04-02-2024, 01:08 AM
USA
MIDDLE EAST
ASIA
LATIN AMERICA
Notice that they also burned a photo of Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman...
Permits for Planters
Quote:San Francisco residents must now obtain a permit for planters used to keep the homeless away.
Last summer, Breitbart News reported on residents of that Democrat-run city raising money for a common sense solution to a terrible problem. At a cost of around $700 each, heavy planters, filled with about 1,400 pounds of rocks and soil, were stragecially placed on sidewalks to discourage the homeless from setting up tents and making a permanent home in front of a home or business. People could still walk back and forth, but that extra space able to accommodate tents was now blocked.
Win-win, right?
Not where Democrats are in charge.
Democrats run San Francisco without opposition, so common-sense solutions will never be allowed. Now, residents and business owners are required to obtain a permit before placing a planter.
“Some San Francisco residents are concerned the city is making it more difficult to install planters on sidewalks as homeless advocates push back on their use,” reports the San Francisco Standard.
The report adds that homeless advocates have declared the planters “hostile architecture” and that the Department of Public Works will soon “require planter owners to obtain permits before their installations.”
This permit will require “live plants in the metal troughs and provide at least 72 inches of unobstructed sidewalk space for pedestrians to pass.”
“Live plants” is a way to make things more difficult for home and business owners. One resident explained that the homeless “dig through the planters with some sort of fantasy hope of finding drugs buried,” he said, adding: “My fervent wish is that the city simply stays out of it and not do anything that will impact a successful and creative solution.”
Guns & Crimes & Cameras
Quote:Colorado Democrats are pushing an 11 percent excise tax on gun and ammunition sales, as well as numerous other California-style gun controls.
There is a public hearing on the excise tax proposal today, and Colorado Springs firearms instructor Ana Flanell is urging the public to rally against the tax.
On Easter Sunday she posted to X: “Join me at the Capitol tomorrow to testify against this “sin” tax. Self-defense is our right and we should not be taxed an outrageous 11% to exercise our Second Amendment rights. I’ve included a screenshot below of what to select when signing up. Let’s fight this Colorado!!!”
In addition to the excise tax, Breitbart News pointed out Colorado Democrats are pushing an “assault weapons” ban that targets 9mm pistols with threaded barrels.
In fact, the language of the “assault weapons” ban, HB24-1292, makes clear a semiautomatic handgun of any caliber would be banned if takes a detachable magazine and has a threaded barrel. And the legislation goes even further by making clear that even semiautomatic handguns with threaded barrels that do not take a detachable magazine would be banned if “readily modified to accept a detachable magazine.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) is standing with the Democrat lawmakers in their push to secure the “assault weapons” ban.
Quote:Senate candidate and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) supports legislation that, if passed into law, would prohibit Arizonans from buying AR-15 rifles.
Gallego highlights his gun control support on his campaign website, although he does not go into the specifics of what his proposed policies would do if enacted.
For example, the campaign website mentions Gallego’s time as a U.S. Marine and his use of a gun with full-auto function. “Carrying and using his M16 to defend himself and his fellow Marines in Iraq made it clear to Ruben that weapons of war have no place in civilian life,” it reads. However, it does not explain how his Marine service use of an M16–a rifle with full auto options–correlates with law-abiding Americans owning rifles that only function in semiautomatic mode.
For clarification, an M16 is a battlefield weapon that has a select fire switch which allows troops to switch the action between semiautomatic and three-round, fully automatic bursts. (Older versions allowed troops to go from semiautomatic to unlimited fully automatic, which means they could pull the trigger one time, and hold it, and the gun would fire automatically until every round in the magazine had been fired.)
In contrast to this, an AR-15 fires one round–and only one round–each time the trigger is pulled. This is because AR-15s are semiautomatic rifles, designed for civilian use. They do not have select fire switches nor are they commonly designed to withstand the heat that a rifle is subjected to internally via full-auto fire.
Quote:ABC 7 reported that the weekend’s first fatal shooting occurred Friday, when a 29-year-old man was shot in a drive-by incident in a parking lot “in the 800-block of 87th Street.”
