News of the World

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MIDDLE EAST

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IDF: ‘Significant Strategic Achievement’ as Israel Stopped 99% of Iran’s Missiles, Drones

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday that it had scored a “significant strategic achievement” after it prevented 99% of Iran’s drones and missiles from reaching their targets.

As Breitbart News reported, Iran attacked Israel overnight Saturday into Sunday with a swarm of over 300 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles. Israel’s air defense systems intercepted most of them; the U.S., U.K., and Jordan also intercepted Iranian drones.

In a statement, IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said (via IDF translation):

Last night, Iran initiated an attack against Israel, launching over 300 threats of various types. The Iranian threat met the aerial and technological superiority of the IDF, along with a strong fighting coalition – which together intercepted the overwhelming majority of the threats. 99% of the threats launched towards Israeli territory were intercepted – a very significant strategic achievement.

Of approximately 170 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that Iran launched, zero crossed into Israeli territory. Dozens of them were intercepted by Israeli Air Force fighter jets, our Aerial Defense Array, and the aerial defense systems and aircraft of our partners.

From the more than 30 cruise missiles Iran launched, none crossed into Israeli territory. 25 of them were intercepted by IAF fighter jets outside the country’s borders. Out of over 120 ballistic missiles, only a few crossed into Israeli territory, with the rest being intercepted. These fell at the Nevatim Air Force Base, causing only minor damage to infrastructure. As you can see, the base is operational and continues to carry out its missions. In the image, you can see the landing strip at the Nevatim base.

Iran hoped to incapacitate the base and thus impair our aerial capabilities, but it failed. IAF aircraft continue to take off and land from the base and depart for offensive and defensive missions. This includes the ‘Adir’ fighter jets, which are now returning to the base from an aerial defense mission, and you will soon see them landing.

In addition to the launches from Iran, several launches were made from the territories of Iraq and Yemen. None of them crossed into Israeli territory. In recent hours, dozens of rockets were fired from Lebanese territory toward the north; there were no casualties. Fighter jets struck Hezbollah targets across Lebanon, including Radwan targets. All this while additional aircraft continue their defense missions.

Over the past six months, we have been operating in close coordination with our partners, led by US CENTCOM, the UK, France, and other countries that operated last night. This partnership has always been robust, but last night it was exceptionally evident. Last night we conducted a complex defensive air battle, with excellent performance by the IAF and the Intelligence Directorate. The battle was directed under the command of the Chief of the General Staff from the Israeli Air Force Operations Center.

The interception capabilities of the Aerial Defense Array and the defensive abilities of the IAF aircraft, demonstrated exceptional professionalism as well as the IDF’s military and technological superiority. Thanks to all of this, the attack by Iran – was thwarted.

The only Israeli casualty was an Arab Israeli girl — a Bedouin Muslim hit by shrapnel in the Israeli city of Arad.

Analysts on Israel’s Army Radio suggested that Israel had reversed the situation of the past few weeks, when it found itself isolated in the world over the civilian cost of the war against Hamas in Gaza. One described the emergence of a Middle East “NATO,” heralded by Jordan’s effort to help protect Israel from the Iranian attack.

More on This Attack

Iran’s General Salami Lauds ‘Successful’ Attack on Israel, Warns Against Retaliation

Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, General Hossein Salami, on Sunday applauded the drone and missile attack on Israel, lauding it as more successful than expected before warning against any retaliation from the Jewish state or its allies.

Salami’s boast came despite the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) saying it had intercepted the “majority” of the “dozens” of drones and cruise missiles sent to attack Israel, though a few hit targets, including an IDF base, as Breitbart News reported.

Overall a swarm of over 300 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles were used in air assault by Tehran.

Israel’s air defense systems were backed by assets from the U.S., U.K., and Jordan that also intercepted Iranian drones and helped neuter the state-on-state attack.

Salami claimed otherwise in his boast of supreme success saying:

Our information on all of the hits is not complete yet but on that part of the hits that we have accurate, documented and field-related reports show that this operation has been carried out with a success that exceeded the expectation.

The Iran-state media outlet IRNA further detailed the IRGC commander warned that Israel will “regret its past actions and take a lesson from Iran’s attacks,” claiming any reaction from Israel to Iran’s recent attacks would be met “with a much stronger response.”

As Breitbart News reported, the attack was supposedly in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike on April 1 that eliminated seven senior Iranian military officials, including two generals, in Damascus, Syria.

