04-13-2024, 12:03 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-13-2024, 12:12 AM by kyonides.
Edit Reason: Added a couple of articles
)
EUROPE
USA
If this has become a matter of trust, tell me who can trust in you now, Gray Lady?
CANADA
I don't even have to demonstrate he's foolish but I'd like to emphasize that Trudeau didn't specify which Canadians made the final decision on the elections. That's something worth investigating here, IMHO.
LATIN AMERICA
Can you believe anything Maduro says in public?
Except for eventually invading Guyana, of course.
ASIA
Ukraine War Section
Quote:Russia appears to be stepping up its campaign to deprive Ukraine of electricity, launching a series of major missile and drone attacks on critical infrastructure this week, totally destroying a large power plant.
The Trypilska coal and gas power plant was “completely destroyed” in a missile attack overnight into Thursday, Ukrainian state media says. According to those repots, it was one of the “most powerful” plants in the Kyiv region and the whole facility from turbines, transformers, to generators were hit in the strike.
A second power plant in Sumy was also hit in an airstrike.
The national energy board warned power outages were likely to result, and particularly in the region of Kharkiv city where the situation is compounded by further Russian airstrike damage to local substations, making power transmission difficult. “Substations and power generating facilities” have been damaged in recent days in “Odesa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv and Kyiv”, the government said.
While solar fields generate power during the day, they of course do not work in the dark and the traditional power plants are needed to take up the slack. Consquently, power outages are possible in the evenings, when demand is highest and supply now lowest.
Ukraine claims the Trypilska power station attack was the work of a so-far little seen new Russian missile, the “X-69 cruise missile”, which they claim has a range of 400 kilometres (250 miles) and which can fly skimming over ground level at an altitude of 20 meters (65 feet), making it hard to track and take down. Per the BBC, the attack overnight into Thursday was a wave of 80 missiles and drones.
This morning, Ukraine said it had shot down 16 of 17 Iranian designed Shahed attack drones in a further wave of attacks overnight into Friday, but that the wreckage of one fell on “critical infrastructure” and started a fire. Ukraine again called for its Western underwriters to support more air defence missiles this morning, citing the attacks of the previous days as demonstration of need.
Quote:Volodymyr Zelensky said that his government has reached out Donald Trump, inviting him to visit Ukraine in order to impress upon the presidential frontrunner of the need for more American military aid as he hyped the prospects of another counteroffensive, despite last year’s failures to move the line against Russia.
“Yes, we have a plan for a counteroffensive,” President Zelensky assured in an interview with Germany’s Bild tabloid newspaper this week as he continued his pleas for more weapons and money from Western powers, namely for House Republicans in Washington D.C. to bow to the Biden administration’s demands for another $64 billion in American taxpayer dollars for Ukraine, on top of the $113 billion already committed to the conflict.
Referencing the refusal from Berlin to send long-range Taurus missiles, the lengthy wait for American-made F-16 fighter jets promised from multiple NATO countries, and additional U.S. supplied ATACMS short-range missiles, Zelensky raged: “Our partners have certain weapons that we need today to survive. Ukraine needs them to survive and I just don’t understand why we don’t get these weapons.”
Warning of a potential defeat at the hands of Russia if the West does not send such weapons soon, the Ukrainian leader said that Vladimir Putin will “destroy everything” and “kill a lot of people”, claiming that the Russian strongman’s “wish is to take over the whole of Ukraine”.
“Most people will not run away, so he will kill a lot of them. What will it look like? There will be a lot of blood. There will be many victims, and many losses. We are talking about hundreds of thousands,” Zelensky said.
Quote:Ukraine´s parliament passed a law Thursday that will govern how the country recruits new conscripts, following months of delay and after thousands of amendments were submitted to water down the initial draft.
Lawmakers dragged their feet for months over the law, which is expected to be unpopular. The law was spurred by a request from Ukraine´s military, which wanted to mobilize up to 500,000 more troops, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in December.
Exhausted soldiers, on the front lines since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, had no means to rotate out for rest, while many thousands of Ukrainian men evade the draft.
