[WSJ - archive.ph] EPA’s latest EV mandate is the most costly and fanciful to date.
Environmental Protection Agency chose Good Friday to roll out its burdensome electric truck mandate, no doubt so fewer people notice. Biden officials well know the damage they are doing, but the damage in the name of climate change is the point.
EPA’s new emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks will effectively require that electric semi-trucks make up an increasing share of manufacturer sales from 2027 through 2032, similar to its recent rule for passenger cars. The difference is that the truck mandate is even more costly and fanciful.
EVs make up less than 1% of U.S. heavy-duty truck sales, and nearly all are in California, which heavily subsidizes and mandates their purchase. EPA’s rule will require electric models to account for 60% of new urban delivery trucks and 25% of long-haul tractor sales by 2032. The harm is predictable in return for no climate benefit.
Start with the fact that no electric long-haul tractors are currently in mass production. Most electric trucks can’t go more than 170 miles on a charge. Electric semis require bigger and heavier batteries, which means they must carry lighter loads to avoid damaging roads. Fleet operators will have to use more trucks to transport the same amount of goods.
This will increase vehicle congestion, especially around ports and distribution centers. EPA says its rule will reduce pollution in "environmental justice" communities near major truck freight routes. But more traffic will result in more pollution. Electric trucks also generate more soot from their wear and tear on roads and vehicle braking.
Power generation and transmission will have to massively expand to support millions of new "zero-emission" trucks. An electric semi consumes about seven times as much electricity on a single charge as a typical home does in a day. Truck charging depots can draw as much power from the grid as small cities.
By 2030 electric trucks are projected to consume about 11% of California’s electricity. The additional power to fuel electric trucks won’t come from renewables, which can’t be built fast enough to meet demand. Most trucks will recharge at night when solar isn’t available since drivers don’t want to waste prime daylight driving hours.
Some 1.4 million chargers will have to be installed by 2032 to achieve the EPA’s mandate, about 15,000 a month. This will require major grid upgrades when there are shortages of critical components such as transformers. It could take three to eight years to develop transmission and substations in many places to support truck chargers.
Truckers estimate the EPA rule will cost utilities $370 billion to upgrade their networks. On top of that, truckers will have to invest $620 billion in their own charging infrastructure. This doesn’t include the cost of electric trucks, which are typically two to three times more expensive than diesel cabs.
Replacing diesel trucks with electric will cost the industry tens of billion dollars each year. Truckers will pass on these costs to customers—meaning U.S. manufacturers and retailers—which will ultimately pass them on to Americans in higher prices. This is President Biden’s trickle-down economics.
EPA says its big-rig quotas are feasible because the Inflation Reduction Act and 2021 infrastructure law include hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for EVs. This includes a 30% tax credit for charging stations, $40,000 tax credit for commercial EVs, and a tax credit for battery manufacturing that can offset more than a third of the cost.
IRA tax credits for electric trucks aren’t conditioned on the source of battery material, so expect most to come from China. By the way, China’s BYD was California’s top-selling electric truck maker in 2022. Biden officials say Chinese green-technology manufacturers are flooding the U.S. market, but their mandates and subsidies are the reason.
Cue U.S. truck manufacturers, which are pleading for more handouts. "The EPA’s new heavy-duty emissions rule is challenging," Ford said on Friday, noting they will require more "incentives and public investment." So the Administration uses subsidies to justify a burdensome mandate, which then causes companies to lobby for more subsidies. What a racket.
Here’s another one: EPA projects its rule will "avoid" one billion metric tons in CO2 emissions from 2027 through 2055—about as much as emissions from China and India rose last year alone. The truck mandate will do nothing to reduce global temperatures.
EPA’s press release highlighted laudatory statements from leftwing groups including the Hip Hop Caucus, which claims to use "cultural expression to dismantle oppressive systems." So the Administration is oppressing American businesses and consumers with a destructive regulation to curry favor with Hip Hoppers. Such are this Administration’s priorities.
#5
It would be in character for the canuks to volunteer to be human shields for the IRGC.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/01/2024 13:16
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#6
Iran says two regime commanders, five officers killed in Damascus strike According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the Iranian Quds Force commander in Syria and Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, was killed alongside his deputy, Haji Rahimi. In addition, Hussein Amir Allah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Chief of Staff in Syria and Lebanon, was killed, along with two other Iranians.
[FastCompany] Over the weekend, AT&T announced that millions of its current and former customers may have had significant details about them released on the dark web. The company says the leak happened in mid-March and it does not yet know where the leaked data originated from. Here’s what to know if you are a current or former AT&T customer. As of this morning, I've had nothing from AT&T about my account. Went in and changed password and passcode, but thanks for leaking everything someone needs to steal my identity, guys...
WHAT AT&T CUSTOMERS ARE AFFECTED?
Tens of millions of current and former AT&T customers are affected by the data leak. AT&T says about 7.6 million current AT&T account holders had information included in the leak. In addition, about 65.4 million former account holders also had their data leaked.
That brings the total number of current and former account holders who have their data leaked to 73 million.
WHAT AT&T CUSTOMER INFORMATION WAS LEAKED?
AT&T says the information leaked varied by customer. But the leaked data about any individual customer may include the following:
full name
email address
mailing address
phone number
social security number
date of birth
AT&T account number
AT&T passcode
HOW OLD IS THE DATA THAT WAS LEAKED?
AT&T says that while the data was released on the dark web in mid-March, the data appears to be from 2019 or earlier.
HOW SERIOUS OF A THREAT IS THIS TO AFFECTED USERS?
It could pose a significant threat to users if the leaked data is used to commit identity theft against the individual. The leaked social security numbers are especially concerning since, SSNs are one of the primary pieces of data that needs to be provided when someone applies for a loan or credit card.
HOW DO I KNOW IF MY DATA WAS LEAKED?
AT&T says it is sending messages to affected individuals via postal mail or email. The company says it will be offering affected individuals complimentary credit monitoring identity theft services.
WHAT SHOULD I DO IF MY AT&T INFORMATION WAS LEAKED?
It would be a good idea to keep an eye on your credit report as this will show most new financial accounts that are opened in your name. If you notice an account that you did not open, you should contact the account’s institution right away.
Many financial and banking apps offer the ability to view your free credit report right in the app. You can also obtain a copy of your credit report by going to freecreditreport.com.
Another thing you should do if you are still an AT&T customer is reset your AT&T passcode, which may have been compromised in the data leak. AT&T says it has already reset the passcodes of those affected, but it is probably a good idea to reset your passcode even if it wasn’t included in the leaked data.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/01/2024
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Posted by: Jack Criling1480 ||
04/01/2024 17:58
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#3
ATT is a great product built by very smart engineers. But like everything else a new generation has moved in. Instead of maintaining the product they are outside the building out on the street corners pontificating radical bullsh!!t the latest universities pumped into their heads. In the mean time people are developing alternatives such as what just brought Trump 9 Billion dollars
#2
Now Biden declares he didn't do that!
""I didn’t do that," Biden said when asked about proclaiming Easter Sunday 'trans day of visibility." Asked about Speaker Johnson's claim otherwise, the president replied, "he’s thoroughly uninformed."
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Lots of photos, some clearly posed, lots of details clearly sympathetic to those left behind in the aftermath of a major battle.
Israeli troops withdrew from Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza
Palestinians said they found dead bodies inside and outside the facility
Less than a third of the Gaza Strip's 36 hospitals remain at least partially open
The Israel Defense Forces withdrew early Monday from the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... City complex housing the Shifa Hospital, after a two-week raid in which the military said it detained or killed hundreds of terror suspects.
The military confirmed that its forces had left the hospital after earlier describing the Shifa raid as one of the most successful operations of the nearly six-month war, saying it killed scores of Hamas ...a regional Iranian catspaw,... and other terrorists, as well as seizing valuable intelligence.
The military also said Monday that it had lost its 600th soldier since the war began on October 7. Staff Sergeant Nadav Cohen, 20, from Haifa, was killed fighting in southern Gaza as part of the 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion. He was the 256th soldier to fall during the military’s ground offensive in Gaza. Most of the other soldiers were killed repelling Hamas’s assault, and 10 have been killed in festivities with Hezbollah on the northern border.
During the Shifa Hospital raid, which began March 18, the IDF said troops captured some 900 suspects of whom more than 500 were confirmed to be terror operatives, and killed more than 200 button men. Among those killed and detained were top commanders in Hamas and Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... Eyewitnesses said dozens of Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s and shells had hit the area around the medical complex overnight Monday, with Hamas saying the Israeli strikes had provided cover for the withdrawing tanks, armored vehicles, and troops.
Despite overwhelming evidence, Hamas has denied operating from Shifa and other health facilities.
Following the IDF withdrawal, scenes of widespread devastation were revealed at the hospital, where many of the button men trapped had refused to surrender and engaged in fierce battles with Israeli troops.
"Dozens of bodies, some of them decomposed, have been recovered from in and around the Shifa medical complex," the Hamas-run health ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli military "withdrew from the Shifa medical complex after burning down the complex buildings and putting it completely out of service," the ministry run by the terror group said, adding that "the scale of the destruction inside the complex and the buildings around it is very large."
"No hospital in the world looks like this. This is what a house of murderous Moslems looks like," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a Sunday news conference.
Some 350 patients and medical staff at Shifa Hospital were evacuated by the IDF to a "designated compound" in another part of the complex, where the military provided them with humanitarian aid and supplies.
An additional 6,200 civilians sheltering at the medical center were evacuated from the premises, the IDF said.
As the IDF withdrew from Shifa, fighting continued in other parts of Gaza.
In central Gaza, the IDF said an attack helicopter carried out a strike two buildings used by Hamas, one of which was booby-trapped and had been used to observe Israeli troops.
In other airstrikes in Gaza, the IDF said it killed terror operatives who were an "immediate threat" to ground troops, including a sniper. In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, the IDF said troops of the Commando Brigade and Givati Brigade were continuing to battle Hamas in the al-Amal neighborhood. Amid the operation in al-Amal, troops killed numerous button men in close-quarters combat, detained terror suspects, and located weapons over the past day, the IDF said.
In another area of Khan Younis, the IDF said the 7th Armored Brigade and Israeli Air Force struck several Hamas targets, including a truck driving toward the troops and another car with operatives inside, which were perceived as threats.
As fighting continued, the US continued with efforts to stop a promised Israeli incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million displaced Paleostinians are sheltering.
#3
Yes. I understand the problems with the optics of leveling a hoapital, but Shifa comes across like a case of herpes. No matter how it's treated it hangs around forever.
That's not "sustainable."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/01/2024 10:36
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[60 Minutes - Some salt required] U.S. officials in Vietnam were injured in a Havana Syndrome style attack ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris's 2021 trip to Hanoi. Now, new evidence suggests Russia may have been involved — and that it may have been the Vietnamese themselves who were given technology that could have caused the injuries. Russia, Russia, Russia.
At the time, the U.S. embassy in Hanoi announced that a possible "anomalous health incident," the federal government's term for so-called Havana Syndrome attacks, was slowing Harris's arrival in Vietnam. 60 Minutes has learned that 11 people reported being struck in separate incidents before Harris entered the country: two people who were officials at the American embassy in Hanoi, and nine people who were part of a Defense Department advance team preparing for Harris's visit.