The only Israeli casualty was an Arab Israeli girl — a Bedouin Muslim hit by shrapnel in the Israeli city of Arad.

Hezbollah

Israel strikes Hezbollah site in east Lebanon

Israel Sunday struck a Hezbollah site in Lebanon’s east near the Syrian border, the Israeli army and a source from the Iran-backed group said, as tensions soared after Iran directly attacked Israel.

The Hezbollah source told AFP that “the Israeli strike targeted an area… near Baalbek and targeted a two-storey building belonging to Hezbollah,” adding there were no casualties.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that “an enemy air strike targeted a building” in the village of Nabi Sheet and “destroyed it”.

An AFP photographer at the site saw the concrete and steel wreckage of the building, levelled in the attack.

The Israeli army said in a statement that in response to launches overnight, “fighter jets struck a significant Hezbollah weapons manufacturing site” in the Nabi Sheet area “deep inside Lebanon”.

Earlier Sunday, Hezbollah said it had twice launched barrages of Katyusha rockets towards the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, saying they were in response to Israeli attacks on “villages and towns” in Lebanon.

It has launched similar barrages in the past, but Sunday’s launches coincided with a major Iranian drone and missile attack against Israel.

The Iranian attack was in response to an April 1 air strike widely blamed on Israel that destroyed an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, killing seven Revolutionary Guards, including two generals.

Hamas ally Hezbollah has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with Israel since the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in the Gaza Strip.

The violence, which has largely been contained to the Israeli-Lebanese border area, has killed at least 364 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also including at least 70 civilians, according to an AFP tally.

USA

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US Asks Israel to Show Restrain...

US works to prevent an escalation across the Mideast as Biden pushes Israel to show restraint

The United States is highlighting its role in helping Israel thwart Iran’s aerial attack

US works to prevent an escalation across the Mideast as Biden pushes Israel to show restraintBy ZEKE MILLER and MICHELLE L. PRICEAssociated PressThe Associated PressWASHINGTON

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States on Sunday highlighted its role in helping Israel thwart Iran’s aerial attack as President Joe Biden convened leaders of the Group of Seven countries in an effort to prevent a wider regional escalation and coordinate a global rebuke of Tehran.

The U.S. assisted Israel in shooting down dozens of drones and missiles fired by Iran on Saturday in what was the first time it had launched a direct military assault on Israel. Israeli authorities said 99% of the inbound weapons were shot down without causing any significant damage.

U.S. officials said that despite the high interception rate, Iran’s intent was to “destroy and cause casualties” and that if successful, the strikes would have caused an “uncontrollable” escalation across the Mideast. U.S. officials said Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an effort to contain tensions, that Washington would not participate in any offensive action against Iran, and the president made “very clear” to Netanyahu “that we do have to think carefully and strategically” about risks of escalation.

The push to encourage Israel to show restraint mirrored ongoing American efforts to curtail Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, which is now in its seventh month, and to do more to protect civilian lives in the territory.

While the U.S. and its allies were preparing for days for such an attack, the launches were at the “high end” of what was anticipated, according to the officials, who were not authorized to publicly discuss the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.

At one point, at least 100 ballistic missiles from Iran were in the air simultaneously with just minutes of flight time to Israel, the officials said. Biden and senior official monitored the firings and interception attempts in real time in the White House Situation Room. The officials said there was “relief” in the room once they saw that the missile defense efforts had succeeded.

A senior U.S. military official said American aircraft shot down more than 70 drones and cruise missiles, while U.S. destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea downed between four and six ballistic missiles, and an American Patriot missile battery in Iraq shot down one more.

Texas Military Border Base

Texas Military Border Base Construction in Full Swing

Nestled on the banks of the Rio Grande some six miles south of Eagle Pass, construction is reaching a fever pitch on one of Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s latest border projects. Breitbart Texas captured the progress being made on “Forward Operating Base Eagle,” a military base camp designed to provide housing to 1,800 Texas Army National Guard soldiers deployed to the area as part of Operation Lone Star.

The video shows trucks carrying construction materials arriving at the 80-acre parcel of land acquired by the State. The video captures the groundwork on utilities and foundation preparations for the sprawling project that sits on the edge of the Rio Grande just yards from Mexico.

Abbott announced the project to house Texas National Guard soldiers who are responding to President Joe Biden’s border crisis in February. The Texas governor explained the need for the project saying:

Texas is expanding our border security capabilities by building a new Texas Military Department base camp to increase and improve border security operations in this area. This will increase the ability for a larger number of Texas Military Department soldiers in Eagle Pass to operate more effectively and efficiently.