The law was passed to the backdrop of an escalating Russian campaign that has devastated Ukraine´s energy infrastructure in recent weeks. Authorities said Russian overnight missile and drone attacks again struck infrastructure and power facilities across several regions and completely destroyed the Trypilska thermal power plant, the largest power generating facility in Kyiv region.
The law brings into effect a host of changes to the current system by expanding the powers of Ukrainian authorities to issue draft notices using an electronic system.
Incumbent army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Zelenskyy have since revised that figure after conducting an audit, saying the number needed was not as high because soldiers can be rotated from the rear.
Quote:Switzerland’s government said Wednesday it will host a high-level international conference in June to help chart a path toward peace in Ukraine after more than two years of war, in hopes that Russia might join in the peace process one day.
The lakeside Burgenstock resort is expected to host the June 15-16 gathering. It’s expected to draw top government officials from dozens of countries, following on a plan laid out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis in recent months.
“The first country that we spoke with, after Ukraine of course, was Russia, because a peace process cannot happen without Russia, even if it won’t be there for the first meeting” Cassis told reporters Wednesday in the Swiss capital, Bern.
Swiss daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported Wednesday that U.S. President Joe Biden could attend. He is expected to be in Italy during that time for the G7 leaders meeting, though the White House has not said whether he would attend the Swiss conference.
The Swiss government said early talks toward arranging the conference involved the European Union and envoys from the so-called Global South, including Brazil, China, Ethiopia, India, Saudi Arabia and South Africa.
...
Much of the diplomatic uncertainty has centered on whether key Russia ally China might attend – and Cassis pressed for Beijing’s support for Switzerland’s ambitions during a trip to the Chinese capital last month.
China’s Foreign Ministry has said that Beijing supports a conference that’s accepted by both Russia and Ukraine, which isn’t the case so far.
Germany: 3 Teens Arrested
Quote:German police arrested three teenagers accused of planning a knife or firebomb attack on churches and police stations for the Islamic State.
Unnamed teenagers ages 15, 15, and 16-years-old were arrested by police executing a warrant issued at Easter in the Dusseldorf of the North Rhine-Westphalia region. Two of those arrested are girls, and one a boy.
The security services said they had detected the group using an instant messenger group chat to discuss plans to launch attacks against targets including people in churches and police stations. Germany’s Die Welt reports the weapons involved could have been knives or firebombs, and the cities considered for the alleged strike were Dortmund, Düsseldorf and Cologne. Acquiring firearms had allegedly been discussed.
It is alleged the teen trio are believed to have been working for the Islamic State and while they had not reached the point of having formed a “concrete” plan, nevertheless investigators said they foresaw “danger” from the group. It is stated the father of one of those arrested is already known to the security services for collecting money for the Islamic State.
Cologne Cathedral has now become a familiar focus for migrant crime and Islamist plots in Germany, its precinct having been the setting for the 2015-16 migrant sex attacks event, and and the church itself an apparently irresistible target for would-be terrorists. In recent months a Turk and a Tajik have been arrested over alleged plots to attack the cathedral.
Immigration & a Shipwreck
Quote:The Italian coast guard rescued 22 people and recovered nine bodies after a smugglers´ boat capsized in a storm about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the island of Lampedusa, authorities said Thursday.
Survivors indicated that the steel-bottom boat had departed from Sfax, Tunisia, overnight Sunday carrying 46 people from Guinea, Burkina Faso, Mali and Ivory Coast. The boat capsized Wednesday morning as waves reached up to 5 meters (16 feet) and “the group became very agitated when the engine broke down and they were left adrift,´´ the U.N. refugee agency said.
The victims were a 6-month-old child and eight men, UNHCR said. Six of the survivors were treated for severe hypothermia and dehydration; two remain hospitalized.
After the rescue in rough seas with waves reaching more than 2 1/2 meters (8 feet), the Coast Guard said it continued air surveillance of the area, which is under Malta´s search-and-rescue area.
Attempts to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Europe generally increase as summer approaches, raising concerns about more shipwrecks, especially as Italian port rules are restricting operations of charity rescue boats. Italy´s far-right-led government has recently been instructing charity boats to go to northern ports after each rescue, reducing their operations, and has been impounding boats that it says violates its rules.