At 12:20 p.m. Saturday, a 41-year-old man was shot and fatally wounded while sitting inside a home “in the 8200 block of South Elizabeth Street.” He was transported to a hospital, where he died.
Police believe the 41-year-old was shot by someone who knew him, but no other details on the possible shooter were given.
Five females were shot on Easter Sunday at 1:00 a.m. The Associated Press noted that this shooting occurred when “an unknown assailant fired multiple shots toward them and fled the scene.”
The shooting victims were ages 6, 17, and 20, along with two 19-year-olds. One of the 19-year-olds was shot in the head and died at the scene.
The Chicago Sun-Times pointed out that 103 people were killed in Chicago January 1, 2024, through March 31, 2024.
Quote:If you live in Oakland, California, then prepare to be watched, followed, and tracked. Big time. State Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday he is sending hundreds of high-tech surveillance cameras to be installed across the city and surrounding freeways to battle rising crime.
The Democrat said in a news release the California Highway Patrol has contracted with Flock Safety to install 480 cameras that can identify and track vehicles by license plate, type, color and even decals and bumper stickers.
The cameras will provide authorities with real-time alerts of suspect vehicles, AP reports.
Newsom dismisses any criticism of the move and its infringement on privacy, saying the surveillance network will give law enforcement tools “to effectively combat criminal activity and hold perpetrators accountable — building safer, stronger communities for all Californians.”
The city of roughly 400,000 across the bay from San Francisco has seen crime continue to rise in the past 12 months with no sign of it easing anytime soon.
Per an August 2023 report, murders are up 37 percent compared to four years earlier. Robberies jumped 30 percent.
Car break-ins exploded by 40 percent, and car thefts “more than doubled.”
Rains in California
Quote:Spring rains washed away part of California’s famous Highway 1 near Big Sur on Saturday, stranding 1,600 people who had to be moved past the collapsed portion in convoys.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported:
Engineers with the California Department of Transportation were assessing the slip-out that forced the closure of Highway 1 south of the Rocky Creek Bridge at Palo Colorado on Saturday, the state agency said Sunday. An estimated 1,600 residents and visitors were stranded after parts of the southbound lane collapsed. The rain was coming down at a rate of 2 inches per hour at one point, according to the National Weather service.
…
According to Caltrans spokesperson Kevin Drabinski, the slide did not continue to erode after the initial slip-out, and the northbound roadway remained clear. As a result, convoys through the closed area of Highway 1 were offered twice daily starting Sunday.
When the convoy first opened, around noon, an estimated 300 cars were waiting to travel northbound. It took 50 minutes to clear out all the waiting vehicles. This presumably included Easter weekend visitors to Big Sur who were stranded by the closure and had to spend the night in temporary lodging and emergency shelters. The convoys were alternating direction and were to continue at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. in both directions, starting Monday.
Highway 1 has been damaged by winter and spring storms before. Three years ago, as Breitbart News reported at the time, a portion of the road near Big Sur was washed away. In 2017, during a particularly rainy winter, a landslide on the road caused residents of local communities to be stranded, and the repairs took 14 months to complete.
Southern Border
Quote:A Texas magistrate judge ordered that migrant accused in the March 21 El Paso border riot be released on a personal recognizance bond on Easter Sunday. The judge accused the El Paso District Attorney’s Office of not being prepared to proceed on detention hearings required under Texas law.
Presiding Magistrate Judge Humberto Acosta set PR bonds for the migrants accused of rioting participation on Easter Sunday, according to the El Paso Times. “It is the ruling of the court that all the rioting participation cases will be released on their own recognizance,” Judge Acosta ordered.
Migrants being held on ICE immigration detainers will remain in custody, court officials told the local news outlet.
Judge Acosta blamed the office of El Paso County District Attorney Bill Hicks for not being prepared for the detention hearings. The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires that migrants arrested without a warrant have a hearing before a magistrate judge within 48 hours of their arrest.
Additional magistrate hearings for arrested migrants are scheduled for Monday, the newspaper reported.
Texas Department of Public Safety law enforcement officials arrested a group of migrants following a riotous attack on Texas National Guard soldiers at a border crossing point in El Paso on March 21.