The new operations base promises dramatic improvements to soldiers’ accommodations, including their own individual rooms, a 700-seat dining facility, a recreational center, laundry facilities, and WiFi access. According to the Texas Military Department, the camp will also provide chaplaincy programs and medical and psychological health facilities.

According to state officials, the Texas National Guard soldiers are currently staying at multiple locations across the region in cramped quarters, apart from fellow soldiers, and sometimes traveling long distances to reach their assigned posts. When completed, the facility will be able to accommodate a surge force of 500 additional soldiers, bringing the total capacity to 2,200 troops.

According to Texas Military Department contracting documents, the state will pay Team Housing Solutions Incorporated, a company in New Braunfels, Texas, $131 million in operating costs through September 2024.

The construction comes as the region has experienced a drastic slowing in migrant crossings in recent months. As reported by Breitbart Texas, migrant apprehensions dropped across the southwest border from nearly 250,000 in December to less than 125,000 in January after a series of late-December meetings between the United States and Mexico. The drop in apprehensions in Eagle Pass was more significant, with arrests dropping from 4,000 to 5,000 per day in December to less than 300 per day, according to CBP sources.

Senator Kennedy on Biden

Kennedy: ‘Biden Is Being Influenced by the Hamas Wing of the Democratic Party’

Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that President Joe Biden was “being influenced by the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party.”

Kennedy said, “I think my position is pretty clear. I love Israel. I despise Putin. I despise the Communist Party of China and I despise the Ayatollah in Iran. I don’t want America to be the world’s policeman, but I don’t want those guys to be the world’s policeman either. And with with those guys, if you turn the other cheek, you just get it in the neck. More sheep is not going to solve the wolf problem . I expect, I don’t know, but I expect the speaker of the House probably next week to put an Israel bill, Israel support bill on the floor of the House. I think it will be followed by a bill to support Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific and number three, i think he will put a bill to support Ukraine.”

He continued, “The big issue on those bills will bot be Ukraine, the big issue will be Israel because It is clear that President Biden is being influenced by the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party.”

Kennedy added, “Let me say it again, more sheep is not going to solve the wolf problem. My advice to the president today — for what it’s worth — Mr. President, don’t stop it. Support Israel. With respect, go to Amazon and buy a spine online. Peace through weakness never works, not with these hard armed men.”

Peggy's Marina in Pennsylvania

‘Extensive Damage’: 26 Barges Float Uncontrolled Down Ohio River, Bridges Shut Down

Over two dozen barges broke loose from a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania marina Friday night, causing “extensive damage” as they floated down the Ohio River without control.

Both the McKees Rocks Bridge and the West End Bridge have been temporarily shut down after 26 Campbell Transportation Company vessels, mostly loaded with “dry cargo,” began heading downstream, CNN reports.

While 11 barges have been found and pinned against the river’s bank, 14 continued down the river and six have gone over a dam, the city said in a press release.

At 11:25 p.m., Pittsburgh Fire, EMS, and Police were dispatched for reports of barges breaking loose and floating uncontrolled down the Ohio River.

In total, 26 barges broke loose; 23 were loaded and three were empty. Those that were loaded had dry cargo such as coal, and no hazardous materials on board. There have been no reports of people injured, but Peggy’s Marina sustained extensive damage.

Eleven of the barges have been located and pinned against the river bank by Brunot Island and currently being held by a tugboat. Fourteen continued down the river and six have gone over the Emsworth Dam.

Officials added that both local bridges will be reopened “when it is determined that it is safe to do so.”

“[The barges] may or may not come into contact with sub-structure but we are not willing to take the risk,” police said.

The incident comes just two weeks after Baltimore, Maryland’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was destroyed in a cargo vessel collision, which tragically killed six construction workers.

US & UK Sanction Russia

UK and U.S. Impose Joint Sanctions on Russian-Origin Metals

The U.S. and U.K. will begin restricting the trade of new Russian-origin metals – including aluminum, copper and nickel – on global metal exchanges and in derivatives trading.

The announcement is meant to follow up on the Group of Seven nations’ commitment in February “to reduce Russia’s revenues from metals” as its invasion into Ukraine has dragged on for more than two years.

Russia is a key exporter of metals like aluminum, steel and titanium – but British and American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the economic impact from the ban would be negligible for consumers and producers.