Scottish Party in Trouble
Governing Scottish National Party Sees Support Fall to Lowest in a Decade amid Hate Speech Law Chaos
Quote:Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf is facing a political “apocalypse” as a survey showed support for his leftist-separatist Scottish National Party has fallen to its lowest level in a decade amid the chaotic rollout of his new hate speech law.
A poll conducted by YouGov amid the implementation of the deeply controversial and draconian speech restrictions showed that the Labour Party has surpassed Humza Yousaf’s Scottish National Party (SNP) for the first time since the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum, with 33 per cent of the public backing Labour in Westminster voting intention compared to 31 per cent for Yousaf’s SNP.
According to leading polling expert Sir John Curtice, the survey means that the SNP is on pace to only receive 18 seats in the UK parliament, a potentially disastrous decline from the 2019 general election when the separatist party had won 30 seats. Meanwhile, the Scottish branch of the left-wing Labour Party is predicted to win 28 seats in the northern British country. The Scottish Daily Express described the polling as indicating a potential “apocalypse” for Yousaf and his leftist party.
Meanwhile, the polling suggested that the SNP and Labour would each secure 43 seats in the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, potentially jeopardising the Scottish National Party’s ability to maintain its grip on power over the locally devolved government, which it has held for nearly two decades.
Support for the far-left-nationalist-separatist party comes amid increasing anger over the “calamitous state” of the National Health Service (NHS) in Scotland as well as persistent scandals rocking the party, specifically surrounding corruption allegations, including the arrest of former SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and her husband last year.
25-year-old Man Killed Bangladesh Woman
Quote:A man who had been sought in a nationwide manhunt over the knife killing of a mother out pushing her child in a baby-carriage on a shopping street has been charged with murder, police say.
25-year-old Habibur Masum was charged with murder and possession of a bladed article by West Yorkshire Police on Wednesday. Four other men aged 23, 26, 28, and 29 have been released on bail. Police had previously said they had arrested a 23-year-old man “on suspicion of assisting an offender”.
A manhunt had been launched on Sunday for a man called Masum, described as a “Asian man, of slim build” after Kulsuma Akter, a 27-year-old woman was stabbed to death “in broad daylight in a busy area of Bradford”. The attack was said to have taken place on a shopping street and was witnessed by several people.
The victim was pushing a pram with her baby inside at the time of her killing, but the baby was said by police to be unharmed.
In a report noting Masum had briefly appeared at Bradford Crown Court on Thursday, the BBC stated Masum is victim Kulsuma Akter’s husband and that a family member had told the broadcaster the couple had migrated to Britain from Bangladesh two years ago.
Brexit 2.0
Quote:Brexit leader Nigel Farage argues the British people should be called upon again to decide whether the United Kingdom remains under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) or fully take back control over its borders.
In light of the refusal by successive Conservative governments in Westminster to remove the UK from the bounds of the Strasbourg Court — despite compelling arguments made at the time, that it should have been discarded with the European Union — a referendum should be held now, Nigel Farage said. The vote would allow the people of Britain to decide whether judges in France have any say over the deportation of migrants or other issues, he remarked this week during a discussion with subscribers of The Telegraph newspaper.
“A referendum that would be useful would be a referendum on the ECHR and whether we should continue to allow a court in Strasbourg” to have a say over British policy, Mr Farage said.
The Brexit leader said that while he implored figures such as former Prime Minister Boris Johnson to include leaving the ECHR as a part of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union back then, he said Johnson had “no interest” in doing so.
Although the 2016 referendum resulted in the UK leaving the EU in 2020, Johnson decided to remain within the Council of Europe and therefore under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights. Both institutions are technically separate from the EU, despite sharing much of the same agenda, and even having the same anthem and flag as the EU. The ECHR is also located on the same campus as the European Union Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
The decision by Johnson’s government to remain within the ECHR framework has had serious ramifications on UK immigration policy. Despite the Brexit promise of “taking back control” over the nation’s borders, judges in Strasbourg intervened at the last minute in June of 2022 to prevent a migrant removal flight to Rwanda, throwing the central illegal boat migrant deterrence policy into chaos and precipitating in years of delays — which are still ongoing — to the plan of sending illegals to asylum processing centres in the East African nation.