While at least some of the injured U.S. personnel were medevaced out of the country, Harris was unharmed and continued her trip to Hanoi after a three-hour delay in Singapore. The antidote worked ?
Statements of White House, FBI, Office of the Director of National Intelligence to 60 Minutes
Symptoms of Havana Syndrome often include nausea, dizziness, migraines, and problems with vision and hearing that can persist over a long period of time. While U.S. officials cannot confirm what causes it, experts 60 Minutes has spoken with believe the incidents involve targeted sonic or microwave attacks.
60 Minutes has been investigating these attacks for more than five years. For the latest report, which aired on the broadcast this week, producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados teamed up with Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist who currently leads investigative work for The Insider. Grozev is well-known for his investigation into the poisoning of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
As 60 Minutes investigated the Hanoi incident, a source suggested that the Vietnamese themselves had been given some kind of technology that may have caused the "Havana Syndrome" attack. According to the source, the Vietnamese may have been told to use the technology to listen in on the Americans ahead of Harris's trip — but they may not have known this the technology could harm the people they were using it on.
In his research, Grozev found a document that seems to indicate this theory may be correct.
Five months before Harris's visit to Hanoi, an email was sent to the Security Council of Russia, the body of top Russian officials who head the country's defense and security agencies.
According to Grozev, a document within the email shows that Russian intelligence lobbied for and received permission from President Vladimir Putin to provide exclusive technology to Vietnamese security services. Among the list of recommended technologies to be shared were "LRAD acoustic emitters" and "short-wave equipment for scanning the human body."
Havana Syndrome mystery continues as a lead military investigator says bar for proof was set impossibly high LRAD, which stands for "long-range acoustic device," is a military-grade sonic weapon that discharges a targeted beam of sound at extremely high volume. An LRAD device was used to thwart a pirate attack on a cruise ship in 2005, and since then, the U.S. military has used the devices to send warnings in the field, such as cautioning people away from an Army base perimeter. But when left on at its highest volume, some LRAD systems can produce a sound pressure level of 162 decibels. The human pain threshold is about 130 decibels. I blame highly paid, loose lipped US gov't contractors.
Based on his research, Grozev said he suspects Russia is sending weapons technology like this, which may be used in Havana Syndrome attacks, to foreign governments.
"I believe that Russia is assisting other governments with some operations that those governments may want to do on their own, and in this way establishing loyalty from these governments for future operations that Russia might need on their territory," Grozev told 60 Minutes. An amazingly familiar theme.
Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Greg Edgreen ran an investigation for the Defense Intelligence Agency into anomalous health incidents, which have been referred to as Havana Syndrome attacks because they were first reported by American officials based in the U.S. embassy in Cuba in 2016. He told 60 Minutes he also believes Russians were involved in the 2021 attack in Vietnam.
"They saw us getting closer and closer to Cuba, and they wanted to stop it..." Edgreen said. "Then they tried to follow up and do the same thing with Vietnam, another long-term strategic ally to Hanoi, by disrupting Vice President Kamala Harris' trip to Vietnam." Until we hear from Fauci, we'll probably never know for sure.
While running the military investigation into anomalous health incidents, Edgreen said the Pentagon supported his investigation into whether Russia was behind the attacks. But the Trump and Biden administrations set the bar for proof impossibly high, he said.
Grozev believes the U.S. government would require a very high threshold of certainty before they could acknowledge the Kremlin's role — because of what will happen if they do.
"Once you admit that this happened, it is a Pandora['s] box," Grozev said. "It requires you to confront the fact that you have your arch enemy acting against your own people, your own intelligence workers, on your territory, and this is nothing other than a declaration of war."
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#1
Grozev believes the U.S. government would require a very high threshold of certainty before they could acknowledge the Kremlin's role — because of what will happen if they do.
#3
We have satellites that could detect these anomalous events. Not that we need to let anyone know that...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/01/2024 11:31
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#4
Undetectable mystery weapons deployed by our enemies is a great plot device to drive whatever storyline you need.
I could add more words but #2 pretty much sums it up.
[Daily Caller] Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fetterman’s three top communication aides resigned within the past month.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Nick Gavio, Fetterman’s deputy communications director, will depart by the end of March to assume a new position with the Working Families Party.
One can see why Socialist would want to leave Senator Fetterman’s team.
Earlier this month, Joe Calvello, the Senator’s previous communications director, departed to join Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s team.
Hizzoner was an activist for the Chicago teachers union activist and Black lives, and a key plank of his last election platform was defunding the police. He’s since felt the need to walk back that last, verbally at least.
Emma Mustion, a press and digital aide, has also left Fetterman’s office to contribute to Sen. Bob Casey’s reelection campaign.
Second gen. PA politician — his father was the governor at one point — he is relatively socially conservative for a Democrat.
"It’s an absolute honor and a privilege to come to Chicago and serve the people of this great city," said Calvello in a statement to the media regarding his appointment to Johnson’s administration. "Mayor Johnson is a true progressive committed to fighting for the working people and families of the City of Chicago, and I am deeply honored to join his administration and get to work. I will be laser-focused on driving the Mayor’s vision for the City of Chicago, a vision that will cement Chicago as a city that truly worksfor everyone."
The mass staff exit coincides with Fetterman’s recent public feud with congressional Democrats and the Biden administration over his stance on border security and the Israel-Hamas conflict. (RELATED: ’Hard Disagree’: Dem Senator Hits Back At Kamala Harris’ Remarks On Israel}
"We now know this was a wide-scale, premeditated, cowardly, terrorist campaign against Israeli civilians that also claimed the lives of American citizens," said Fetterman after the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. "I unequivocally support any necessary military, intelligence, and humanitarian aid to Israel. The United States is morally obligated to be in lockstep with our allies as they confront this threat. "I also fully support Israel neutralizing the terrorists responsible for this barbarism."
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[Federalist] The following essay is adapted from the author’s new book, Pagan America: The Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come.
It’s hard to survey the state of our country and not conclude that something is very wrong in America. I don’t just mean with our economy or the border or rampant crime in our cities, but with our basic grasp on reality itself.
Our cultural and political elite now insist that men can become women, and vice versa, and that even children can consent to what they euphemistically call "gender-affirming care." In a perfect inversion of reason and common sense, some Democratic lawmakers now want laws on the books forcing parents to affirm their child’s "gender identity" on the pain of having the child taken from them by the state for abuse.
Abortion, which was once reluctantly defended only on the basis that it should be "safe, legal, and rare," is now championed as a positive good, even at later stages of pregnancy. Abortion advocates now insist the only difference between an unborn child with rights and one without them is the mother’s desire, or not, to carry the pregnancy to term.
But even less contentious issues are now up for grabs, like mass rape. After Hamas terrorists filmed themselves raping and murdering Israeli women on Oct. 7, boasting about their savagery to a watching world, vast swaths of the America left still cannot bring themselves to condemn Hamas. The same progressive college students who insist that the mere presence of a conservative speaker on campus makes them "unsafe" are unable to condemn one of the worst instances of mass rape in modern history. Some even declare openly that they stand in solidarity with the Hamas rapists.
#4
if you meet buddha on your path kill him
means buddha,g-d, is inside not outside. i read somewhere that g-d is so bright the religions put him/her in a box and worship the box. sad.
#5
When your Christianity is treated like a buffet, this is the result. All religions have some boundaries for membership, get squishy on those and it's not really a religion anymore. Interesting question of how long any religion can survive in a free democratic republic, the devil is everywhere. Christians of all stripes are used to cowering for too long and are going to have to start pushing back on their leadership structures or leave that church and within their community where they or their Community are challenged. Christ says Community, not Catholic, not Orthodox and not the alphabet soup of Protestants. The Community of base ideals, values and beliefs needs to come together.
#6
IMO, this is why we see increased Leftist fever raging about Christian Nationalism. It's really an attempt to preempt Christians standing up and fighting back against being made a public enemy.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
04/01/2024 13:38
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#7
Thats part of it Rex, they need to define a group for people to see as adversary, especially when the definers are culturally and ethnically identical to their boogeyman. The other part is this wierd 50's, 60's counterculture tear it all down mentatlity which has been exploited by bad actors in various ways for decades.
[Business Insider] During the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans reminisced about the things that used to bring them joy. They never stopped thinking about that last big trip with their families or that last in-person concert they enjoyed with friends.
Four years later, American consumers have mostly moved on from the pandemic and are spending more on experiences than ever before. WTF? Eating is an "experience."
Prioritizing experiences, however, has led to a major shift in their financial lives: The personal saving rate in the US has declined considerably. Saving is indeed difficult when you're broke at the end of the month.
The Washington Post recently reported on how consumers in the US have embraced a sort of YOLO — or "you only live once" — mindset. In 2023, consumer spending on foreign trips and live entertainment rose by nearly 30 percent, according to the newspaper. WAPO? Where I get ALL my news.
Spending levels have so far continued to rise in 2024, too. In February, personal consumption expenditures increased by $145.5 billion compared to January, with $111.8 billion spent on services, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. This story belongs in Yahoo News. Oh wait, it's a news feature there this morning.
#6
^'When you walk in a room, you overhear conversations all the time where people are saying 'Trump is the best' or 'I went to that last rally,' and they're telling total strangers while you're just waiting for your car or something. It's just everywhere.'
Maybe the libs felt outnumbered? Maybe they'll go back for better politics.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/01/2024 9:23
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#7
Why would you "save" money at 3% payback when the devaluation is perhaps 50% over 10 years?
Ask yourself, why has the price of everything gone up? Maybe it's the actual value of the dollar falling?
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/01/2024 16:43
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[Broker] You know Hancock and Washington and Franklin and Jefferson. You might even know Greene and Knox, Henry and Hale.
But it is very unlikely that you know the name Haym Solomon. This is unfortunate, because he’s the guy who arranged financing to keep the Continental Army alive during its darkest days, finding the money to keep the revolution going when many were ready to throw in the towel. He was also instrumental in the founding of the Bank of North America – the country’s first “national” bank. Solomon’s contributions to the war and the founding of the nation, though seldom discussed, were of major importance.
Haym Solomon is born to a sephardic Jewish family in Poland in 1740. He travels widely through the banking and finance capitals of western Europe, learning a thing or two and then moving on. He arrives penniless in New York City via England as the colonies are on the cusp of revolution. His expertise with money, along with his ability to converse in several European languages, makes him extremely valuable to overseas traders – he becomes a financial broker to New York’s bustling merchant community.
Solomon also establishes what will become a key friendship with Scottish maniac Alexander MacDougall, a businessman and erstwhile “politician” who was known for his aggressive disdain for class systems, hereditary titles and everything else British rule in the colonies reminded him of from back home. MacDougall, a merchant seaman by trade and privateer (pirate) during the French and Indian wars, was the street leader of the Sons of Liberty in New York. He liked to surround himself with other self-made men like Solomon and he especially liked busting heads and railing against the King. MacDougall might be proud his "aggressive disdain for class systems and hereditary titles".... lives on.