Baltimore
Quote:Work crews have commenced the urgent work to remove the collapsed structure of the bridge over the Patapsco River, cutting through the enormous steel girders to load parts onto waiting barges.
Large barge-mounted cranes arrived in Baltimore at the end of last week to support the effort to clear the deep-dredged central channel of the Patapsco River, and now cascades of sparks herald the work of cutting the remains of the former bridge into manageable pieces for recycling. Workers suspended in cages used gas torches or cut through the Francis Scott Key Bridge’s steel, supported by seven cranes including cranes capable of lifting up to 1,000 and a 500 tons, reports WorldCargo News.
A statement said: “Highly trained demolition crews are cutting the top portion of the north side of the collapsed bridge truss. Two crane barges, a 650-ton crane and a 330-ton crane, are actively working on scene. The removed wreckage is scheduled to be lifted and transferred to a barge this evening as daylight allows. A 230-ton land-based crane will offload and process the wreckage at Tradepoint Atlantic and will then be taken to a disposal site.”
While the timeline to completely reopen the port of Baltimore and even replace the bridge is unclear and may stretch to the months and years respectively, the present priority appears to be to get the northern part of the dredged channel furthest from the presently position of the MV Davi clear of wreckage to allow some ships to pass in and out of the harbour, As well as working ships to help support the salvage process, that may also include urgent commercial shipping, but the channel will only operate one-way, meaning the flow of traffic will be slow.
The salvage operation is complex. Parts of the bridge rest on the bow of the MV Davi, the large container ship which struck the bridge’s central span southern pier, causing a cascade failure that brought the whole structure down. The ship has suffered damage beneath the waterline and has some flooded compartment forward, but it remains buoyant. If the removal of those bridge sections pinning the ship to the riverbed aren’t removed with care the ship could float free or pivot in an uncontrolled fashion, a concern given there are underwater gas and power lines close to hand, and overhead cable towers close by.
Working to keep that situation under control beyond the mammoth cranes are several tugs and coastguard ships at the scene.
Harvard Against Israel
Quote:The student council of Harvard Law School passed an anti-Israel resolution on Friday — after changing the voting rules to do so.
The resolution calls on Harvard University to divest from the Jewish state and anything connected with it. As the Daily Wire reported last week, the Harvard Law School Government amended its bylaws to allow for a secret ballot by its elected representatives for the first time in the history of the institution.
The Harvard Crimson reported that the resolution passed 12-4, with three abstentions. It resulted in two members of the council resigning in protest, condemning the change in voting rules and noting that the council rushed the vote before current members’ terms were about to expire.
Some activists gathered to celebrate the resolution:
Harvard University, once one of the most pro-Israel campuses in America, has become a hotbed of anti-Israel activism and outright antisemitism in recent years, notably after the Hamas terror attacks in Israel on October 7.
As The Algemeiner notes:
In November, a mob of anti-Zionists — including Ibrahim Bharmal, editor of the prestigious Harvard Law Review — followed, surrounded, and intimidated a Jewish student. “Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!” the crush of people screamed in a call-and-response chant into the ears of the student who — as seen in footage of the incident — was forced to duck and dash the crowd to free himself from the cluster of bodies that encircled him.
Harvard President Claudine Gay resigned earlier this year due to controversy over her weak response to antisemitism, as well as a plagiarism scandal.
60 Minutes of Attacks Against Cuba & Putin
Quote:The clear implication of the segment, largely based on anonymous accounts and vaguely sourced intelligence, was that the Trump administration failed to protect Americans overseas and sought to cover up Russia’s involvement.
The report that concluded the “Havana Syndrome” was probably not due to malicious foreign action was published in 2023, and the Biden administration insists it has thoroughly investigated the strange illnesses. This insistence was repeated in the rather snippy White House and FBI responses to the 60 Minutes segment.
The “Havana Syndrome” remains a lingering mystery in many minds, despite the unclassified U.S. intelligence review published last year that concluded it was “very unlikely” to be the result of hostile foreign action.
The first known instances of the strange neurological disorder were reported by American government employees in Cuba in 2017, which led to the moniker “Havana Syndrome,” although some of the roughly 1,000 cases claimed since then occurred in other locations, including China.
