering from the vehicle, trousers around his ankles, as emergency services arrived on the scene.
It's believed no other people were injured in the incident, with the driver receiving medical attention at the scene before being taken to hospital.
… Dutch police confirmed the man had been arrested and was under police guard in hospital.
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#3
Europe is lost. Literally nothing that happens there matters to anyone who doesn't live there. They should enjoy their capture by the Islamic hoard. They have ZERO intent on defending themselves.
I'm asking this question a lot lately. Your tribe used to protect you from other tribes. What happened? Is this evolution or devolution?
My parents and grandparents told me stories about the times before and these were not problems they had to face, it was not even a part of their reality. Why does it have to be a part of ours? Because diversity? Is it worth it? Is it even liked anymore?
#12
#4 ^But they do plan a war against Russia.
Posted by: Grom the Affective 2025-04-04 00:32
Grom,
I just remembered - in early 1939, the French were actively discussing trying to get the British to join them in attacking...the Russians to rescue the Finns.
[NYPOST] [NYPOST] A the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... sex worker has been convicted of gunning down a customer who asked for a refund after finding out she was transgender. "You done yet?"
"I want my money back!"
Leniyah Butler, 21, was convicted Monday of voluntary manslaughter for shooting Hamza Walupupu in the eye and "scattering the physical evidence, including the murder weapon" after stealing her customer’s car, federal prosecutors said.
Walupupu, 32, picked up the sex worker — also known as Leion Butler — in the Tenderloin District in November 2023, asking her to do "everything," the Sacramento Bee reported.
Once they agreed on a price, the pair drove 20 minutes to Crissy Field, a popular tourist spot overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge.
After performing a sex act, Butler shocked her customer by telling him she was transgender, the report said.
They started fighting when Walupupu demanded a refund — and Butler whipped out a rod from her purse and shot him in the eye.
Butler dragged Walupupu’s body out into the parking lot before stealing his Hyundai Accent while calling her mother for help, court documents show.
Walupupu’s vehicle was later found after being left double-parked for three days.
Butler disposed of his belongings, wiped down the car, and gave the gun she used to kill him to an unnamed person, police have said.
FBI agents raided Butler’s San Francisco home a week after Walupupu’s car was found — and the killer tried to flee by jumping from a second-story window before being arrested in a neighbor’s garage.
A jury acquitted Butler of second-degree murder but found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter. The killer is being held in jug ahead of sentencing on June 27, where she faces up to 15 years in prison.
"We extend our sincere condolences to the victim’s family, whose son and brother was taken from them prematurely, and hope today’s verdict brings some measure of justice," acting United States Attorney Patrick D. Robbins said of Walupupu.
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[IsraelTimes] CENTCOM chief US Gen. Michael Kurilla meets with IDF chief Zamir for talks that IDF says focused on ‘strategic security issues across the region’
United States Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), who arrived in Israel earlier this week for an official visit, held an assessment with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the Israeli military said Thursday.
The IDF says the meeting focused on "strategic security issues across the region."
The visit takes place against the backdrop of recent US military Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on the Iran-backed Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... s in 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... , along with the US’s bolstering of military forces in the region.
Suspected US airstrikes pounded rebel-held areas of Yemen into Wednesday, with the Houthis claiming that one strike near the Red Sea port city of Hodeida killed at least four people.
Meanwhile,
...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Nunzio had his hands full of angry bleached blonde... satellite images indicated at least six stealth B-2 Spirit bombers now stationed at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — a highly unusual deployment amid the Yemen campaign and tensions with Iran.
Furthermore, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday that the US is increasing its naval presence in the Middle East by deploying a second aircraft carrier. One carrier already stationed there, the Harry S. Truman, will remain, while another, Carl Vinson, is being redirected from the Indo-Pacific.
US President Donald Trump ...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party... has given 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... an ultimatum to reach a deal to curb its nuclear program or face military action.
La Belle France’s foreign minister warned on Wednesday that if world powers were unable to quickly reach a new agreement with Iran over its contested nuclear program, then a military confrontation seemed "almost inevitable."
Kurilla’s visit underscores the strengthening military cooperation between the IDF and the US armed forces, particularly following Israel’s transition under CENTCOM’s area of responsibility in 2021. This shift has allowed for deeper coordination between Israel and its regional partners under the US security umbrella through the improvement of direct communications.
Kurilla last visited Israel in January and held an assessment with then-chief of staff Herzi Halevi.
Kurilla also visited Israel on October 5, 2024, to meet with Israeli defense and military officials, amid preparations in the IDF for a response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack on October 1.
The Iranian attack consisted of some 181 missiles, sending nearly 10 million people in Israel into bomb shelters.
With US support, Israel responded to the attack in a series of airstrikes on Iranian territory later that month, targeting strategic military sites across Iran — specifically drone and ballistic missile manufacturing and launch sites, as well as air defense batteries — with explosions reported in the areas of Tehran, Karaj, Isfahan and Shiraz.
[Rudaw] Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday warned Syria’s interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa against allowing “hostile” forces to operate in his country, cautioning that doing so would result in a “heavy price.”
Notably referring to Sharaa by his former nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, Katz said, “I warn Syrian leader Jolani: If you allow hostile forces to enter Syria and threaten Israeli security interests, you will pay a heavy price,” according to a statement relayed by AFP.
Referencing a series of airstrikes carried out by Israel in Syria on Wednesday, Katz emphasized that “The [Israeli] Air Force’s activity yesterday near the airports in [Tiyas Air Base] T4, Hama, and the Damascus area sends a clear message and serves as a warning for the future.”