In the summer of 1776, the Sons of Liberty attempt to burn New York City to the ground, thus denying shelter to the British army stationed there. This was General Washington’s whim and the Sons nearly destroy a quarter of all standing buildings before being rounded up. Solomon is captured by the British army in September of that year and held for 18 months, some of that time confined on a boat and tortured as a spy. He successfully convinces his captors that he is more helpful to them as a translator and is employed as a liaison between the English officers and their Hessian mercenary allies.
Solomon uses this role to access enemy military installations and to undermine German support for the Brits. He is sabotaging from the inside, talking the Hessians out of fighting for the English king. When these insurgency activities are discovered, Solomon is arrested again. This time, he pulls out a gold coin that had been sewn into his clothes and bribes a guard to let him escape. He flees to Philadelphia and arranges for his wife and son to meet him there. For the second time, Solomon has arrived in a new American city penniless and forced to start over.
#1
Legend has it that in the aftermath of the war George Washington asked Haym Solomon what he wanted in return for his incredible service to the nation. Solomon allegedly said he wanted nothing for himself, but for the Jewish people to be recognized in some way. Washington is said to have arranged for the thirteen stars representing the colonies on the Great Seal of the United States of America to be laid out in the shape of a Star of David.
Legend? Yes, possibly. A digitized currency will dispose of all of that as well as images of our Founding Fathers.
[American Thinker] Something came back to me when I saw Friday's (3/29) Wall Street Journal's " Mansion" section which was titled, "Modernism Finds a Way In Savannah."
You see, my wife Lynn was born in Savannah, Georgia, and we were married in Savannah 52 years ago but lived in Atlanta until 2002.
That year, I believed it was time we moved back to Savannah to be with her mother and father who were getting advanced in years, Lynn came kicking and screaming, as did our daughter, Abby, but I prevailed.
After one year, Lynn came around, made new friends and retained special ones from her Atlanta days and we have continued our May week at N. Litchfield Beach, South Carolina with four couples from our Atlanta neighborhood. 2024 will be our 40th year, I believe.
Initially our children, who grew up together, came and could bring a friend, if they so chose, and in the morning we piled out of our large beach rental home like circus clowns exiting a car. The kids are all married, live all over, are raising their own kids so we are down to 5 couples. We are the only couple with great grandchildren.
We have a routine but, due to health issues, I no longer play tennis with my buddies so I read books, take a nap, and am in charge of making Margaritas. In the evening we generally play a game called left, right center with pennies and roll the dice to see what we do next.
[Gateway] Five doctors and medical staff are under investigation after a student died following her Covid vaccination.
Is accountability happening after all?
The Italian public prosecutor put five doctors and medical staff under investigation after an 18 year old girl died after receiving the AstraZeneca covid vaccine.
The student went to an "open day" event near Genoa in Italy on the 25th of May where she got vaccinated. She died shortly afterwards on the 18th of June in 2021.
In the autopsy they found that she did not have any previous medical conditions and she had not taken any medication. They concluded that it was likely that she died from blood clots as a result of getting the covid vaccine.
#1
Good. Finally. If rantburgers have been following this scandal (difficult due to the censorship infowar) then you might be aware these dangerous gene-vaccines are the bright idea of the US Department of Defense.
The pentagon opened its bottomless wallet and paid Big Pharma to produce these products so it could establish a 100-day countermeasure platform using mRNA technology
The result is countless thousands of dead and maimed people across the world
I love the USA, they are Australia’s most important ally. But your democracy has been sidelined by your security state which no longer has meaningful civilian oversight, and there is nobody to hold them accountable or reign in their stupider ideas
This is the worst crime in history and nobody is being held to account.
#3
Ahahha yes failed bigly indeed.
But then the fake rabbit hole of “was it made in the lab” chewed the headlines for a year to starve the real story of oxygen —- that the products didn’t work and were actualky dangerous
The real disease was hubris and the illusion of T-shaped expertise
Eg Bill Gates. “I am a successful billionaire monopoly capitalist. I bet I could be expert in public health despite no medical training if i just buy good advisors and fund research. I will turn my talents to public health. I will be a genius in public health just like in monoply software sales”
12 months later…. Soccer players dropping dead on the field. Died suddenly is now a thing. And CEPI is still pushing it now fleecing you through COVAX to buy product for the healthy 3rd world who escaped round 1 due to poverty.
The meek really will inherit the earth if they keep pushing mRNA adult gene-vaccines. They will be the only ones left
#5
Kunstler today:
" I had the honor of interviewing the Belgian virologist Geert Vanden Bossche on Friday for my podcast, and he had quite a sobering message. “What I am predicting,” he said, “is a massive, massive tsunami” of illness and death among highly-vaccinated populations with dysregulated immune systems"
#8
^ I think the plan was to kill about 1/3 of the Earth's population. In that respect it was a failure. I also believe the lock downs put everyone wise to the gerbil gummint total control angle and the public won't be having that again. So two fails. And the big bolus of money for big pharma? That's spent now too. So three fails.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/01/2024 15:30
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#9
I think the plan was to kill about 1/3 of the Earth's population. In that respect it was a failure.
I don't recall the hullabaloo about massive deaths in India/Pak/Africa. Perhaps they weren't the focus?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2024 18:53
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#10
As I recall, India in the end did not have huge numbers of Covid deaths, though like everyone else they graphed the rise and eventual fall. Fqctors included hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, lots of sunlight and fresh air, low levels of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and a population skewed toward youth rather than old age.
[Federalist] Nine months ago, nearly everything in my life was as good as could be. I was a newly married to my favorite person on the planet. Finances were in order. I lived in proximity to family and had a robust church community and loving friend group. I felt fulfilled in my work, among countless other big and small blessings.
So why was I an emotional wreck?
I’d never felt less like myself in my life — anxious, ragey, and sad almost all the time. What was wrong, my husband and girlfriends wanted to know. I couldn’t tell them. The answer was honestly and truly nothing.
Nothing except for one teensy thing: a tiny round pill I ingested every morning at the same time for years.
My doctor had prescribed me the oral hormonal contraceptive several years prior as a Band-Aid for stubborn acne. At the time, I was exasperated, desperate to try anything that would work to clear my adult skin — when I learned about the silver bullet of birth control.
BLUF:
The longer women remain single and childless, the longer they tend to be dependents of the state and therefore Democrat voters. The fewer times they go on maternity leave, the more soulless hours they can clock for their corporate bosses.
[AmericanThinker] It is widely accepted that the Ukrainian crisis erupted into a military conflict on February 24, 2022, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the seeds of the hostilities were planted about thirty years earlier by President Clinton and, later, by George W. Bush, both of whom recklessly pushed for NATO’s eastward expansion.
Over the years, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin repeatedly warned that Moscow would not tolerate continuing NATO’s "Drang nach Osten" ("drive to the East"), particularly Ukraine’s membership and the subsequent establishment of NATO military bases along the Russian border.
...Would the United States accept the presence of Russian military bases on its borders? As a matter of fact, it did not accept them even 1,500 miles from its borders. In 1983, President Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada due to concerns that the construction of an airport by Cubans could potentially be utilized by Soviet forces.
...Diplomacy was not given a chance because NATO needed to restore its image and validate its continued existence following a 30-year history of failure. The pursuit of "nation-building"—replacing authoritarian stability with democracy in countries that do not conform to the Bill of Rights—has accomplished neither. Instead, it has resulted in the loss of millions of lives and the devastation of many countries.
Furthermore, after a disastrous 2021 retreat from Afghanistan, the alliance lost the adversary that had long defined its purpose. Since a military alliance cannot exist without a rival, NATO's need for a credible enemy was an existential necessity. The Russian incursion into Ukraine could create the perception of a common threat and portray NATO as an indispensable pillar of global security, especially if NATO emerged victorious.
...And, of course, there was Ukraine. Never in the realm of international relations was there a state that acted so consistently against its national interests. It put itself in grave danger when it announced its intention to join NATO in 2004, violating the 1997 Treaty on Friendship between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. This Treaty specifically addressed Ukrainian neutrality,
...Ukraine’s leaders never grasped that Moscow saw this treaty as a key element of Russia’s security and would not allow Ukraine to violate its terms with impunity. Zelensky could have avoided the war by renouncing his NATO membership request and meeting Moscow’s demands, thus saving the country from destruction. However, the corrupt leaders in Kiev were driven by financial and military aid and were seeking conflict for personal gain.
Truth in politics involves various viewpoints and analyses, which are often influenced by one’s ideological background. However, facts matter.
The preceding facts illustrate a common overriding interest among NATO leadership, its member states, and Ukraine in instigating the invasion, albeit for varying reasons. Russia was the sole party that attempted to prevent the conflict.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
04/01/2024
00:32 ||
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[117 views]
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#1
There's no moral equivalence between the orcs and the West
Never was
Russia felching is getting popular but is spread by shady characters
[RedState] Dangerous, as are most examples of foreign military adventurism. Time oftentimes reveals truth. Strange how that works.
Posted by: Grom the Reflective ||
04/01/2024
00:20 ||
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[300 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
...Oh, I FULLY expect a full-dress 'Allahu Ackbar!" human wave or mass truck bomb attack. And of course our ROE will forbid even loaded weapons, much less anything resembling self-defense.
#7
Depends on who defines happy DV. Failed mission, dead sailors, ruined ships, deeper engagement in Gaza, these sad events produce smiles in places in other parts of the world. Worst of all, there will be some inside the wire smiling along with them.
[RedState] Remember when a horde of illegal immigrants rioted at the southern border, clashing with National Guard troops in El Paso, Texas? They were arrested and charged shortly after the incident. It seemed as if at least some of these individuals would be facing some serious jail time.
But, it’s 2024, and nothing makes sense anymore.
A judge decided to grant these individuals a generous Easter president, ordering their release. Why? Because the district attorney’s office wasn’t ready to proceed with detention hearings for the defendants.
#6
El Paso was a mess. Its female DA was basically incompetent. Then they replaced her with a guy with twenty years experience, some of it as judge, and he can't make due dates. Something smells fishy. Par for the course in El Paso.
#7
They cancelled reservations at hotels before the Army-Navy game last December as well. The hotels are now filled with illegal immigrant families and turning into sh*tholes.
[IsraelTimes] Attacker from nearby Bedouin city of Rahat is rubbed out by another soldier at scene; another person lightly hurt by bullet ricochet
An off-duty Israel Defense Forces officer was stabbed and lightly maimed in a terror attack at Beersheba’s central bus station on Sunday morning, police and medics said.
According to police and the IDF, after stabbing the victim at a bus platform, the terrorist was shot by another soldier, and was later pronounced dead.
The stabber was identified by defense sources as Naji Abu Freh, 28, a resident of the nearby Bedouin city of Rahat.
The maimed officer was taken to Beersheba’s Soroka Hospital with minor injuries to his arm, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said. He was listed in good condition.
Another person was lightly hurt during the attack as a result of a bullet ricocheting amid the gunfire toward the attacker.
An off-duty Border Police officer at the scene, who identified himself as Shalev, told Ynet that he grabbed the stabber’s arm and another soldier at the scene shot him.