Those who suffered from Havana Syndrome complained of headaches, dizziness, and some more serious neurological disorders. Some of the patients claimed they heard high-pitched noises, comparable to a subsonic whine or crickets chirping, and felt pressure in their heads before they became ill. Those symptoms led to theories that the syndrome might be caused by sonic weapons.
A former Cuban political prisoner named Luis Zúñiga told Breitbart News in October 2017 that he was subjected to acoustic torture during his 19 years in captivity and the sounds reported by Havana Syndrome patients were similar to the sounds he was tormented with.
“It would emit very high high-pitched sounds and very sharp low sounds, so it penetrates your ear, your timpanum, and it creates a state of desperation in the person,” Zúñiga said.
Former President Donald Trump said in October 2017 that he believed “Cuba is responsible” for the wave of mysterious illnesses. His chief of staff, John Kelly, suggested the Cuban government was at least aware of hostile action against Americans on its soil and could “stop the attacks on our diplomats” if it wanted to. The Cuban government vehemently denied these allegations.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a study in February 2018, after an American citizen in Shanghai reported similar symptoms, that found it unlikely the Havana Syndrome could be a product of mass psychosis. The Cuban government was speculating at the time that patients were faking their complaints. Scientists who contributed to the JAMA study thought microwave radiation bombardment could produce the symptoms reported by patients.
There has been little discussion of Havana Syndrome since the March 2023 publication of a multi-year intelligence estimate that supposedly debunked theories of sonic weapons or microwave bombardment.
Reports of similar illness have dramatically tapered off, although they have not stopped entirely, as 60 Minutes pointed to a complaint from a senior Pentagon official who accompanied President Joe Biden to the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2023.
Five of the seven U.S. intelligence agencies who participated in the 2023 report concurred that it was “very unlikely” a hostile foreign power caused the “anomalous health incidents,” either on purpose or inadvertently through clandestine research projects.
MIDDLE EAST
Israel
Quote:The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released photos Sunday of a large weapons cache that its soldiers discovered in a maternity ward during the ongoing operation against terrorists within Gaza’s Shifa Hospital.
As Breitbart News has reported, the IDF cleared out the hospital in November, and found many terror tunnels there. When it left, more terrorists came to the hospital and began operating from the facilities again, in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law.
After coming under fire from Shifa, the IDF killed roughly 200 terrorists and arrested about 500 more in the past two weeks at Shifa — with zero civilian casualties, and without harming any of the doctors, patients, and staff there.
In a joint statement, the IDF and Israel Security Agency (ISA) said:
As part of the IDF and ISA operation led by the 162nd Division at the Shifa Hospital, soldiers of the Nahal Reconnaissance Unit operated in several buildings, eliminated terrorists and found numerous weapons hidden at the hospital.
In the maternity ward, the soldiers discovered many weapons hidden inside pillows, hospital beds, ceilings, and the walls of the compound, including dozens of mortar shells, explosive devices, sniper rifles, Kalashnikov rifles, pistols, magazines, mortars and additional ammunition.
During one of the sweeps in the compound, the forces encountered armed terrorists and senior operatives of the Hamas terrorist organization in a stairwell. A pursuit and exchange of fire ensued, during which the senior terrorists were eliminated.
The IDF Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, also paid a visit to the hospital on Friday, as the operation against terrorists in the facility continued.
Quote:The Jerusalem Post reported:
An apparent airstrike in Damascus on Monday killed Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state television has confirmed.
Iranian press reported that Zahedi was meeting with leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the time of the strike, but these reports could not be independently verified.
Zahedi commanded the Quds Force’s Unit 18000, responsible, among other things, for smuggling ammunition and precision weapons into Lebanon. He had also commanded the IRGC’s Air Force and Imam Hussein Division in the past.
Iran arms and funds Hezbollah in Lebanon; Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in Gaza and Lebanon; and the Houthi militias in Yemen. It also controls militias in Iraq and elsewhere that have attacked American troops.
Hezbollah has been firing on northern Israeli cities since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. Israel has responded with airstrikes on Hezbollah targets and on Hamas commanders in Lebanon. Israel has also been targeting Iranian proxies for years in Syria as they attempt to move weapons and personnel into Lebanon that can threaten Israel.