Mattel Adapts Scrabble to Gen-Z's Brain Processing Level?
Quote:Mattel is releasing a more Gen-Z-friendly version of Scrabble in Europe by including a “No More Scoring” game option.
“The new launch is a double-sided version of the famous board game — one side with the original game for those who want to stick to the long-time traditional version, and one side with a ‘less competitive’ version to appeal to Gen Z gamers,” reported the New York Post.
“The flip side of the classic game, called Scrabble Together, will include helper cards, use a simpler scoring system, be quicker to play and allow people to play in teams,” it added.
Gyles Brandreth, who co-hosts the language podcast Something Rhymes With Purple, told BBC Radio 4 Today that Mattel discovered that Gen-Z fans of Scrabble see no value in making the game competitive.
“They want a game where you can simply enjoy language, words, being together and having fun creating words,” said Rhymes.
Ray Adler, vice president, global head of games for Mattel, told the NY Post that the company wants to ensure the game “continues to be inclusive for all players.”
“Scrabble has truly stood the test of time as one of the most popular board games in history, and we want to ensure the game continues to be inclusive for all players,” said Adler. “For anyone who’s ever thought ‘word games aren’t for me’, or felt a little intimidated by the classic game, Scrabble Together mode is an ideal option.”
USA
US on Iran
Quote:The United States believes that an Iranian attack on Israel may be imminent and has instructed its diplomatic employees in Israel not to travel far from their homes in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva in the south.
The warning came after days of threats by Iran to retaliate against Israel for an airstrike April 1 in Damascus, Syria, that killed two generals and five officers responsible for attacks on Israel via terrorist proxy armies in recent months.
Israel warned that if Iran launches an attack on Israel directly from Iranian territory, it will retaliate against Iran directly — not against Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, or militias in Iraq.
The Israeli military canceled leave for combat soldiers and called up reservists from air defense units several days ago. President Joe Biden also reiterated Wednesday that U.S. support for Israel was “ironclad,” in an attempt to deter Iran.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post and Reuters reported on Friday morning that the U.S. has warned ocal staff:
The United States said on Thursday it had restricted its employees in Israel and their family members from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Be’er Sheva areas amid Iran’s threats to retaliate against its regional adversary.
Iran has vowed revenge for the April 1 airstrike on its embassy compound in Damascus, ratcheting up tension in a region already strained by the Gaza war.
“Out of an abundance of caution, U.S. government employees and their family members are restricted from personal travel outside the greater Tel Aviv (including Herzliya, Netanya, and Even Yehuda), Jerusalem, and Be’er Sheva areas until further notice,” the US embassy said in a security alert on its website on Thursday. “U.S. government personnel are authorized to transit between these three areas for personal travel.”
Vanderbilt Students Expelled
Quote:Three Vanderbilt University students have reportedly been expelled following a pro-Palestinian protest on campus that resulted in several arrests last month.
Three students were expelled, one was suspended, and 22 were given disciplinary probations for their involvement in an anti-Israel protest that resulted in a police officer being physically pushed and three arrests, according to a report by the Vanderbilt Hustler.
As Breitbart News reported, pro-Palestinian students were seen pushing an officer in order to force entry into a campus building to protest the school’s decision to cancel a ballot proposition that would have banned funding for pro-Israel groups.
The school declined to disclose the specific number of students who were given probations, suspensions, and expulsions, telling the Vanderbilt Hustler, “Student disciplinary outcomes are considered part of an individual student’s educational record, the contents of which are protected by federal privacy laws.”
“We cannot release information that would make a student, or group of students, identifiable,” the university spokesperson added.
But the Vanderbilt Divest Coalition and Columbia University’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter took to Instagram to make some of this information publicly known.
“Chancellor [Daniel] Diermeier is notoriously cruel to student protestors,” the Instagram post read, before lamenting the university’s alleged decision to “remove BDS from the ballot” after calling it “unlawful.”