The intent is to limit Russia’s revenues from metals, they say, as metals have earned the nation $40 billion in the past two years, according to British officials.

“Our new prohibitions on key metals, in coordination with our partners in the United Kingdom, will continue to target the revenue Russia can earn to continue its brutal war against Ukraine,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in a news release.

“By taking this action in a targeted and responsible manner, we will reduce Russia’s earnings while protecting our partners and allies from unwanted spillover effects,” she said.

The officials said new Russian metals will not be allowed to be traded on the exchanges, including the London Metal Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange. However, metals produced before midnight Saturday in London will be permitted.

EUROPE

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Ukraine War

Ukraine in ‘Serious Risk’ of Losing War to Russia This Year, Says Former UK Commander

Ukraine is facing a potential outright defeat by the Russians this year, the former commander of the UK’s Joint Forces Command has warned.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine continuing into its third year, the badly outnumbered and outgunned Ukraine is facing a “serious risk” of having to admit defeat to Russia, General Sir Richard Barrons told the BBC. there is “a serious risk” of Ukraine losing the war this year.

The former head of the Joint Forces Command, now known as Strategic Command (StratCom), warned that pessimism may set in among the people of Ukraine and that the public may come to feel that the country “can’t win”.

“And when it gets to that point, why will people want to fight and die any longer, just to defend the indefensible?” Gen Barrons questioned.

Off the backs of the failures of the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive last year to take back a meaningful amount of its territory occupied by Russia, despite expending vast resources and manpower during the mission, there are growing concerns that Russia used the time merely to regroup for another incursion to take more land.

“At some point this summer,” Gen Barrons said, “we expect to see a major Russian offensive, with the intent of doing more than smash forward with small gains to perhaps try and break through the Ukrainian lines.

“And if that happens we would run the risk of Russian forces breaking through and then exploiting into areas of Ukraine where the Ukrainian armed forces cannot stop them.”

The former JFC commander said that first, the Russians will need to break out of the Donbas region, solidifying their hold on “annexed” territories but then, they will likely have their “eye” on the “major prize” of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and the former capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Losing such an economically and historically important city would serve as a significant blow to the morale of the war-weary Ukrainian people.

The former top British general said that the Ukrainian frontline in the east of the country is currently being “battered away” by the Russians, whom he said are displaying a “five-to-one advantage in artillery, ammunition, and a surplus of people reinforced by the use of newish weapons.”

Such weapons include so-called “dumb bombs” from the Soviet Era which Moscow has retrofitted with guidance fins and GPS systems. A report from The Guardian this week claimed that upwards of 500 converted UMPC bombs were being launched at Ukrainian targets every week and that they “played a key role in the destruction of [the eastern city of] Avdiivka and the seizure of its ruins by Russia”.

Ukraine’s Top General Says Situation on Eastern Front ‘Significantly Worsened’ as Russia Ramps Up Attacks

The top commander of the Ukrainian armed forces has admitted that the situation along the eastern front with Russia has “significantly worsened” amid a renewed push from Moscow’s forces.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi — who took over the top post in February following the ousting of Valerii Zaluzhnyi after calling the war a “stalemate” — wrote on Telegram on Saturday that his forces are struggling to cope with escalating assaults being waged by Russia, which he claimed have intensified amid improving weather conditions and the recent “election” in Russia which cemented Vladimir Putin’s hold on power for at least another six years.

“The situation on the Eastern Front has significantly worsened in recent days. This is primarily due to the significant intensification of the enemy’s offensive actions after the presidential elections in the Russian Federation,” Syrskyi wrote during his visit to the Donetsk region.

The commander-in-chief said that Russian forces, with the use of “dozens of tanks” and other armoured military vehicles, are actively trying to “breakthrough” Ukrainian defences in Bakhmut, Lyman Raion, and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk Oblast, which Moscow announced the annexation of in 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine, but still does not fully control.

Syrskyi said the Russian assault has been “facilitated by warm, dry weather, which has made most of the open areas of the terrain accessible to tanks.”

After a largely successful effort to fend off Ukraine’s much-hyped “counteroffensive” last year, there are growing concerns in Kyiv and in Washington that Moscow is planning a major offensive this year to fully capture the entire contested Donetsk region and potentially this historically and strategically significant Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and the former capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

UK to Rush Experimental ‘Dragonfire’ Laser Weapon Into Service to Deploy in Ukraine

Ukraine is to become a giant testing ground for a revolutionary new laser weapon which, if successful, promises to radically alter the economics of warfare, the British government says.

