News of the World

[kyonides]

FBI Agents Wanted to Close Trump Documents Probe
but DOJ and FBI Leaders Pushed for a Raid

FBI officials and the DOJ clashed fiercely over how to handle recovering suspected classified documents from Trump, with FBI agents arguing for a cooperative approach and the DOJ pushing for the unprecedented raid on a former president’s home.
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Two senior FBI officials argued a raid would be “too combative” and proposed to seek Trump’s permission first, but DOJ prosecutors argued that Trump was “knowingly concealing secret documents” at Mar-a-Lago and pushed the FBI to conduct a surprise raid.

Even before the raid on August 8, 2022, FBI agents in the Washington field office as early as May wanted to slow the probe into the suspected classified documents and some wanted to shut down the investigation altogether in early June, after corresponding with Trump’s legal team.
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Federal prosecutors in the DOJ’s national security division — the same one that oversaw the investigation into the Russia collusion hoax — argued for an aggressive approach.

According to the Post, “The FBI agents’ caution also was rooted in the fact that mistakes in prior probes of Hillary Clinton and Trump had proved damaging to the FBI, and the cases subjected the bureau to sustained public attacks from partisans.” Meanwhile, prosecutors argued that not treating Trump like other government employees who had retained classified information “could threaten the nation’s security.”

The Post reported that the case was “closely monitored at every step by senior Justice Department officials.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland personally approved the raid.

British Royal Navy Seizes Iran Weapons Shipment off Oman

A British warship intercepted a boat smuggling Iranian weapons, including anti-tank missiles, off the coast of Oman in a joint operation with US forces last week.
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The boat, travelling south from Iran, was intercepted by forces from British frigate HMS Lancaster before it could navigate back to Iranian territorial waters on February 23.

The weapons discovered on board included medium-range ballistic missile components as well Iranian versions of Russia’s Kornet anti-tank missile, a statement said.

The seizure took place along a route historically used to smuggle weapons to Yemen, according to the Bahrain-based United States Fifth Fleet.

“This is the seventh illegal weapon or drug interdiction in the last three months and yet another example of Iran’s increasing malign maritime activity across the region,” said US Vice-Admiral Brad Cooper.

In January, the U.S. Navy said it had seized more than 2,000 assault rifles smuggled on a fishing boat along a maritime route from Iran to Yemen.

Colombia Ex-Guerrilla President Starts Feud with El Salvador
Calling Gang Mega-Prison a ‘Concentration Camp’

Bukele announced on Friday that the first 2,000 inmates had been transferred to the country’s new 40,000-bed Center for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) “mega prison” as part of El Salvador’s crackdown on the country’s rampant gang violence.
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Petro criticized the new Salvadoran prison facility in a Wednesday speech during the inauguration of a new University in Bogotá.
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“The terrible photos – I can’t go into other countries – of the concentration camp in El Salvador, full of thousands and thousands of young people imprisoned, it makes one shudder,” Petro said. “I think there are people who undoubtedly like that, to see the youth in jails and believe that this is security, popularity soars. Undoubtedly, we also experienced this in Colombia.”

During his speech, the far-left president added that he achieved a reduction of crime rates in Colombia without the need to build prisons.
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“The president of El Salvador feels proud because he reduced the homicide rate by subduing the gangs that today are in those, in my opinion, Dante-esque prisons,” Petro said. “Well, we achieved the same thing — of course, the press is not going to recognize it as much — we also managed to reduce that homicide rate, crime and violence, but not through prisons, but through universities, schools, spaces for dialogue, spaces for poor people to stop being poor.”

In reality, six of Colombia’s cities are featured on the list of most violent cities in the world as of February 2023. Homicide rates in the Colombian capital city of Bogotá, where Petro served as mayor, have increased by 21 percent during the first month of 2023, while the homicide rate in Cali increased by three percent by mid-February 2023 when compared to the previous year.

According to statistics presented by the civil society organization Excellence in Justice Corporation (CEJ), about 1.8 million crime reports at a rate of 3,486 criminal reports per 100,000 inhabitants were registered during 2022 — up from 1.4 million in 2021 during the presidency of Petro’s predecessor, the conservative Iván Duque.