"I made the terrorist drop the knife," he said. "They told me to move and shot two bullets at him."
Other witnesses at the scene said they saw the terrorist at a bus stop before he stabbed the victim and that people ran as soon as he was shot.
The attack came weeks after another Rahat resident originally from the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip fatally stabbed an IDF noncommissioned officer at a gas station north of Beersheba in a terror attack.
[IsraelTimes] Attack was third by PA security forces officer within a month; left-wing group defending Paleostinians from settler violence vows to continue work after 2 activists hurt in shooting
A gunman who carried out a terror shooting attack in the West Bank last week, wounding three Israelis, turned himself in to troops, the Israel Defense Forces said Sunday.
The suspect, 27-year-old Abu Rida al-Saadi, a member of the Paleostinian Authority security forces, gave himself up to troops who were searching for him in the Jericho area, the IDF said.
The weapon used in the attack in the Jordan Valley town of al-Auja was also seized, the IDF added.
It was the third time within a month that a terror attack was carried out by a member of the PA security forces, after a sniper attack near the settlement of Dolev and a shooting attack at a gas station near the settlement of Eli.
Three Israelis were maimed when the attacker opened fire toward school buses and cars in al-Auja on Route 90, the main north-south artery in the Jordan Valley on Thursday
An image from a dashcam video showed the gunman, who appeared to be dressed all in green, opening fire with an assault rifle.
Two bulletproof school buses and at least two cars were hit in the shooting.
Two of those injured in the attack were activists from the left-wing Looking the Occupation in the Eyes group, who had traveled to the West Bank to "defend Paleostinians from settler violence."
The group said the only way to combat violence was with nonviolence, and vowed "the activists will continue to come to the territory to accompany shepherds and to stand guard protecting communities suffering from oppression and violence."
Since October 7, the IDF has said, troops arrested some 3,600 wanted Paleostinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,600 affiliated with Hamas ...always the voice of sweet reason...
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] A few days ago, Moscow sent a note on anti-terrorism to Kyiv via a channel through Minsk, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported on March 31.
“The other day, Russia transmitted the corresponding note to the Kiev side through an established channel through Minsk,” the RIA Novosti department responded to a question about the procedure for transmitting the document on anti-terrorism.
The Russian Foreign Ministry did not provide any other details.
As Regnum reported, on March 31, it became known that the Russian Foreign Ministry had submitted a demand to Ukraine for the extradition of those involved in terrorist attacks in Russia, including the head of the SBU Vasily Malyuk. It was clarified that Russia had revealed Ukraine’s involvement in the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall, as well as in the terrorist attacks in which journalists Daria Dugina and Maxim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky) were killed, the attempted murder of the writer Zakhar Prilepin, the attempt to blow up the Crimean Bridge and other terrorist attacks on Russian territory.
The fight against international terrorism is the responsibility of every country; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs demanded that the Kyiv regime immediately stop any support for terrorist activities and hand over all those responsible, as well as compensate the damage caused to the victims.
On March 25, the head of the SBU, Vasily Malyuka, hinted at the department’s involvement in murders and attempts on the lives of Ukrainian and Russian politicians and public figures, including war correspondent Vladlen Tatarsky and ex-Verkhovna Rada deputy Ilya Kiva.
The next day, the Basmanny Court of Moscow arrested the head of the SBU in absentia on charges of committing a terrorist attack.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] The General Staff gave a new report on the situation at the front
The Russian army is attacking the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in six directions. During the day, 49 military clashes were recorded.
During the day, 49 military clashes were recorded. In general, the enemy carried out 23 missile and 61 air strikes, and carried out 41 attacks from multiple launch rocket systems on the positions of our troops and populated areas, the General Staff reported on the evening of Sunday, March 31.
The situation on the most “hot” directions of the front is as follows:
in the Liman direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces repelled 3 attacks in the area of the village of Terny, Donetsk region;
in the Bakhmut direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces repelled 7 attacks in the areas of Belogorovka settlements, Lugansk region; Ivanovskoe, Klishchievka, Andreevka, Donetsk region;
in the Avdeevsky direction, the Ukrainian Armed Forces repelled 9 attacks in the areas of the settlements of Semenovka, Umanskoye, Pervomaiskoye, Donetsk region;
in the Novopavlovsk direction, the Defense Forces continue to contain the enemy in the areas of the settlements of Georgievka, Novomikhailovka and east of Vodyanoye, Donetsk region, where the enemy, with the support of aviation, tried to break through the defense 16 times;
in the Orekhovsky direction, the Russians carried out 2 attacks on the positions of our defenders in the areas of Staromayorsky, Donetsk region and Robotinoy, Zaporozhye region;
In the Kherson direction, during the day the Russians made 2 attacks on the left bank of the Dnieper.
In addition, on March 31, aviation of the Ukrainian Defense Forces carried out strikes on 10 areas where Russian troops were concentrated, weapons and military equipment, the General Staff added. And units of the missile forces hit two UAV control posts, one air defense weapon, one electronic warfare station and one Russian artillery weapon.
Let us remind you that during the day on March 30, 85 military clashes took place at the front, most of them in the Avdeevsky and Novopavlovsky directions.
During the past day, 85 combat clashes took place.
Ivanna Kapustyanska
The seven hundred and sixty-seventh day of large-scale armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine has begun. During the past day, 85 combat clashes took place .
This is stated in the morning summary of the General Staff.
In general, the enemy launched 17 missile and 83 air strikes, carried out 87 attacks from rocket salvo systems on the positions of our troops and populated areas. At the end of the last day, the Russian invaders once again attacked Ukraine, using 11 unmanned aerial vehicles of the "Shahed" type.
The forces and means of air defense of Ukraine destroyed 9 UAVs, and already in the morning of the current day, the enemy used various types of cruise missiles to strike. Data on the latest attack are being verified.
During the past day, the settlements of Neskuchne, Sumy region, were hit by airstrikes; Hryhorivka, Synkivka, Petropavlivka, Kupyansk-Vuzlovy of Kharkiv region; Novolyubivka, Luhansk Region; Terny, Stavky, Yampolivka, Rozdolivka, Chasiv Yar, Ivanivske, Druzhba, Berdychi, Semenivka, Vodyane, Oleksandropil, Staromayorske of the Donetsk region; Malynyvka, Zaporizhzhia region. More than 100 settlements in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv regions were under artillery fire.
On the Volyn and Poliske directions, the operational situation remains without significant changes.
In the Siver and Slobozhan directions, the enemy maintains a military presence in the border areas, conducts sabotage activities to prevent our troops from moving to dangerous directions, and increases the density of mine and explosive barriers along the state border.
The enemy did not conduct offensive (assault) actions in the Kupyansk direction.
In the Lyman direction, our soldiers repelled 6 attacks in Terna, Donetsk region, and Bilogorivka, Luhansk region, where the enemy, with the support of aviation, tried to break through the defenses of our troops.
In the Bakhmut direction, our soldiers repelled 7 attacks in the areas of Chasiv Yar, Ivanovske, and Klishchiivka settlements of the Donetsk region.
In the Avdiivsk direction, our defenders repelled 24 attacks in the areas of Berdychi, Semenivka, Umanske, Pervomaiske, Nevelske settlements, where the enemy tried to knock out our units from the occupied lines.
On the Novopavlivskyi direction, the Defense Forces continue to hold back the enemy in the areas of Krasnohorivka, Pobyeda, Novomykhailivka and eastern Vodyanyi of the Donetsk region, where the enemy tried to break through the defenses of our troops 36 times.
In the Orihiv direction, the occupiers carried out 5 attacks on the positions of our defenders in the districts of Staromayorskyi, Donetsk region, and Robotyny, Zaporizhzhia region.
In the Kherson direction, the enemy attacked the positions of our troops on the left bank of the Dnieper 2 times.
During the past day, the aviation of the Defense Forces struck 4 anti-aircraft missile complexes and 11 areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment of the enemy.
Units of the missile forces damaged 4 radar stations, 1 control post, 1 personnel concentration area, 4 anti-aircraft defenses and 1 enemy artillery.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Terrorists in Dagestan were identified as part of increased security after the terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall. The head of the region, Sergei Melikov, announced this on March 31 in the Telegram channel.
“The identification of the criminals took place, among other things, as part of strengthening security after the terrorist attack in the Moscow region,” Melikov wrote.
He thanked all responsible services and noted that during the counter-terrorism operation (CTO), the complete safety of civilians was ensured. There were no casualties among citizens or losses among law enforcement personnel.
As Regnum reported, three criminals who were planning to commit terrorist acts were detained in Dagestan during the CTO. There were no casualties among civilians or law enforcement officers. During the inspection of the places where terrorists were detained, weapons, ammunition and a ready-to-use improvised explosive device were discovered and seized.
The CTO regime in two regions of Dagestan was announced on March 31 at 5:35 am. Security forces worked in the Leninsky and Sovetsky districts of Makhachkala and in the city of Kaspiysk. The population was urged to remain vigilant and assist law enforcement officers.
In Dagestan, during the counter-terrorism operation (CTO), three criminals who were planning to commit terrorist acts were detained. There were no casualties among the civilian population or law enforcement officers, the information center of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee (NAC) reported.
“During the counter-terrorism operation carried out this morning in Makhachkala and Kaspiysk under the leadership of the NAC operational headquarters, security authorities detained three bandits who were planning to commit a number of terrorist crimes,” the message follows.
NAC clarified that during an inspection of the places where terrorists were detained, weapons, ammunition and a ready-to-use improvised explosive device were discovered.
As Regnum reported, the counter-terrorist operation regime was introduced in two regions of Dagestan today at 5:35 am. It was carried out within the administrative borders of the Leninsky, Sovetsky districts of Makhachkala and the city of Kaspiysk, reported the department of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of the region.
The operational headquarters of Dagestan also appealed to the population with a request for vigilance and support for law enforcement officers in the fight against extremism and terrorism.
Around 7:00 it became known that FSB special forces blocked the terrorists in apartments in residential areas in Makhachkala and Kaspiysk.
[IsraelTimes] Hamas ...always the voice of sweet reason... is charging that the Paleostinian Authority sent security officers into Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... under cover of securing aid trucks.
The terror group’s al-Aqsa TV says six members of the force, who escorted aid trucks coming through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, were arrested and police forces were in pursuit to round up other members.
A senior Hamas interior ministry official tells al-Aqsa that the PA gambit was supervised by Majed Faraj, Ramallah’s chief of intelligence.
"The suspicious security force that entered yesterday with Egyptian Crescent trucks coordinated its operations entirely with the [Israeli] occupation forces," says the Hamas official, without providing evidence.
A PA official denies the Hamas accusations.
"The statement by the so-called Hamas interior ministry over the aid entry into Gaza Strip is incorrect," the official says in a statement.
The US has pushed for the PA to retake civilian administrative control of Gaza once Israeli forces pull out, a plan rejected by both Israel and Hamas.