The “sovereign” British Dragonfire laser was successfully tested at an Army range in Scotland earlier this year. Now, defence procurement rules are being changed to rush it to deployment five years early, and perhaps to the front line in Ukraine even sooner. British Defence Minister Grant Shapps said the rollout of the anti-air laser to the Royal Navy warships was being brought forward five whole years, from 2032 to 2027, but made clear it could be seeing action earlier yet.

Speaking during a visit to the national Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), Shapps said: “Let’s say that it didn’t have to be 100 per cent perfect in order for Ukrainians perhaps to get their hands on it”. Even for British deployment on warships, he said it would be better to get to “70 per cent” complete and then field-test it to learn from real-world experience, rather than wait a decade for it to reach “99.9 per cent” completion.

Shapps said in a statement: “[Dragonfire is] the UK’s first laser weapon. Able to shoot down drones and missiles with incredible accuracy, it could revolutionise how we fight wars. And this isn’t an idea decades away, we’re building it right now to fit onto our warships in just three years time.”

The weapon’s revolutionary aspect — beyond obviously being a laser weapon — is how cheap it promises to be. Shooting down missiles and drones over Ukraine today is an extremely expensive business, with Patriot Missiles batteries coming in at a billion dollars apiece and each attempted shootdown launching a $4 million missile into the sky. By contrast, using the Dragonfire laser is claimed to cost just around £10 ($12) in electricity per shot.

This, if it works, would radically rebalance the economics of warfare as seen in Ukraine, where Russia — for instance — is able to blanket Ukraine with cheap, mass-produced explosive drones costing just a few tens of thousands of dollars each, but which would have to be shot down with missiles costing hundreds of thousands or millions. This attritional form of warfare becomes less appealing if Ukraine is able to shoot down drones with a $12 energy burst.

While limited to line-of-sight, the UK government claims the Dragonfire will be good for an accuracy level of hitting a “coin from a kilometre away” with an “intense beam of light”. That beam, it is claimed, can “cut through the target, leading to structural failure or more impactful results if the warhead is targeted”. Demonstrations displayed by DSTL include a melted commercial drone and a hole burnt into a mortar shell.

Vatican Charges Journalist with Defamation

Vatican Court Charges Italian Journalist Critical of Pope Francis with ‘Defamation’

Vatican prosecutor  has filed charges against an Italian Catholic journalist, accusing him of “defamation” of Pope Francis as well as divulging confidential documents.

Marco Felipe Perfetti, a conservative Catholic who writes the blog Silere Non Possum (“I cannot be silent”), has called the charges against him an attempt at “intimidation.”

“It is no secret that within the Vatican City State there is no protection of freedom of the press and the activity of Silere non possum has annoyed and continues to annoy those who have always acted to the detriment of this State and for their own personal interests,” the editors of the site wrote this week.

The site of the news outlet alleges that the Vatican initiated criminal proceedings against Marco Felipe Perfetti by communicating the charges to the press rather than to the interested party.

Perfetti has also noted that Silere non possum is managed by an Italian citizen and resident in the Italian Republic, and thus, the jurisdiction over him should fall to his place of residence rather than to the Vatican City State.

The Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano reported that in recent years, Silere non possum has become an important “point of reference for those who want to know secrets and affairs of the Holy See.”

Perfetti himself is a Roman lawyer with “many connections” within Vatican walls, the article stated, yet he has not yet received any official notification of the judicial process against him even though the hearing was to begin this week.

According to the popular U.S.-based Catholic news outlet The Pillar Catholic, in essence, “The man behind a well-known, well-read, and well-informed Church news website” has been charged with “doing journalism.”

Chinese Influence Section

Bowing to Beijing: German Chancellor Scholz Pushes for Closer Economic Ties in Visit to China

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived in China on Sunday on a visit focused on the increasingly tense economic relationship between the sides and differences over Russia´s invasion of Ukraine.

Scholz’s first destination was the industrial hub of Chongqing, where he and his delegation of ministers and business leaders were to visit a partially German-funded company and other sites in the vast city, which is a production base for China’s auto and other industries.

Scholz is also scheduled to visit the financial hub of Shanghai during his three-day visit, before traveling to the capital, Beijing, to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang.

German companies such as BMW and Volkswagen are highly reliant on the Chinese market, but Beijing’s support for Russia creates frictions with the West.