New York Times & its Witch Hunt
Quote:The same disgraced New York Times that published a straight-up lie about Israel bombing a hospital in Gaza is the same New York Times that killed an internal podcast meant to expose the sexual violence and sexual terrorism the savages in Hamas used against Israeli civilians during the October 7 terror attack.
After some hero leaked the news that these crucial facts were removed from a Times podcast called The Daily, the far-left outlet launched a witch hunt to root out the leaker or leakers.
Breitbart News first reported on this Nixonian witch hunt six weeks ago. Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that not only is the witch hunt ongoing and intensifying, but the oh-so progressive Times is using the witch hunt for the same reason all fascists use witch hunts: to terrify people into not exposing the truth [emphasis mine]:
Over the past several weeks, Charlotte Behrendt, a top Times editor in charge of probing workplace issues in the newsroom, has summoned close to 20 employees for interviews to determine whether staffers leaked confidential information related to Gaza war coverage to another media outlet.
...
The internal probe was meant to find out who leaked information related to a planned podcast episode about that article. But its intensity and scope suggests the Times’s leadership, after years of fights with its workforce over a variety of issues involving journalistic integrity, is sending a signal: Enough.
“The idea that someone dips into that process in the middle,” Executive Editor Joe Kahn crybabied to the Wall Street Journal, “and finds something … interesting or damaging to the story” and then leaks that to the public “felt to me and my colleagues like a breakdown in the sort of trust and collaboration that’s necessary in the editorial process.”
“I haven’t seen that happen before,” he added.
If this has become a matter of trust, tell me who can trust in you now, Gray Lady?
California & Kiosks
Quote:A major fast-food franchisee in California, Harsh Ghai, is rushing to install kiosks at his restaurants to save money as the $20 minimum wage affects businesses.
Ghai owns approximately 180 fast food locations in the state, which include Burger Kings, Taco Bells, and Popeyes, Business Insider reported Friday.
“We are installing kiosks in every single restaurant,” Ghai explained.
The Insider report noted, “Some fast-food franchisees say that the higher payrolls could make it challenging to remain profitable. Many are desperately looking for ways to bring in more revenues and cut costs.”
In March, a major McDonald’s franchisee in Los Angeles criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) minimum wage law forcing fast food businesses to raise employees’ pay to at least $20 an hour, Breitbart News reported.
Kerri Harper-Howie said she can save money in other ways but everything eventually comes down to “we will take less…[which] means less profitability for us, and we will absorb that.”
Meanwhile, Ghai said he is trying to offset the raised wage by cutting employee hours, doing away with overtime, holding back on opening additional locations, and installing kiosks.
MSNBC & Undecided Voters
Quote:Undecided voters from Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania on an MSNBC panel this week declared opposition to President Joe Biden because of his economic failures.
Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC’s Morning Joe aired a clip of undecided voters speaking about Joe Biden’s “disastrous” economy. During the clip, the moderator asked the voters whether Biden or former President Donald Trump would improve the economy. By a show of hands, all eight undecideds chose Trump.
The video is below, and the transcript follows:
Transcript:
Nathan from Wisconsin: I think he’s been absolutely disastrous for the economy.
Virginia from Pennsylvania: I agree.
Moderator: Who thinks President Trump’s policies would be better for your family personally? Raise your hand.
So that is everybody.
President Biden argues that his economic record has been very good, that President Trump’s record was not as good. What are you keying off? Shawn, what are you keying off of to say that President Trump’s economic policies would be better for your family?
Shawn from Pennsylvania: My past performance of my 401(k). I know it was post-2020 and everything kind of flipped around, but you can’t blame everything on 2020 forever.
Virginia: We have areas here in Pennsylvania where it’s just at a standstill right now. Like, things are supposed to be being built and the interest rates are just way too high for people to, you know, invest and start moving around.
California Lost Track of Billions
Quote:California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) administration lost track of the $24 billion in taxpayer funds it spent over the past five years in an attempt to curb the state’s homelessness crisis, an audit has found.