The IDF says it struck additional Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon in the past few hours
The targets included buildings in Mays al-Jabal and Blida where Hezbollah operatives were gathered, rocket launching positions in Markaba, and an observation post in Kafr Kila, the IDF… pic.twitter.com/FI5qkgxCNu
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) March 31, 2024
[IsrelTimes] The IDF says it eliminated a top operative in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force in a dronezap a short while ago in southern Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... ’s Kounine.
Ismail Ali al-Zin, according to the IDF, was a senior commander in Radwan’s anti-tank missile unit.
The IDF describes al-Zin as a "significant source of knowledge regarding anti-tank missiles and was responsible for dozens of anti-tank missile attacks against Israeli civilians, communities and security forces."
The IDF releases footage of the strike on al-Zin’s vehicle.
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[IsraelTimes] Interior minister announces probe into ’incitement to racial hatred’ at site, says two other mosques in northern La Belle France ’degraded’ amid Ramadan festivities
What odds it was actually a member of the congregation that dunnit, looking to create a narrative?
La Belle France’s Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has slammed "unacceptable acts" against the Moslem community after a boar head was found near a mosque in the east of the country.
A prosecutor said a probe into "incitement to racial hatred" had been opened after worshipers at a mosque in the village of Contrexeville in the Vosges region discovered the animal’s head on Friday.
Darmanin late Saturday said that two other mosques in northern La Belle France had also been "degraded."
"This weekend mosques in Valenciennes and Fresnes-sur-Escaut were degraded. A mosque in the Vosges was also targeted. I firmly condemn these unacceptable acts against our Moslem compatriots," he said on X, formerly Twitter.
The incidents come during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, during which believers fast from dawn till dusk and focus on prayers.
Both Islamophobia ...the irrational fear that Moslems will act the way they usually do... and antisemitic incidents have been on the rise in Europa ...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum... since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas ...always the voice of sweet reason... war over half a year ago.
#6
Off the "stuff that somehow seemed too blasphemous this morning" pile...
[stall, Les Halles] Et voila! Cochonage
To Mohammed: a head ["Quel dommage!"]
Calmly chomping a pomme
'Neath a turban ["Une bombe!"]
And a halo of pale green fromage.
Not that anyone cares about what a noisy bunch of powerless Arabs shout in an Arab country where the king is pretty much an absolute monarch.
[IsraelTimes] Activists in Jordan call for further protests after days of demonstrations that have brought thousands onto the streets against the war in Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... and the country’s peace treaty with Israel.
Jordan, where nearly half the population is of Paleostinian origin, has seen regular rallies in Amman and elsewhere in solidarity with Gaza since the October 7 Hamas ...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... terror onslaught and subsequent war in Gaza.
Recent protests have seen rare festivities between demonstrators and security forces in the capital and in Jordan’s largest Paleostinian refugee camp.
The group Jordanian Youth Gathering urges people to return later Sunday to the Israeli embassy in Amman "to support the resistance in Gaza and demand the cancellation of the Jordanian-Israeli peace treaty and cut all ties with Israel."
In 1994, Jordan became the second Arab country, after Egypt in 1979, to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
"No to a Zionist embassy on Jordanian territory," read one banner at Saturday’s embassy protest, where people have gathered every evening since the holy Moslem month of Ramadan began more than two weeks ago.
Security forces say they have arrested a number of protesters 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Amman at the Beqaa refugee camp.
Public security front man Amer al-Sartaawi says in a statement that a "number of rioters" were arrested after "acts of rioting and vandalism, setting fires, and hurling stones at vehicles on the public road."
A second statement says women were among an unspecified number of people arrested at a protest the previous night near the Israeli embassy who had also caused disturbances and "attempted to assault" security forces.
#8
"“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
― Winston Churchill, The River War"
#10
The River War is a short but excellent read for anyone interested in Winston Churchill or military history. Young Winston tells of his time with the Lancers in Sudan chasing around some Islamo-nutter who fancied himself the Mahdi. Some nice maps of the campaign, as I recall.
Smart, bright, smoothly articulate; being easy on the eyes doesn't hurt, not even a little bit. Alina Habba talks about Trump's trials and the politics involved. The highlight for me was when she referred to MSNBC as MSDNC.
#1
I love watching good lawyers in court. I was the object of a frivolous lawsuit once over a business deal in small claims where parties usually go pro-se but I hired a lawyer to be sure of a win. He had the suit thrown out in less than 3 minutes. My opponent were shocked and the small claims judge was really impressed. My attorney really knew the civil statutes about the issue.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Korrespondent] Pavlyuk revealed details of the defense of the capital
The general assures that everything has now been done to prevent the invaders from breaking through in the direction of the capital.
The Ukrainian capital has three lines of defense, said Lieutenant General, Commander of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Alexander Pavlyuk during a telethon.
According to him, the border with Belarus has been significantly strengthened, in particular the Chernobyl zone, which was not previously considered a defense line.
“We did a huge amount of work: about 1,000 kilometers of fortifications, three rings of defense of Kyiv, greatly strengthened the Chernobyl direction, which had not previously been taken into account as a defensive line,” Pavlyuk said.
The general noted that everything has now been done to prevent the invaders from breaking through in the direction of the capital. For now, they are building long-term fortifications, because “having such a neighbor, you must always be ready for war.”
[IsraelTimes] The Israel Defense Forces says that following an assessment, a number of sites in the area surrounding the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... border will no longer be classified as part of the closed military zone.
Parts of the Re’im forest will be opened up, in addition to a number of agricultural areas in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai and Kibbutz Mefalsim.
The forest was the site of the Nova rave on October 7, where over 360 people were killed by terrorists.
#1
NationalSecurity Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Monday on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to summon Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over reports that IDF troops had been endangered in the Gaza Strip.
The complaints had been made by parents of soldiers in the Egoz unit who stated their sons had been given instructions to avoid damaging Qatari buildings as much as possible, endangering their lives.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Turkish security authorities detained 51 suspects in the country suspected of involvement in the Islamic State group (a terrorist organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation), Minister of Internal Affairs of the Republic Ali Erlikaya announced on March 31 on the social network H.
“Fifty-one people were detained as a result of a four-day operation against IS in 21 provinces,” he wrote.
According to him, special operations were carried out, including in Istanbul and Antalya. During the searches, a large number of documents from the group were confiscated from the detainees.
As reported by IA Regnum, on January 28, unknown persons attacked the Catholic Church of St. Mary in the Sariyer district of Istanbul. One person was killed and two were injured.
The attack occurred during a Sunday service. Two masked men burst into the church building and opened fire. There were about 50 people in the temple.
Turkish Interior Minister Ali Erlikaya said that two of the suspects in the attack were foreigners. According to Yerlikai, both foreign national suspects are believed to be members of the Islamic State.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The killers of Russian defector pilot Maxim Kuzminov shot him six times and then ran over his body with a car. The American newspaper New York Times writes about this.
“The killers not only shot him six times in a garage in southern Spain, but also drove over his body in their car,” the material follows.
As reported by IA Regnum, the Spanish newspaper ABC reported that on February 13, Kuzminov’s body was allegedly discovered in Villajoyosa. The body had bullet wounds; the deceased was lying on the garage ramp. Spanish police officers have confirmed the death of a defector who hijacked a Russian Mi-8 military helicopter in 2023.
According to Kuzminov’s father, he feels more sorry for the crew of the Mi-8 helicopter, which died at the hands of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, than for his own son. The man noted that those with whom his son served saw him as a colleague, but he changed over trifles, betraying his homeland and loved ones.
Director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Sergei Naryshkin said that pilot Maxim Kuzminov became a moral corpse even when he was planning his crime.
The hijacking of a Russian Mi-8 military helicopter by Kuzminov became known in August 2023. The FSB opened a criminal case under the article of high treason. According to the pilot, he received $500,000 (48.7 million rubles) from Kyiv for betrayal.
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] Over a thousand people demonstrated in Amsterdam in support of peace and against the conflict in Ukraine. The protesters held a rally in the central Dam Square.
After the rally, protesters marched through the city streets to the beat of drums with white and blue flags.
Similar demonstrations have taken place in Amsterdam before. But this time the action brought together political activists who regularly hold them with ordinary peace supporters who gathered on the occasion of Catholic Easter.
“It’s good that they joined us, but there is a difference between us. They are simply for peace. We will continue to raise sensitive issues, speak out against our government, NATO, Zionists, Nazis and the European Union, because they are evil. Because of them there are so many problems in the world, because of them a huge number of people are dying,” one of the organizers of the action, Petra Ottenhof, told TASS.
The activist also added that people continue to oppose the supply of weapons to Ukraine. According to her, this is one of the main topics.
“Some people believe that we are against Ukraine because we do not support arms supplies. In fact, we support Ukraine and do not want more people to die there,” she explained.
It is noted that Russian flags were also seen in the crowd of protesters. The people who came with them stated that they supported the Russian Federation and expressed hope for a speedy end to the conflict in Ukraine.
“A lot of innocent people are dying because of this, it’s just terrible and needs to stop,” an activist named Bart shared his opinion.
As Regnum reported, one of the actions against arms supplies to Kiev took place on the central Dam Square in Amsterdam right on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2023.
Then Petra Ottenhoff stated that the leaders of Western countries no longer want to give money to the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky. They are tired of it and want to get out of this conflict without losing their face.
Also, protesters who took to the streets with white flags opposed the decision of the Dutch government to supply F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine and called for a speedy peaceful resolution of the conflict.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The German economy is experiencing a serious crisis, and it is developing into a pan-European one, since other EU countries are integrated into German supply chains, and the EU budget depends on German contributions, German journalist Wolfgang Munchau noted in his publication on March 31 in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
According to his assessment, the industrial decline in Germany took place before 2022, and after the start of a special military operation by Russia and the introduction of many anti-Russian sanctions, the crisis only intensified.
“The Russian special operation in Ukraine and the subsequent anti-Russian sanctions have brought the German economy to the brink of an abyss. Germany's neighbors in Central and Eastern Europe are largely integrated into German supply chains. The EU also depends on the country’s contributions to the budget and on its government bonds to support the eurozone,” the material says.
As Regnum reported, in March 2024, Bloomberg observers wrote that most of the family-owned companies in Germany, which actually form the basis of the country's economy, were on the verge of collapse due to sharp restrictions on government funding and extremely high electricity prices. The authors of the same publication previously noted that Germany's days as an industrial superpower were coming to an end.
In January 2024, Vice-Chancellor and Minister of Economic Affairs of Germany Robert Habeck said that the German economy was experiencing a shortage of funds due to the costs of supporting Ukraine, as well as other EU countries helping Kiev. The German government noted that the amount of funds that Germany has spent on helping Ukraine since February 2022 exceeds 25 billion euros.
In October 2023, President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia had fully overcome the 2022 economic downturn. During a meeting with entrepreneurs in Khabarovsk on January 11, the president noted that by the end of 2023, the Russian economy had overtaken Germany and taken fifth place in the world and first in Europe, despite the fact that the West is trying to “strangle and crush” Russia from all sides.
#3
^The French military is currently replacing its old VAB armored personnel carriers that started being used in 1979 by a new generation of armored vehicles.
“This old equipment, still operational, is going directly to Ukraine in large quantities. We’re talking about hundreds (of vehicles) in 2024 and early 2025,” Lecornu said.