Israeli airstrikes targeted sites near the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in Barzeh, north of Damascus, as well as the Hama military airport and the strategic T4 Air Base in Homs.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Thursday reported on “the major Israeli escalation” which “killed four defense ministry [personnel] and injured 12 others” in an “Israeli attack on Hama military airport” which saw “Israeli warplanes launch 18 airstrikes,” leaving the airport “completely out of service.”
The UK-based war monitor also reported seven other airstrikes on the T4 Air Base and its vicinity “leading to human losses.” The total number of Israeli air raids on Syrian territories on Wednesday reached 25, according to SOHR.
For their part, Daraa health officials reported on Wednesday that at least nine civilians were killed and 23 others were injured in the Israeli raids, according to a statement from Daraa province’s official channel on Telegram.
Earlier in the day, the Israeli military said it had conducted an infiltration operation, “confiscating weapons and destroying terrorist infrastructure” along Syria’s southern border with Israel, in Daraa province.
Following a swift offensive, a coalition of opposition groups led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), headed by Sharaa, in early December toppled the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. In late January, Sharaa was appointed as Syria’s interim president.
Since Assad’s ouster, Israel has intensified its efforts to destroy Damascus’s military stockpiles. Israeli forces have also entered a buffer zone east of the annexed Golan Heights, justifying the move as a security precaution amid Syria’s political instability.
Katz on Thursday underscored that Israeli forces “will continue to operate on the summit of Mount Hermon and in security and buffer zones to protect” Israeli communities in the Golan Heights and the Galilee.
Since the beginning of 2025, SOHR says it has documented 44 Israeli attacks on Syrian territory, including 37 aerial strikes and six ground attacks. The Israeli military action has resulted in the destruction of approximately 50 sites, including weapons and ammunition depots, headquarters, command centers, and vehicles, according to the war monitor.
[IsraelTimes] Judge finds US Army veteran David Piegaro showed poor judgment but it did not amount to ‘criminal recklessness’
A Jewish Princeton senior and US Army veteran accused of assaulting the school’s head of campus security during an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protest last year has been found not guilty.
A New Jersey judge delivered the verdict Tuesday, the same day that Princeton’s president announced the school’s federal funding had been frozen by the Trump administration amid investigations into campus antisemitism during pro-Palestinian protests against Israel.
Last April, David Piegaro, who self-describes as a “pro-Israel ‘citizen journalist,” was attempting to film a pro-Palestinian sit-in on the campus when he had an altercation with Kenneth Strother Jr., the assistant vice president for public safety. Piegaro said he was not a part of the protests or counter-protests on Princeton’s campus, according to The New York Times.
Piegaro was attempting to follow Strother and two other people into a building adjacent to the sit-in when Strother blocked him from entry.
He proceeded to record the group and asked for Strother’s identity. In the recording of the incident, Piegaro says, “Don’t touch me” before the video cuts out, according to the Times.
Details over the ensuing altercation remain unclear. Strother asserted that Piegaro resisted arrest and Piegaro said he was the victim of assault, but the incident resulted in Piegaro falling down the steps of the building, where he was then arrested, according to the Times.
“The defendant, in my opinion, showed poor judgment in a tense moment, but it does not rise to the level of criminal recklessness,” said Judge John F. McCarthy III while issuing the verdict.
Following his arrest, Piegaro was barred from the campus for two weeks, a period during which he stayed with the director of Princeton’s Chabad House for a few days.
“In that environment, speaking specifically to the events of that day, when you have a whole host of public safety officers, administrators — I think doing their best — it’s not surprising that mistakes would get made,” Rabbi Eitan Webb told the Times.
Piegaro was arrested alongside 13 student protestors the day of the sit-in, making him one of 3,100 people arrested last spring surrounding anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian protests on campuses across the country, according to the Times. The trials for the other students on trespassing charges are set for June.
Most recently, a number of international students have been detained or threatened to be deported by the Trump administration over their alleged support for antisemitism and terror at pro-Palestinian protests, including students at Tufts and Columbia Universities.
[NYPOST] A financial CEO is facing federal charges for allegedly choking out a fellow cruise passenger who called his wife a ''f—king bitch'' for asking him to stop dancing barefoot, according to the FBI.
Kenneth DeGiorgio, the 53-year-old CEO of Southern California mortgage lending company First American Financial, attacked the other man in one of the Virgin Voyages ship's cocktail lounges Monday while telling him, ''I'll f—king kill you,'' according to a federal complaint.
The other passenger, only identified by the initials M.A., later told federal investigators he ''felt as if his throat was going to be ripped out,'' the documents said.
The fracas erupted early Monday in international waters off Martinique after the CEO's wife, Nichol DeGiorgio, asked M.A. to stop dancing barefoot in the Resilient Lady's ''On the Rocks'' bar, telling him, ''Look, we are all grown-ups here, can you put your shoes on?''
''Shut up, you f—king bitch,'' M.A. allegedly shot back while also flipping the bird, the documents said.
DeGiorgio was then seen on surveillance footage crossing the dance floor and attacking the cursing cruise passenger, grabbing him by the throat and forcing him to the floor, according to the complaint.
#4
I'm not a fan of hippies but have a hippy heart. First thing I do when I get home from work is kick off my shoes. Helps my feet dont stink and look normal. I love barefoot. If I was on a cruise ship, I'd be barefoot too.
I was curious and looked up their shoe/barefoot policy: Guests are encouraged to wear more than a bathing suit and consider shoes, but the cruise line advises your style is your style, no judgement.
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.
...
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
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...
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
...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 
..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