The California State Auditor’s report, released on April 9, detailed multiple “gaps” in accountability in regards to how the money was allocated during the 2018-2023 fiscal years. Lead auditor Grant Parks said the state “has not collected sufficient data” to prove that the billions of dollars improved the situation.
Parks, who was appointed by Newsom in 2022, added in the report that the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) has “not consistently tracked and evaluated the State’s efforts to prevent and end homelessness,” since 2021.
“Cal ICH has also not aligned its action plan to end homelessness with its statutory goals to collect financial information and ensure accountability and results,” the report states. “Thus, it lacks assurance that the actions it takes will effectively enable it to achieve those goals.”
In short, there’s no way to determine if the money actually went to providing real help to homeless people.
Conservatives around the state are now demanding answers, with California Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher calling out Newsom directly.
NGO's, Sanctuary Cities & Immigration
Sanctuary Cities, NGOs Resettling Migrants for Biden Administration Secure $300M in Taxpayer Dollars
Quote:Several sanctuary cities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are expected to secure $300 million in American taxpayer dollars for resettling migrants across the United States on behalf of President Joe Biden’s administration.
On Friday, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced that certain cities and NGOs will soon receive $300 million worth of federal grants via the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Shelter and Services Program (SSP).
The Biden administration created SSP, funded by Congress, to dish out taxpayer money to cities and NGOs helping resettle migrants after they are released into the nation’s interior from the southern border.
In his announcement, Mayorkas said about $275 million will soon be distributed to cities and NGOs while the remaining $25 million will be given out toward the end of the year. Another nearly $341 million will be awarded through SSP’s competitive grants.
The taxpayer funds are only the latest to be allocated to cities and NGOs resettling migrants for the Biden administration.
Last year, alone, DHS provided such cities and NGOs with more than $780 million in funds via SSP and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), a program started in the late 1980s meant to help homeless Americans.
According to the latest Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate, published in January, the Biden administration has released 6.2 million migrants into the U.S. interior since early 2021.
Lucky Ethiopians
Quote:President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is redesignating and extending a temporary amnesty program to more than 15,000 Ethiopian nationals living in the United States who would otherwise be eligible for deportation.
On Friday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for about 15,100 Ethiopians in the United States who can secure work permits, hold American jobs, and be shielded from deportation.
“Temporary Protected Status provides individuals already present in the United States with protection from removal when conditions in their home country prevent their safe return,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement:
That is the situation facing Ethiopians who arrived here on or before April 11 of this year. We are granting them protection through this temporary form of humanitarian relief that the law provides. [Emphasis added]
About 2,300 Ethiopians in the United States can retain their TPS designation and extend it through December 2025, while an additional 12,800 Ethiopians will become eligible for TPS to stay in the U.S. so long as they tell DHS officials they have been in the country since April 11 or before.
In addition, Mayorkas announced so-called “Special Student Relief” for Ethiopians who are in the United States on F-1 student visas, “so that eligible students may request employment authorization, work an increased number of hours while school is in session, and reduce their course load while continuing to maintain F-1 status through the TPS designation period.”
TPS was first created under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 (INA) and prevents federal immigration officials from deporting people from countries that are designated as experiencing famine, war, or natural disasters.
CANADA
Trudeau Thinks China Didn't Interfere in Elections
Quote:Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified before a probe into foreign election interference on Wednesday that China’s meddling in the past two elections did not change the outcomes.
Trudeau insisted it was “improbable” that China preferred any particular Canadian party, despite substantial indications that Beijing helped his Liberal Party defeat challengers who would have been tougher on the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Trudeau was responding to bombshell revelations on Monday that his administration was presented with evidence that China “clandestinely and deceptively interfered in both the 2019 and 2021 elections” by Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) but took no action.
The most obnoxious of these interference efforts targeted Conservative candidates whose seats were ultimately won by members of Trudeau’s Liberal Party, including Member of Parliament Kenny Chiu, who China aggressively targeted in 2021 and who lost his seat to a Liberal.
CSIS also found the PRC may have coerced Chinese students in Canada to support a preferred Liberal Party candidate, Han Dong, by threatening “their student visas would be in jeopardy and there could be consequences for their families back in the PRC” if they did not comply.