Update: Iran has acknowledged that two generals were killed in the airstrike, along with five other IRGC officials.
The Times of Israel reported:
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement carried by Iranian media officially announce the deaths of seven members in the alleged Israeli strike in Damascus earlier today.
Among the seven are Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the most senior IRGC Quds Force commander in Syria, and his deputy, Mohammad Haj Rahimi.
Quote:The “Islamic Resistance in Iraq,” an association of Iran-affiliated jihadist entities in the country, claimed responsibility on Monday for a reported drone strike on Eilat, Israel, that hit a naval building.
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) authorities confirmed “slight damage” to the building, according to the Times of Israel, but the strike resulted in no injuries or any significant harm. The IDF claimed the drone appeared to fly in from the east, aligning with claims by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq.”
The attack did not result in any meaningful damage but does signal an interest on the part of the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” to elevate its profile as one of several terrorist entities seeking to support the Sunni jihadist terror organization Hamas following its genocidal siege of Israel on October 7, 2023. On that day, the terrorists killed 1,200 civilians, many of them in their own homes, and engaged in acts of gang rape, infanticide, the desecration of corpses, and other atrocities. In response, regional terrorist organizations – including Shiite entities such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Houthi terrorists of Yemen – have launched further terrorist campaigns against Israel, American forces in the region, and other Western targets.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq took credit for a drone attack on American soldiers on the Syrian-Jordanian border, killing three service members in January.
“The fighters of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq targeted a vital target in our occupied territories on Monday morning, using appropriate weapons,” the group said in a statement on Monday, according to the Iranian propaganda outlet PressTV. The attack, it claimed, was “in support of our people in Gaza, and in response to the massacres committed by the usurping entity against civilian Palestinians, including children, women and the elderly.”
The Hamas terrorist organization is headquartered in and controls the Gaza Strip; after October 7, the IDF launched self-defense operations against Hamas targets in the area, which the terrorists claim are “massacres” of civilians rather than precision operations against known terrorists. Terrorist allies of Hamas have openly celebrated the atrocities of October 7 while accusing Israel of “genocide.”
PressTV noted that the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” did not specify what kind of attack it engaged in against Israel or what it targeted.
The Times of Israel, citing the IDF, confirmed a drone “apparently launched from Iraq” hit the city of Eilat, a port hub on the southern tip of Israel giving the country access to the Red Sea. A building that forms part of a naval base in the city suffered minor damage; it is unclear if the drone was deliberately attempting to hit the Israeli Navy or was simply attempting to do damage to the port.
Iran
Quote:The report, if confirmed, would be significant because Russian officials have been striving to implicate the United States and Ukraine in the attack.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the massacre soon after it was perpetrated, to the embarrassment of the Putin regime, which had been accusing the U.S. of conjuring the specter of Islamist terrorism as a “boogeyman” to protect Ukraine. Russian officials quickly shifted to a new narrative of blaming the United States for somehow creating ISIS in the first place and accusing Ukraine of conspiring with the Islamic terrorists to help the attackers escape.
The U.S. insisted it warned Russia that a major terrorist attack was brewing two weeks before ISIS gunmen murdered more than 130 people and wounded hundreds more at a music festival at the Crocus City Hall venue. The American intelligence community said it acted out of a “duty to warn” even hostile governments of impending terrorism.
“It is abundantly clear that ISIS was solely responsible for the horrific attack in Moscow last week. In fact, the United States tried to help prevent this terrorist attack, and the Kremlin knows this,” White House spokesman John Kirby said Thursday.
According to Reuters’ sources, Iran offered Russia a similar warning that confirmed what U.S. intelligence was telling Moscow.
“Days before the attack in Russia, Tehran shared information with Moscow about a possible big terrorist attack inside Russia that was acquired during interrogations of those arrested in connection with deadly bombings in Iran,” one of the sources said.
A second source confirmed Iran obtained actionable intelligence from the dozens of suspected ISIS members it arrested after deadly bomb attacks in the city of Kerman in early January. ISIS also claimed responsibility for the bombings, which targeted a commemoration ceremony for Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) terrorist mastermind Qasem Soleimani.