Germany’s economy has benefited from China’s demand for investment and manufactured items from cars to chemicals, but those ties have frayed amid increasing competition from Chinese companies and tightened regulations. Political interference has also been blamed for a sharp drop in foreign investment.

German companies have argued they face unfair market barriers in China and the government has pushed for a policy of “de-risking” to reduce reliance on the Chinese market and suppliers.

Despite that, China remained Germany’s top trading partner for the eighth straight year in 2023, with 254.1 billion euros ($271 billion) in goods and services exchanged between the sides, slightly more than what Germany traded with the U.S. but a 15.5% contraction from the year before. German exports to China totaled 97.3 billion euros ($104 billion), according to Germany’s Federal Statistical Office, although figures have varied depending on exchange rate fluctuations and rounding of numbers.

Chinese state broadcaster CCTV showed Scholz descending from his plane in Chonqing and leaving in a motorcade, but did not carry any comments made to the welcoming delegation.

Prior to his arrival, Scholz posted on social platform X that he had discussed the “massive” Russian air attacks on civilian energy infrastructure with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday, and declared that Berlin will “stand unbreakably by Ukraine´s side.”

China Accused of Flooding United Kingdom With Counterfeit Postage Stamps

British authorities have accused China of attempting to flood the country with fake postage stamps, a form of industrial sabotage and “economic warfare” often associated with the days of the Second World War.

A sudden rise in detected forgeries of postage stamps in the United Kingdom — and complaints from unsuspecting customers being charged £5 to receive a letter posted with a fake — has been traced to Chinese companies offering to print a million stamps a week for just pennies apiece.

In the United Kingdom stamps can be bought through the Post Office or other retailers, and it is claimed the forgeries are being supplied to small shops by wholesalers who then sell them on to customers, honestly or dishonestly. The scandal of fake stamps comes just two years after the Royal Mail introduced QR-code type tracking data on stamps to fight counterfeits, and it may be this new system that has made the otherwise perfectly printed fakes detectable.

A spokesman of the Communication Workers Union accused the Royal Mail of “inertia” and said they were punishing the recipients of fraud stamps rather than trying to stop the stamps from getting into the system in the first place. He said per The Telegraph: “This appears to be a scam on quite an unprecedented scale… Royal Mail has an obligation not to penalise the customer and to stop it at source and get it sorted rather than pass the burden of the blame to the customer.

“There is a sense of inertia about this from Royal Mail. I wonder if they are in denial about the scale of this [scam] and they are hoping it goes away.”

Royal Mail, meanwhile, has blamed the hapless UK Border Force — which has been at the heart of the failure to wrest some control over the nation’s borders — for being responsible for the flood of stamps, arguing it is their job to intercept contraband.

Alan Mendoza of the Henry Jackson Society said that the mass printing of fake stamps would be happening with, at least, the tacit approval of the Chinese Communist Party. As such, he said, the stamps are “an obvious form of economic warfare and should be called out for what it is with economic repercussions for China if it does not rein it in”.

A Chinese government figure dismissed the claims it was involved in any way as “baseless” and “low-level”.

AUSTRALIA

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Terrorist Attack? Or Just a Deranged Stabber?

Six Killed, Multiple Injured in Sydney Shopping Mall Stabbing Attack, Suspect Shot Dead

At least six people were killed and multiple people were sent to hospital with injuries after a stabbing attack at a shopping mall in Sydney, Australia on Saturday.

UPDATE 1330: Police have confirmed that a 38-year-old mother was among the six killed in a mass stabbing in a Sydney shopping mall on Saturday and that her nine-month-old has undergone surgery after suffering stab wounds, Nine News reports. NSW Police Commissioner Karen Webb confirmed that four other women and a man were killed during the attack. Webb said that police have yet to “formally” identify the slain suspected stabber, but that they believe he was “known” to law enforcement. No motive for the attack has been made public as of this reporting.

The original story continues as follows…

Police shot a male suspect after going on a rampage with a knife at a shopping mall in Bondi Junction, Sydney at around 4 pm local time. Police have so far not released any suspected motive for the attack, which saw six killed and at least nine sent to hospital.

“From preliminary inquiries, it would appear that this person has acted alone,” Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said per the Sydney Morning Herald. “I am content that there is no continuing threat.”

“There is nothing that we are aware of at the scene that would indicate any motive or any ideology.”

Cooke said that the suspected stabber was confronted by a female police inspector, who shot and killed the man, saying: “He turned, faced her, raised a knife. She discharged a firearm and that person is now deceased.”