#4
Some might think this is a good thing but I don't think anybody wants it to go so far as another Wiemar Republic. It would be nice if the elites could understand the danger and step back from the brink.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/01/2024 13:39
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#5
This old equipment, still operational, is going directly to Ukraine in large quantities.
Along with spare parts, manuals and trained people to fix them?
At Skid's link in #2, there is a quote from Macron: "Russia Cannot be Allowed to Win ‘Existential’ War in Ukraine"
Rhetoric aside, from the Russian point of view, this *is* an existential war. They don't want the West trying a "Thunder Run" to Stalingrad Volgograd or Moscow. They have seen that play before and have no intention of allowing a historical enemy to gain the positional advantage to do it again.
"Oh, pish!", they retorted. "We are the good guys and would never do that."
OK, convince the Russians. How? Perhaps by creating a demilitarized Ukraine and threatening World War III the moment the first Russian unit crosses the border. Putin is smart enough to recognize a win-win situation. And besides, Russia has enough other problems, social and geo-political, to worry about.
#6
OK, convince the Russians. How?
OK, you're a paranoid empire-conquering tyrannical regime who threatens world-wide nuclear war, and it's OUR responsibility to reassure you? Right...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2024 18:28
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#7
OK, you're a paranoid empire-conquering tyrannical regime who threatens world-wide nuclear war, and it's OUR responsibility to reassure you?
I use the word "convince" not in the sense of reassurance or a logical argument, but as an unequivocal threat of lethal force. Much like you convince a home intruder to leave by racking your shotgun and declaring "One more step and I will shoot you in the face".
Make no mistake, the Soviet Union was big and evil and a threat to the world. Germany had reason to fear the Red Army streaming through the Fulda Gap. For most of my adult life, NATO provided a necessary and effective counterforce to keep the USSR contained. But the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed, the mighty Red Army is gone. Everyone is better off now, Russians included. One might ask why NATO is still around.
Hugely successful negotiator Donald Trump has said you can always make a deal as long as both sides don't want the same exact thing. In this case, Ukraine wanted access to the European Union for economic opportunity and grift. Russia wanted an end to the civil war next door in the Donbass and security from NATO. Both sides could have gotten what they wanted without a war if the West was determined to make it so.
The story we were sold about Russia's invasion was that Putin the Mad got a wild hair one day and decided to invade their neighbor. But as the details unfold over time, we learn that Ukraine was mobilizing troops and NATO was sending advisors and weapons into Ukraine. Frau Merkel stated in a published interview with a German newspaper that the Minsk Agreements were a sham and only intended to buy time to build up Ukraine. For some reason, that interview did not appear in US media. It pains me greatly to say this, but it looks like we deliberately provoked the Russians.
I find it interesting to contrast our attempts to contain China by integrating them into the world economy vs containing Russia by continuing the Cold War.
Good lord — those Iraqi idiots actually hit something!
[IsraelTimes] The Israel Defense Forces says a building was lightly damaged in a drone attack in the Eilat region, but there were no injuries in the incident.
The army says soldiers identified a "suspicious aerial target that entered Israeli territory from the east" which impacted "in the Eilat Bay area."
The IDF statement does not say what building was hit or if any attempt was made to intercept the object.
Reports indicated earlier that the drone hit a naval base in the city.
The reference to the projectile’s origin being to the east appears to confirm a claim by the Islamic Resistance® of Iraq that it fired on Israel.
Jordan and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... are also to the east of Eilat.
[IsraelTimes] The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) says it "engaged and destroyed two unmanned aerial systems in Iran's Houthi sock puppets ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The legitimate Yemeni government has accused the them of having ties to the Iranian government. Honest they did. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates. Its slogan is God is Great, Death to America™, Death to Israel, a curse on the Jews They like shooting off... ummm... missiles that they would have us believe they make at home in their basements. On the plus side, they did murder Ali Abdullah Saleh, which was the only way the country was ever going to be rid of him... -controlled areas of Yemen ...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of... " earlier today.
It says the aerial systems were determined to present a threat to US and coalition forces in the area, as well as to vessels transiting in nearby waters.
"These actions are necessary to protect our forces, ensure freedom of navigation, and make international waters safer and more secure for US, coalition and merchant vessels," the statement says.
[IsraelTimes] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is recovering following a successful hernia operation, doctors at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem say following the late-night procedure.
"He is awake, recovering and speaking with his family," says Prof. Alon Pikarsky, the hospital’s director of general surgery and the attending surgeon, in a short taped statement.
He says the operation went as planned.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, the hernia was discovered during a routine checkup on Saturday evening. His office did not say where in the body the hernia had been discovered, although they are most common in the abdomen and hip areas.
Netanyahu, 74, underwent full anesthesia during the operation.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin, who also holds the role of deputy prime minister, filled Netanyahu’s role temporarily while he was conked out.
🔥🚨BREAKING-GRAPHIC: Here is the full uncensored footage of the shootout between Charlotte cops and gunmen that left FOUR officers dead.
A livestream shared by Saing Chhoeun on Facebookshows two heavily-armed cops taking cover behind a vehicle as they engage in the gun battle… pic.twitter.com/AhgQjJsq6C
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) April 30, 2024
… as they engage in the gun battle on Monday.
The video begins with the terrified neighbor seemingly locked outside his house and asking someone to let him in.
The officers repeatedly ask the neighbor to go inside the home, but he informs them he can't because he does not have the keys.
The shooting happened as four officers were serving a warrant for felon Terry Clark Hughes, who was wanted for possessing a firearm and shot dead in the gun battle.
[IsraelTimes] Foreign Ministry calls proposals for ‘cosmetic reforms’ in agency ‘meaningless,’ says nations should not resume funding, but instead divert money to other humanitarian efforts.
Or they could, you know, just stop treating the Palestinians like the lilies of thei field, and make them live by the sweat of their brow like the rest of us.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] German authorities are ill-prepared for major cyber attacks. There are no structures in the country that would coordinate efforts to counter hackers in an emergency, said the head of the Federal Office for Security of Information Technology (BSI) Claudia Plattner in an interview with the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.
According to Plattner, it is impossible to “call each other 16 times to find out what is going on where.”
“What should we do if, for example, the lights go out in Hamburg and Munich at the same time due to a cyber incident, resulting in the worst case from geopolitical tensions? Then we will need to do everything from the first second to overcome this crisis,” the official noted.
Plattner emphasized that the German authorities are not prepared for such incidents. At the same time, she complained that the creation of a common database with which the supposed body to combat cyber attacks could work was contrary to German law.
“The thing is impossible as defined, so therefore we should do nothing at all to harden ourselves.”
At the same time, Plattner called on the authorities to pay attention to the problem of ensuring cybersecurity.
As Regnum reported, on March 11, the online resources of many French government agencies were subjected to a powerful cyber attack.
It was noted that the attack began on the evening of March 10. Now access to government information resources has been restored, and the damage from the actions of hackers has been minimized.
BFMTV clarified that government agencies were subjected to a DDoS attack, in which numerous requests to an Internet resource lead to its overload.
In February, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces announced that it had information about cyber attacks of “Russian origin” on the country’s defense enterprises. According to the head of the ministry, Sebastien Lecornu, these cyber attacks are allegedly becoming more aggressive and occurring more often.
Previously, Russian media noted that “ Russian hackers ” have turned into a convenient “scarecrow” for American and European media and political strategists. The Kremlin said that no evidence of such attacks had ever been presented. Such accusations take on the character of some kind of mania or phobia, noted the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Russian armed forces, despite the muddy roads, continue to move forward in the combat zone in Ukraine. Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson shared his opinion in an interview with the Dialogue Works Youtube channel.
“If you look at what's happening right now, I think the offensive has already begun. They are moving forward. Ukrainian troops are steadily retreating,” the expert suggested.
He added that Russian troops are not stopped even by mud, while Western tanks transferred to Ukraine are stuck in the mud.
As Regnum reported, Telegraph columnist Colin Freeman visited Ukrainian positions. In his article, he talked about German Leopard tanks and American Bradley infantry fighting vehicles stuck in the mud, as well as about the state of the Ukrainian army and its military failures. In addition, he called the failure of the Ukrainian Armed Forces a drama, “which now seems to be becoming a reality,” and added that because of this, there is a decline in morale in the ranks of the Ukrainian military. In turn, the Ukrainian Armed Forces artillery commander with the call sign Miron invited politicians and experts from Western countries who criticize the Ukrainian army to come to the front and show themselves in action.
In March, British magazine The Sun published a video of a British Challenger 2 tank getting stuck in the mud in Ukraine during a press demonstration run. Representatives of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the turret mechanisms and sighting devices of British tanks turned out to be not as durable as originally expected, as a result of which the Challenger 2 regularly needs repairs.
The counteroffensive of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in 2023 became one of the largest military defeats in modern history. This opinion was expressed by American billionaire David Sachs
…he made his nut as the PayPal COO, so knows Mr. Musk’s thinking better than most …
on the social network X, commenting on businessman Elon Musk ’s forecast about Ukraine’s likely loss of access to the Black Sea and Odessa.
“Tanks and soldiers ran headlong through minefields as Russian artillery rained down on them from heavily fortified positions,” Sachs admitted.
The billionaire believes that the “reckless support” of the United States led to Ukraine’s failure.
“These people are fools who should not be trusted at all,” Sachs concluded, adding that until American authorities are held accountable for their policies, Ukraine will face destruction.
As IA Regnum reported, American entrepreneur Elon Musk’s warning about Ukraine’s likely loss of Odessa should be taken seriously, since Musk thinks big and has authority, Oleg Soskin, a former adviser to ex-President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, said on March 31.
Elon Musk once again made a forecast about the future fate of Ukraine. According to the entrepreneur, it may lose even more territories and ultimately lose access to the Black Sea.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), Alexander Syrsky, lied about the successes of the Ukrainian military on the front line. This was stated by the editor-in-chief of the website “Censor. no,” former adviser to the country’s defense minister Yuri Butusov in a video blog.
“The statement that the number of positions we returned exceeds the number of lost ones does not correspond to reality. The phrase that the enemy failed to make significant progress in strategic directions, unfortunately, also does not correspond to reality. According to all data, the enemy is moving forward and has captured significant territories,” he said.
As Regnum reported , Yuri Butusov previously caught the head of the Kiev regime, Vladimir Zelensky, in a lie.
The journalist said that Zelensky promised to supply a million drones to the front. In reality, the state does not meet the needs of the Ukrainian military for drones. Brigades receive from him only 5% of the UAVs they use.
To support his words, Butusov cited data from the Ministry of Strategic Industries of Ukraine, which reported the production of 200 thousand UAVs in January and February 2024. But where even these drones are is unclear, the journalist emphasized.
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Andrey Musalov
[REGNUM] Against the background of a special military operation in Ukraine, many other aspects of the confrontation between Russia and the countries of the collective West remained in the shadows. Meanwhile, one of them has long been the struggle for the Arctic region.
In the 90s, the vacuum that arose in the former Soviet Arctic was quickly filled by numerous countries of the so-called “Arctic Club”: the USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, etc.