In the previously secret briefing document exposed on Monday, CSIS said “the timing of these efforts to align with Conservative polling improvements; the similarities in language with articles published by PRC state media; and the partnership agreements between these Canada-based outlets and PRC entities all suggest that these efforts were orchestrated or directed by the PRC.”
Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said Chinese interference cost his party up to nine seats in 2021, which was not enough to alter the balance of power in Parliament on its own, but would still represent an outrageous distortion of the Canadian election system. O’Toole said he brought his concerns to the Trudeau administration, but no action was taken.
Trudeau pushed back against these assertions in his sworn testimony before the intelligence commission investigating foreign election interference.
“Despite, yes, attempts by foreign states to interfere, those elections held in their integrity. They were decided by Canadians,” the prime minister said.
I don't even have to demonstrate he's foolish but I'd like to emphasize that Trudeau didn't specify which Canadians made the final decision on the elections. That's something worth investigating here, IMHO.
LATIN AMERICA
Colombia Has Water Shortages
Quote:Colombia’s capital city, Bogotá, will begin rolling water rationing on Thursday for at least a year, Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán announced Monday.
Galán asserted that the restrictions in running water distribution seek to alleviate a drought caused by El Niño weather pattern, which has dropped water levels of the reservoirs that supply the Colombian capital to “alert” levels.
“This situation has to do, obviously, with the El Niño phenomenon and with a month of March that was aggravated because it was expected to have rains in the last week and that the trend in the reservoirs was going to change,” Galán said. “But that did not happen; we had one of the driest Marches historically, and that aggravated the situation and led us to the situation we are seeing.”
Galán stated that a low reservoir level was projected for 2024, but the results have been worse than expected, warning that “2025 is projected to be more critical than 2024.”
Maduro Dismantled Tren de Aragua Gang?
Quote:Foreign Minister Yvan Gil of Venezuela claimed on Monday that the Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization does not exist, asserting that the organization is, in fact, a fictional “international media invention.”
Gil denied the existence of the criminal organization — believed to have grown and spread to other countries in the region under the implicit approval of the Maduro regime — in remarks given during a joint press conference with Colombian Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo in the Colombian city of Cúcuta.
“The Tren de Aragua is a fiction created by the international media to try to create a non-existent label, as they did at the time with the Cartel of the Suns, which was shown not to exist, which has never existed,” Gil told reporters.
“Now they are inventing a so-called Tren de Aragua, an organization that existed in Venezuela, localized, and which they have tried to label as a brand,” he continued. “We have seen, for example, how ridiculously videos appear even of people saying ‘we are from the Tren de Aragua,’ with a Peruvian accent, with a Chilean accent.”
The Tren de Aragua, which began in 2012 as a local trade union gang, rapidly grew into a full-fledged transnational criminal syndicate, expanding its criminal activities beyond Venezuela’s borders.
The Maduro regime has repeatedly claimed that the Tren de Aragua was “dismantled” after the socialist regime raided the Tocorón prison in September, resulting in the disappearance of its leader and a large number of its top members. The prison, located in the namesake state of Aragua, Venezuela, had been transformed into the organization’s main headquarters while the state Bolivarian National Guard (GNB) provided external security.
Can you believe anything Maduro says in public?
Except for eventually invading Guyana, of course.
Venezuela Now Hates Hezbollah?
Quote:Tareck El Aissami, former Venezuelan oil minister and a defrocked high-ranking member of the nation’s ruling socialist regime, resurfaced Tuesday in handcuffs, charged with treason, money laundering, and corruption after having disappeared for a year.
El Aissami was purged by socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro in March 2023 as part of a purported “anti-corruption” probe. Regime authorities are accusing him of stealing billions of dollars in oil revenue from the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) firm during his tenure as oil minister, from 2020 to 2023.
El Aissami “resigned” from his position as oil minister in March 2023 to “collaborate” with investigations over the “disappearance” of $3 billion in oil revenue from Venezuela’s state coffers. His resignation and Maduro’s purge of El Aissami and his close allies effectively removed his faction from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
In addition to El Aissami, his top frontman, businessman Samark López, and former Finance Minister and close Maduro ally Simón Zerpa were also arrested on Tuesday.