ASIA
Pakistan
Quote:A Presbyterian church in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, caught fire shortly after services on Good Friday, forcing the local Christian population to hold Easter services in a hotel and raising suspicions of arson.
Authorities at the UP Junior Church initially told reporters that they believed a local businessman, identified in some reports as Sheikh Ahmed, had potentially paid someone to set the church on fire as he had argued against police who blocked the road in front of the church to protect it from potential Islamist attacks during Holy Week. Hundreds of local Christians organized a protest on Saturday demanding police investigate Ahmed. Shortly after that, however, the pastor who runs the church denied that any evidence suggested arson, and police claimed a short circuit had sparked the fire, leaving unclear if local officials will continue to investigate the incident.
Pakistan is an explicitly Islamist state whose criminal law punishes “blasphemy” severely, including commanding the execution of those convicted of “insulting” Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. Local Islamist mobs regularly use the laws to accuse non-Muslims, most prominently Christians, of “blasphemy,” often claiming that the individual in question desecrated a Quran, personally insulted Muhammad, or attempted to convert a Muslim to the faith. Muslims often also abuse the law to accuse Christians of “blasphemy” if involved in business disputes or having any personal disagreement with Christians.
While the Pakistani government has never executed anyone for blasphemy formally, mob lynchings are not uncommon in the country and police rarely bring killers to justice in cases where mobs kill alleged “blasphemers” in public.
Pakistan has repeatedly attempted to use its position at the United Nations to internationalize its blasphemy law, claiming global censorship of alleged blasphemy is necessary to fight “Islamophobia.”
Pakistan’s the Nation newspaper reported on Sunday that the UP Junior Church was almost entirely destroyed on Friday night; caretakers woke up on Sunday to find the building uninhabitable. The chief caretaker, Elder Javad, reportedly said that the fire occurred after he had turned off all lights and shut down the church, making it unclear what could have prompted the alleged short circuit police blamed for the fire.
China
Quote:The Chinese state newspaper Global Times celebrated the Communist Party on Sunday for hosting a “national commemoration event for human organ donation,” giving Beijing’s organ industry a veneer of legitimacy as evidence has mounted for years that the Party kills political prisoners to sell their bodies.
Journalists, human rights activists, and eyewitnesses — including one doctor who claims to have extracted the organs out of a live and healthy political prisoner — have long accused the Communist Party of killing political prisoners on demand to sell their organs to individuals willing to pay for the ability to schedule transplants rapidly. Chinese officials reportedly target Falun Gong practitioners, known to abstain from drugs and alcohol, and Uyghur Muslims, whose organs can be sold to wealthy Muslims in the Middle East, most often, potentially killing thousands of people each year.
At a hearing in Congress in late March, one of the top researchers on the topic, Ethan Gutmann, told American lawmakers that China appears to be, based on discrepancies in the government documentation of organ transplants, killing as many as 50,000 Uyghur people a year to steal their organs. China is currently engaging in what the free world widely recognizes as a genocide against Uyghurs and other Turkic ethnic groups in occupied East Turkistan, placing millions in concentration camps and subjecting them to indoctrination, slavery, forced sterilization, and other atrocities.
The Chinese government insists that its booming organ transplant industry grew legitimately, and all organs are donated voluntarily. It has increasingly hosted events to boast its gigantic organ transplant industry. In December, for example, China hosted two events on “organ donation” associated with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s global plan to use predatory loans to influence poor nations.
In its report on Sunday, the Global Times claimed that 6.7 million people in the country have registered to donate their organs in the event of an untimely death and that many enthusiastically participated in memorial services on Saturday for organ donors.
LATIN AMERICA
Venezuela
Quote:Venezuelans in the capital city of Caracas burned an effigy representing socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and other “opposition” collaborationist figures on Sunday as part of the traditional “burning of Judas” activity held every year on Easter.
The “Burning of Judas” is an annual activity that Catholic communities celebrate in some Latin American and European countries during the Easter weekend in which an effigy of Judas Iscariot is burned to mark the apostle’s betrayal of Jesus Christ, which set in motion the events that culminated with Jesus’s crucifixion, death, and resurrection.