Representatives of these countries adhere to the point of view that Russia does not have the right to control its territories of the Arctic and Siberia alone, and propose dividing these riches “fairly.” The reason is obvious: over the past decades, large deposits of natural resources have been discovered in the Arctic region.
According to the US Geological Survey, up to 20% of the world's hydrocarbon reserves are located in the Arctic Ocean: potential gas reserves are estimated at 47.3 trillion cubic meters. m, gas condensate - 44 billion barrels, oil - 90 billion barrels.
These are decisive factors for a possible geostrategic confrontation between countries laying claim to the Arctic region.
LOST POSSESSIONS
For a long time, the polar possessions of the USSR were determined by the sectoral principle of dividing the Arctic. In the west, the maritime border of the sector ran from the northern point of the Russian-Norwegian border on the Rybachy Peninsula - a triangulation mark on Cape Kekursky to the North Pole. In the east - from the strait that separated the Soviet Ratmanov Island from the American Kruzenshtern, to the North Pole.
This milestone was secured by a resolution of the Presidium of the USSR Central Executive Committee of 1926. Norway, Denmark, Canada and the USA had their own sectors, but the Soviet one was the largest.
The situation changed in 1997. The government of Boris Yeltsin ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, according to which the maritime economic boundaries of states are limited to a 200-mile coastal zone without recognizing priority over the remaining territories of the Arctic sector, which previously belonged to the polar possessions of the USSR.
As a result, our country lost the right to own the “Russian Arctic triangle”. Vast areas beyond 200 miles from the coast were declared zones of free navigation, to which Russia no longer had the right to lay claim, as well as to the natural resources located there.
It is noteworthy that a number of countries either refused to ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea or did not sign it at all. First of all, we are talking about the United States, which not only did not sign the document, but also declared that the continental shelf is a continuation of the country’s land territory. Accordingly, they did not recognize waters beyond the 200-mile zone as areas of free navigation.
This applied to the Atlantic, Pacific and, of course, the Arctic, where the United States claims an area of 1 million square meters of the Bering Sea. As a result, a number of other countries began to consider the continental shelf as an extension of their lands under water.
WHOSE RIDGE?
In 2001, Russia submitted an application to the UN to expand its Arctic economic zone on the basis that the Lomonosov Ridge is a continuation of the Russian continental shelf and a direct continuation of the Eurasian continent, and therefore is Russian territory.
The Lomonosov Ridge stretches 1,800 kilometers across the entire center of the Arctic Ocean - from the Russian-owned New Siberian Islands to the Canadian Ellesmere Island.
Satisfaction of the application would allow Russia to justify its rights to more than 1.2 million square meters. km of ocean shelf - from Chukotka to the Kola Peninsula. The Arctic shelf is rich in oil, gas and other mineral reserves. According to some estimates, from 83 to 110 billion tons of hydrocarbons in oil equivalent are concentrated here (16 billion tons of oil and more than 82 trillion cubic meters of gas).
There are also deposits of tin, nickel, lead, manganese, gold, platinum and other valuable metals on the shelf. As ice melts due to global warming, supplies become more accessible every year. It is not surprising that in addition to Russia, Canada, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark are also laying claim to this tidbit of the Arctic.
At the same time, most of the countries participating in the Arctic process have territorial claims against Russia. The United States, for example, lays claim to Russia's Wrangel Islands, arguing that they are an extension of the Alaskan continental shelf.
In 2002, the UN Commission rejected Russia's application "for lack of evidence." It was noted that the data contained in it requires clarification. The commission recommended that the Russian side conduct more detailed studies.
To confirm that the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges are a continuation of the Siberian continental platform, a Russian deep-sea research expedition led by oceanographer and polar explorer Artur Chilingarov set off for the Arctic in 2007.
On August 2, the expedition made the first ever dive of manned vehicles onto the ocean floor near the North Pole. At the same time, the bathyscaphe "Mir-1" plunged to a depth of 4261 meters, "Mir-2" - to 4302 meters.
During the dive, scientists collected samples of bottom sediments and rocks, and also installed a Russian flag made of titanium on the ocean floor, and with it a capsule with a message to future generations.
Based on a study of data collected by the Arctic-2007 expedition, Russian scientists confirmed that the Lomonosov Ridge is a continuation of the Siberian continental plate.
As one might expect, politicians in competing states reacted with irritation to Russian research. US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that it does not matter to him “what the Russians left on the ocean floor - a flag or a metal plate.” According to him, Russia's actions had no legal basis.
In turn, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay said that the Russian deep-sea expedition was nothing more than a show, and only in the Middle Ages it was possible to claim rights to the occupied territory after planting the flag. Other countries in the Arctic zone, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, expressed solidarity with the position of the United States and Canada.
In response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the Russian expedition was carried out in accordance with international maritime law, and its goal - to determine the ownership of the continental shelf - was announced in advance.
Commenting on Mackay's statement, the minister noted: “When explorers reach undiscovered territory, they leave flags behind. This is exactly what the Americans did on the Moon."
In general, Russia’s desire to solve the problem of the Arctic shelf using evidence-based scientific methods has brought results. In 2014, the UN Commission partially satisfied the Russian application, recognizing the section of the continental shelf in the Sea of Okhotsk as part of the territory of the Russian Federation. We are talking about an area of over 50 thousand square meters. km, which is a continuation of the Siberian continental platform.
In response to this, the then Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper said: The North Pole is on primordially Canadian territory, since the Lomonosov Ridge does not come from the Russian shelf, but is an underwater continuation of the northern Canadian Ellesmere Island.
Harper was supported by Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq, the first Eskimo woman in the Canadian cabinet. In one of her speeches, she categorically stated: “At the North Pole we define Canada’s last border!”
CONFRONTATION AMONG THE ICE
Throughout the last decade, despite the desire of the Russian side for a constructive resolution of disputes, some of the states of the “Arctic Club” have been straining relations with Russia.
At first, it was about one-time demonstrative actions of non-governmental organizations, such as provocations by Greenpeace activists (an organization recognized as undesirable in the Russian Federation) at the Russian Prirazlomnaya platform. But soon such actions became systemic and reached the state level.
Norway has been more active than others, whose coast guard has repeatedly detained and inspected Russian fishing vessels in areas of the Barents Sea, which over the last century were considered joint fishing areas. More than once Russian fishermen were arrested and transported to Norwegian ports.
In response to the activity of the states of the collective West in the Arctic, Russia began to strengthen its presence in the region.
The Ministry of Defense first announced the need to build up military potential on the Northern Sea Route in March 2011. At the same time, the Russian Security Council adopted the “Fundamentals of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic for the period until 2020 and beyond.”
In December 2014, specifically to protect Russia’s strategic and economic interests in the Arctic, the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command (USC) was formed with headquarters in Severomorsk. Its main task is to protect Russia’s economic interests in the Arctic region, from Murmansk to Anadyr.
The unified command includes the surface and submarine forces of the Northern Fleet, naval aviation, coastal troops and air defense. In the same year, airfields in Tiksi, Naryan-Mar, Nagurskoye, Anadyr, Rogachevo and other cities were quickly reconstructed.
The next step was the creation in 2015 of six military bases, of which the most remote were “Northern Clover” on Kotelny Island (in the center of the Northern Sea Route) and “Arctic Trefoil” on the island of Alexandra Land. These are closed-cycle military camps with a power plant, boiler room and other life support systems.
As troops build up, the air defense of the area is also strengthened. The Arctic air defense units are represented today by the 45th Air Force and Air Defense Army, which includes a powerful formation - the 1st Air Defense Division.
Also in 2015, the formation of motorized rifle Arctic brigades began to operate in the Far North. The first formation to operate in the Arctic was to be formed on the basis of the 200th motorized rifle brigade, which is stationed in Pechenga.
In developing the concept of protecting Russia’s interests in the Arctic region, on March 12, 2020, the State Duma in the first reading adopted the bill “On state support for business activities in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation.” The document defines the legal regime according to which business activities should be conducted in the Arctic zone, and also spells out state support measures that will be applied to areas of the Russian Arctic shelf that will be determined by the Cabinet of Ministers.
Of course, the increase in Russia’s presence in the Arctic region did not go unnoticed by the countries of the collective West. In the American “Strategy for Cooperation on Naval Forces of the 21st Century,” a document that is a conceptual plan for the development of the US Navy, the situation in the Arctic is included in the list of “challenges of a new era.”
The US military regularly conducts exercises in the region, often jointly with other members of the North Atlantic Alliance.
In mid-February 2020, the head of the Northern Command of the US Armed Forces, Terrence O'Shaughnessy, said that the United States fears the expansion of influence in the Arctic by Russia and China, which intend to “exploit the economic potential” of the region. The Ice Exercise (IceX), a biannual exercise, responded to concerns.
As part of the exercises in the Alaska region, the American command demonstrates to Russia and China the operational readiness of the United States and allied countries to operate in the Arctic. At the same time, the US military is creating a Seadragon camp on the ice fields of the Beaufort Sea, and Los Angeles-class submarines of the US Navy are practicing surfacing with breaking through the ice and a subsequent training attack.
The last Ice X exercise to date took place on March 8, 2024.
FROM WORDS TO DEEDS
With the start of the Northern Military District in Ukraine, members of the Arctic Council - the USA, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Finland and Sweden - declared a boycott of Russia. They created the “7+1” format and hold meetings without the participation of Moscow, ignoring its opinion on all issues. At the same time, State Department representative Derek Chollet said that 70% of problems in the Arctic can be solved without the participation of the Russian Federation.
The most striking example of the growth of confrontation in the Arctic was the actual blockade in the spring-summer of 2022 of the Russian village of Barentsburg, located on the Spitsbergen archipelago.
Then, as part of anti-Russian sanctions, the Norwegian authorities rejected Russia’s application to allow cargo for our citizens to pass through the Storskog checkpoint, the only checkpoint on the Russian-Norwegian border. As a result, 450 miners from the Arktikugol trust and about 50 employees of travel companies were on the verge of starvation.
The validity of the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1920, was called into question. According to the document, Norwegian sovereignty was established over the archipelago, but the Soviet Union, and then its successor Russia, could use its natural resources.
In response, Russia threatened to denounce the agreement between the Russian Federation and Norway on the delimitation of maritime spaces and cooperation in the Barents Sea and the Arctic Ocean. This had an effect: in order to circumvent its own sanctions, Norway undertook to deliver Russian cargo to Spitsbergen using its own ships.
It is difficult to say what scenario the further confrontation in the Arctic will follow. It is important to note that only Russia has a developed icebreaker fleet and large-scale military infrastructure in the region.
However, it is obvious that further global warming, the discovery of large mineral deposits in the region and the growing need to use the Northern Sea Route will strengthen the desire of the collective Western countries to push Russia out of the polar regions. And at any cost.
Yes, but what if there is no significant global warming, and therefore no Northern Sea Route?
Russian ministry of defense failed to post their daily summary for April 1st, so we take the text from the Russian FSB supervised summaries as a substitute.
[NewsFront] 22:15 An explosion occurred in Kharkov in eastern Ukraine. According to the online map of the Ministry of Digital Transformation, an air raid alert has been declared in the Kharkov and Sumy regions of the country.