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced the arrests during a press conference, claiming the three men had conspired to “destroy Venezuela’s economy” and committed “a plurality of crimes,” for which they would receive “an exemplary sanction.”
“These scoundrels, who at a bad time used their positions that the State gave them to obviously make important advances in the economy, allied themselves with [fake companies] to seek, in this economic conspiracy, to destroy the economy,” Saab said.
Saab showed photographs of a handcuffed El Aissami as he was accompanied by Venezuelan intelligence officials. He also showed images of López and Zerpa’s detention. The Venezuelan attorney-general described El Aissami as “head of the pranate [Venezuelan criminal fiefdom-esque system]” of the alleged plot.
Argentina Blames Iran & Hezbollah
Quote:Argentina’s Federal Criminal Cassation Court ruled on Thursday to formally declare Iran and the Shiite jihadist organization Hezbollah responsible for the 1994 bombing of the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) and the 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires.
The Cassation Court’s ruling, which described Iran as a “terrorist state,” determined that Hezbollah carried out both attacks on behalf of the Islamic regime. The court declared both terrorist attacks crimes against humanity, which places them beyond statutes of limitations despite the passage of time and the lack of judicial results in the past three decades.
The ruling, signed by three of the court’s judges, urges the Argentine state to present a formal complaint at international courts against Iran over the two attacks and calls for a reform to Argentine law to allow local courts to conduct in-absentia trials against the seven Lebanese and Iranian nationals suspected of having participated in the attacks. All of the suspects have active Interpol “red notice” arrest requests on their names, but remain protected in their respective countries.
The attack on the AMIA Jewish community center occurred on July 18, 1994. On that day, terrorists drove a van filled with explosives into the center’s building in Buenos Aires, leaving 85 dead and hundreds injured. The 1994 AMIA bombing was the deadliest terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
ASIA
Japan, Philippines, USA & China
Quote:counterpart, President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio Thursday in which the three largely focused on the threat communist China presents to its neighbors in the South China Sea.
The summit was the first of its kind including the three countries and followed an extended visit by Kishida to Washington, in which he addressed Congress and was feted with a state dinner, one of America’s highest honors for a visiting head of government. Marcos arrived and received his own meeting with Biden separately before sitting down to discuss deepening ties with both Biden and Kishida.
The assertive tone against China’s belligerence in the region contrasted with the conciliatory attitude that Biden and his administration has adopted toward China. Biden told genocidal Chinese dictator Xi Jinping in a phone call in early April that he opposes “decoupling” economically from communist China and that its attempt to strengthen alliances with regional countries was not “targeted against China.” Similarly, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, on a trip to China last week, insisted that most trade between China and America was “beneficial and the great majority of it is uncontroversial,” opposing calls to limit Chinese access to American markets.
In contrast, Kishida is facing growing concerns at home that China is moving to colonize its Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. In the Philippines this week, protesters demanded Marcos do more to protect the sovereignty of the island nation, destroying effigies of Xi.
The joint statement following the trilateral meeting focused in detail on concerns that the Chinese government is attempting to colonize parts of both the South China Sea and East China Sea, addressing China by name as a threat to all three powers. The statement elicited an irate response from Beijing, whose Foreign Ministry accused the three nations of attempting to “bully” its neighbor and insisted China’s illegal military development in the South China Sea was “beyond reproach.”
“We express our serious concerns about the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) dangerous and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea,” the three leaders said in their statement. “We are also concerned by the militarization of reclaimed features and unlawful maritime claims in the South China Sea.”
Also with regard to the South China Sea, the leaders manifested their “serious concern over the PRC’s repeated obstruction of Philippine vessels’ exercise of high seas freedom of navigation and the disruption of supply lines to Second Thomas Shoal, which constitute dangerous and destabilizing conduct.”
They offered their “strong opposition to any attempts by the PRC to unilaterally change the status quo by force or coercion in the East China Sea, including through actions that seek to undermine Japan’s longstanding and peaceful administration of the Senkaku Islands.”
"For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thessalonians 5:9
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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