 So he never made crime rates drop nor properly explained what those spaces for poor people actually are and how they work in stopping crime waves. Dialogue. That sounds like a normal idea until you finally notice that it only goes one way, from the petty criminals to their poor victims. Besides, he doesn't admit how several prisons in South American countries, including Colombia and Venezuela, have released dangerous inmates just because "their prisons were overcrowded" and nothing else.

And guess what's their next destination?

1000 Migrants Begin Caravan from Southern Mexico to U.S. Border

Most of the migrants have either no documentation or no documents that allow them to travel through Mexico, reports indicate.

The group is made up of about 1,000 migrants from Venezuela, Honduras, Ecuador, El Salvador, Haiti, and Guatemala, according to a report from Vallarta Daily. The caravan departed from Tapachula and headed north to Arriaga, Chiapas.

Videos tweeted from Chiapas show the large group of migrants making their way through the city as the caravan kicked off on February 28.
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Vallarta Daily reported that some of the migrants have paperwork from Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM). Those documents, however, only allow the migrants to legally reside in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and are not for free travel inside Mexico. Others are proceeding with no documents at all, the article states.

New policies put in place by the Biden Administration in January allowed for 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to travel to the U.S. However, if these migrants arrive on U.S. soil without following the new policy, they are subject to immediate removal to Mexico, the Mexican news outlet reported.

The caravan comes as the Biden administration reports its second straight month of decreases in migrant apprehensions at the border, Breitbart Texas reported.
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“It’s just seasonal,” the Texas governor [Greg Abbott] said. “The people crossing the border illegally always decreases in January, and so we fully expect it to pick up.”...“the Biden Administration itself said that when Title 42 is eliminated, to expect about 18,000 people a day to cross the border illegally.

China Expands Military Budget, Reportedly Buys Russian Uranium

China’s defense budget for 2023 will be unveiled on Sunday at the National People’s Congress (NPC) half of the annual “Two Sessions” legislative event.

Chinese state media touted the new budget as a substantial increase in military spending – and China is reportedly spending some of its money to buy a disturbing amount of Russian uranium, with an eye to producing weapons-grade nuclear material.

China’s state-run Global Times predictably praised the authoritarian regime’s military buildup as “steadily and reasonably” investing in “modernization,” with an eye toward the “security tensions China is being confronted with” – in other words, the looming possibility that the people Beijing is trying to drive off their land might start fighting back.
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The Global Times insisted modernization requires large expenditures over long periods of time and insisted there was nothing provocative about the budget increases because China spent modestly before 2000 – but then admitted the pace of increased spending is still accelerating, even after years of “modernization,” and the only reason Chinese “experts” could think of was the looming menace of Taiwan.
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The Global Times then insisted no one should criticize China’s military spending spree because “U.S. military expenditure remains three to four times that of China,” and U.S. allies like Japan, Britain, France, Germany, and Australia are spending more, as well. Of course, the Global Times did not dwell on the fact that some of those other countries are spending more on defense to counter Chinese aggression.
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China began beefing up its nuclear capabilities in 2021. According to Bloomberg News on Wednesday, Russian engineers delivered a “massive load of nuclear fuel” in December to a breeder reactor on Changbiao Island – a facility that could soon begin cranking out enough weapons-grade plutonium to increase China’s stockpile of nuclear warheads by 400 percent in 12 years.

Russia Warns NATO, U.S. to Back Off or Risk ‘Catastrophic Consequences’

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva “the most acute strategic threat is posed now by the U.S. and NATO policy aimed at further fomenting the conflict in and around Ukraine.”

“Their growing involvement in an armed confrontation is fraught with a direct military clash of nuclear powers with catastrophic consequences.”

AFP reports Russia’s diplomatic representative spoke before a largely empty chamber, with many Western diplomats gathering instead for a nearby photo opportunity in front of a mural painted in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag during his scheduled speaking time.
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Russia’s warning of consequences comes just days after NATO agreed to Ukraine’s request for membership sooner rather than later, as Breitbart News reported.

“NATO allies have agreed that Ukraine will become a member of our alliance, but at the same time that is a long-term perspective,” Stoltenberg told reporters during a visit to Finland’s capital Helsinki.

Stoltenberg’s statement reaffirmed the belief already held in Kiev that membership is only a step away.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a video address Thursday morning stressing the need to extend a high-level war crimes investigation over Moscow’s actions against its neighbor, a so-called Commission of Inquiry, into Russia’s actions in Ukraine.