In Venezuela, the celebration is usually held on Easter Sunday. Given Venezuela’s convoluted political history, the “Judas” effigies most commonly resemble politicians, government officials, public figures, and other personalities that each local community and organizer has deemed a threat or guilty of corruption, public betrayal, and other disreputable acts worthy of scorn.
In Caracas’s Candelaria neighborhood, Sunday’s Judas effigy was a two-headed man that represented socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro — by now a mainstay at the yearly event — and “opposition” candidate Manuel Rosales, the current leftist governor of the state of Zulia and a last-minute signup for Maduro’s July 28 sham presidential election.
Rosales, who is also the leader of the A New Era Party (a member of the Socialist International), has been widely accused of collaborating with the Maduro regime in the past. He is the only main “opposition” candidate allowed to appear on the ballot alongside a dozen lesser-known collaborationists. Rosales chose not to participate in the opposition’s October 2023 primary election, in which María Corina Machado of the center-right Vente Venezuela party was overwhelmingly elected to run against Maduro. Maduro banned Machado from running for public office.
Notice that they also burned a photo of Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman...
Jamaica
Quote:The Canadian Defense Ministry said on Saturday it dispatched about 70 of its troops to Jamaica to train forces from various Caribbean nations for a prospective U.N.-authorized military intervention in Haiti.
“The Canadian personnel being deployed are drawn primarily from the 1st Battalion, Royal 22e Régiment from Valcartier, Quebec,” the Defense Ministry said.
“Their deployment will last for an initial period of approximately one month. Canadian Armed Forces expects to train approximately 330 CARICOM [Carribbean Community] troops from Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas,” the ministry added.
Hailing from Quebec could be an advantage for Canadian troops sent to Haiti, as French is spoken in both places, although this would seem less relevant if the Canadians are going to remain stationed in Jamaica as trainers.
The Defense Ministry said the training operation has been dubbed “Operation HELIOS” and will include “training on core peacekeeping skills and combat first aid” for Caribbean forces, along with “validation and integration exercises.”
The training will be conducted at the Canadian Armed Forces’ Operation Support Hub (OSH) in Kingston, Jamaica. The OSH, which Canada takes pains to portray as something less than a “military base,” is one of four such facilities worldwide. The other three are located in Germany, Kuwait, and Senegal.
In addition to these training services, Canada has pledged $80.5 million to support a Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission to Haiti. Kenyan police were supposed to lead the mission, but Kenyan courts have stymied the plan by ruling that President William Ruto lacks the constitutional authority to send police officers overseas.
The intervention plan is also unpopular with the Kenyan people, and the political opposition has vowed to block any move to send troops to Haiti with lawsuits, but the Canadian Defense Ministry statement assumed the “Kenyan-led MSS mission” will still take place.
Canada’s CBC News said the 70 instructors departed for Jamaica on Friday. Roughly 3,000 Canadians were registered to be in Haiti when a gang revolt broke out in March, trapping Prime Minister Ariel Henry outside the country as bloody chaos filled the streets. Hundreds of murders, kidnappings, and other atrocities have been reported since then.
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE
Maranatha!
The Internet might be either your friend or enemy. It just depends on whether or not she has a bad hair day.
My Original Stories (available in English and Spanish)
List of Compiled Binary Executables I have published...
HiddenChest & Roole
Give me a free copy of your completed game if you include at least 3 of my scripts!
Just some scripts I've already published on the board...
KyoGemBoost XP VX & ACE, RandomEnkounters XP, KSkillShop XP, Kolloseum States XP, KEvents XP, KScenario XP & Gosu, KyoPrizeShop XP Mangostan, Kuests XP, KyoDiscounts XP VX, ACE & MV, KChest XP VX & ACE 2016, KTelePort XP, KSkillMax XP & VX & ACE, Gem Roulette XP VX & VX Ace, KRespawnPoint XP, VX & VX Ace, GiveAway XP VX & ACE, Klearance XP VX & ACE, KUnits XP VX, ACE & Gosu 2017, KLevel XP, KRumors XP & ACE, KMonsterPals XP VX & ACE, KStatsRefill XP VX & ACE, KLotto XP VX & ACE, KItemDesc XP & VX, KPocket XP & VX, OpenChest XP VX & ACE