21:25 "Lancet"blew upSelf-propelled gun 2S1 “Gvozdika” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
20:34 Our fighters against the background of two more American M2A2 Bradley ODS-SA infantry fighting vehicles from the Avdeevsky direction, claiming to be trophies -photo.
19:15 The enemy T-72 was going about its business somewhere on the Donetsk front, but was discovered with a UAV by our paratroopers and received its “Lancet” -video.
18:46 Today, in Khmelnytsky, a farewell ceremony was held for junior lieutenant Taras Melnik. The militant was killed near the village. Staromayorskoe, Donetsk region -photo.
17:42 Su-34 bombed the Ukrainian Armed Forces deployment point in Chasov Yar -video.
16:38 Military personnel of the Dnepr group of troops are destroying military facilities, as well as positions of Ukrainian Armed Forces militants on the right bank of the Dnieper -video.
16:00 The 305th Artillery Brigade destroyed the Ukrainian Strela-10 small-radius air defense system in the Staromayorsky area using a self-propelled "Gyacinth"video.
15:12 During attacks on the Sumy region, the Russian Armed Forces used the ODAB-1500 heavy aerial bomb for the first time in the area of the settlement. Great Pisarevka -video.
14:19 Attacks on personnel and transport of the Ukrainian Armed Forces by drone pilots from the 123rd Motorized Rifle Brigade in the area of the village of Vyemka, northeast of Soledar -video.
14:02 Artillerymen of the 6th motorized rifle division hit the American M-777 with their grandfather’s D-20 howitzer and with the help of Krasnopol -video.
13:19 German-Ukrainian captured T-72B3 with added dynamic protection -video.
12:43 Artillerymen of the 238th brigade hit the Ukrainian Carnation with a lancet -video.
12:28 Msta-B howitzer covers the position of a 120-mm Ukrainian mortar in Chasov Yar -video.
11:50 Active fighting continues in the Zaporozhye direction at any time of the day. And the enemy can be firmly confident that our rocket artillery will continue to deliver accurate strikes on targets -video.
11:18 The crew of the anti-tank missile system of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed the Ukrainian Kozak armored car in the Donetsk direction -video.
10:42 On May 1, 2023, Oleg Shpur, a veteran of the so-called ATO, was liquidated in Artyomovsk.
He was born in Vinnytsia region. After graduating from school, Shpur signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and took part in the so-called ATO and Joint Forces Operation.
After the start of the Northern Military District, he voluntarily joined the 120th separate territorial defense brigade. Served as a machine gunner -photo.
09:59 Primorye residents from the Tiger detachment shared with us footage of how an ATGM crew hit a building in which the enemy was sitting. The action takes place in the Novomikhailovka area -video.
09:36 Rotation failed. Excellent arrival at a group of infantry from Ukrainian formations in the Yuzhnodonetsk direction. Coordinated work of scouts and artillerymen of the 36th Army of the Vostok group of the Russian Armed Forces from Buryatia -video.
08:54 Combat work of the artillery of the Sever-V brigade in the Artemovsk direction.
In the area of the village Grigorovka, the UAV launch site was discovered. As a result of an artillery strike, the enemy's air reconnaissance crew was destroyed -video.
08:10 Elimination of the enemy DRG after entering the gray zone. The Aida Special Forces group "Akhmat" is gathering its harvest -video.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Victoria Nikiforova
[RIA] Honest art, like a sniper's bullet, strikes right in the heart. The truth of emotions, precision of form and modern reality complement and enhance each other. So one film in one and a half hours of screen time can tell about the history of Donbass, about the origins of the Northern Military District, about the internal civilizational conflict of Russia much more than an entire history textbook.
We are talking about Ilya Kazankov’s painting “Call Sign Passenger”. It is based on the novel “Murder of Cities” by Alexander Prokhanov and makes a simply deafening impression.
It’s already difficult to make an honest movie about war: directors usually want to embellish everything. Bringing the confrontation in Donbass to life on screen seems completely unattainable - it hits all the viewer’s pain points so much. But here the authors achieved the almost impossible. They immersed us in the reality of modern war, tearing us out of the ordinary city routine.
This film makes a completely surreal impression in a chic cinema hall of a shopping center: there are shining shop windows around, the buffet offers champagne, and exotic vegan snacks to go with it. And on the screen the blood of our people is pouring, explosions are eclipsing our sun.
The hero of the film, a young writer, a typical hipster from the Moscow Patricks, ends up in Donbass in 2015 to find his brother there. He is not interested in war, he knows nothing about it. He wanders through the mud in his fashionable white sneakers and looks completely out of this world; it’s not for nothing that the militia detachment gives him the call sign Passenger. Anton Shagin plays it all out in an extremely recognizable way - it’s as if his character stepped onto the screen straight from our luxurious cinema.
But little by little, the capital’s writer gets acquainted with the everyday life of war and sees how Ukrainian Nazis commit atrocities. For them, children, women, old people living in a dilapidated village are “separatists” who can and should be destroyed. And somehow, unbeknownst to himself, our hipster catches up, masters the AK and understands that there is simply no one besides him and his comrades to protect these women and children.
There is no didacticism in the film. This is a complete and terrible tragedy unfolding before us quickly and inexorably. The only formal complaint about “The Passenger” is that it seems that the authors were so keen on dynamism that they sacrificed entire storylines. In fact, if the film was longer by half an hour, it would still be watched in one sitting.
The fact is that all the characters here are alive, they are well-developed characters. It's a shame that we don't have time to learn the stories of the Musician, the Serb or the Brothers, who are not really brothers. What can we say about the commanders - Russian and Ukrainian.
I watched "Call Sign Passenger" on Friday night. The spectators, who had walked around the megamall and remembered to grab popcorn and champagne at the entrance, sat for the entire hour and a half in dead silence. There were no rustling shopping bags, the popcorn was forgotten. It seemed that people simply did not breathe, having forgotten about everything, lost in the ruins of Donbass. Many people cried on the way out.
And now about the sad thing. There were barely a dozen spectators in the large cinema hall. All Moscow cinemas give a film no more than one showing. In cinemas in the center of the capital, "The Passenger" is generally shown only in the morning or afternoon.
It’s a strange irony: a ticket to this film can be bought through the “Pushkin Card” program; young people and teenagers really need to see it, but it is shown in the cinema precisely at the time when the children are sitting in lessons and lectures. One hope is that smart teachers will take whole classes to see “Passenger” - this is urgently needed for their students.
Needless to say, the “progressive” press is deafeningly silent about this film. There they continue to lick imported films. A domestic film, and on a topical topic, and a good one at that - no, they don’t like that there. This, they say, is for “vatniks”, “zetniks”, as they also call normal people...
This is how they impose on us a completely false picture of the world, in which everything progressive and advanced is tightly connected with the Western agenda. And all that is truly sovereign in our art is the so-called Z-culture, this is “for Z-people.”
Liberals fearfully fence themselves off in their cozy media and blogs: but here we will be about transqueers and the Venice Biennale, and you, quilted jackets, bad and unprogressive, do not interfere in our sandbox. The writer Prokhanov, in particular, is feared to the point of convulsions there - really, what can you do with true talent, who was never afraid to dare to have his own opinion? Originality is so scary. A true “liberal” is obliged to march in formation, eat soy meat and shout chants about love for transgender people.
Hence the boycott of “Call Sign” by many media outlets. But it has an excellent word of mouth - people write reviews, talk about the film, discuss it on social networks.
The fact is that the natural growth of national self-awareness and inspiration cannot be stopped. As a result, our “progressors” will remain in their sandboxes with their imported trinkets, and Russian art will open new horizons and become a role model throughout the world. Actually, the process has already begun. “Call Sign Passenger” is clear proof of this.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited. by Kirill Velesov
[REGNUM] The health of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales and wife of the heir to the British throne, Prince William of Wales, remains one of the hottest topics - and not only in the UK. Fans of the royal family are anxiously following the situation, about which there are now many rumors and speculations.
Kate, who had previously been the subject of constant attention from the British paparazzi, disappeared from the radar at the end of 2023. It is assumed that she is now fighting cancer and is undergoing treatment, but conspiracy theorists continue to speculate on her health, citing a lack of trust in recent photos of the princess.
BAD PHOTO
The princess has not appeared in public since the Christmas service on December 25 last year at Sandringham, and on January 16 she was hospitalized in a private clinic in London, where she underwent routine abdominal surgery. In connection with which surgical intervention was required, the royal palace was in no hurry to disclose, but it was emphasized that the princess did not have an oncological diagnosis.
For a long time, the duchess’s problems were not officially reported. Representatives of the royal house got off with excuses or assured that everything was fine with Kate, and that she would soon return to her usual active lifestyle. In particular, in early March, Prince William ignored a question about his wife’s health.
The silence of official sources and the absence of numerous previous photos and videos led to a flurry of rumors about the reasons for the disappearance of the princess. Proponents of conspiracy theories began to talk about the discord in her family due to the appearance of a mistress with the heir to the British throne, as well as about Kate’s possible death or her severe coma.
When a picture of a happy Kate Middleton with her children against the backdrop of a spring garden was published three weeks ago, many felt that the picture was generated by a neural network or unprofessionally retouched. It was indicated, in particular, that the position of her body was unnatural, the background of the image did not correspond to the season, and the duchess did not have a wedding ring on her hand.
Then even a number of British media refused to publish the photo, which further violated the trust in the royal family, which had already suffered from numerous scandals. Even the Princess of Wales herself had to apologize for the unfortunate photo. Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that other members of the royal house had previously been diagnosed with cancer.
In early February of this year, the disease was found in the British King Charles III. During his hospitalization due to an enlarged prostate, he was diagnosed with cancer, so he had to postpone public events during treatment. There was also bad news about the health of British Prince Andrew's ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who was diagnosed with skin cancer and a breast tumor.
Sources and conspiracy theorists
Recently, the Princess of Wales lifted the veil of secrecy and recorded a video message in which she said that she was diagnosed with cancer after a planned operation, so now she needs to undergo treatment. However, there have been no reliable reports about what type of cancer it is and what stage it is at. They even tried to steal the duchess's medical records, which, by the way, is considered a criminal offense under UK law.
It was assumed, in particular, that it could be cervical cancer, one of the most common types of this disease in women. However, the other day, royal family expert Mark Roche, citing his informants, told the public that Kate Middleton had been diagnosed with colon cancer.
“According to a well-informed source, all indications are that she has had a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus - Ed.) and that she has colon cancer,” he says. “As the source explains, the Princess of Wales is undergoing preventive chemotherapy, which can be done at home without going to hospital.”
Today she reportedly remains under the care of doctors at the Anmer Hall estate. Due to the princess' illness, Prince William and Kate Middleton are likely to miss the annual Easter service at St George's Chapel. The Duchess gets tired quickly, so her husband took care of the family's three children - Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
“He is a very reliable and strong person. She does not feel isolated thanks to his support,” informed people say. Kate's connection with her husband remains strong; together they experience the misfortune that has befallen them. The children know that their mother is sick and is trying to get better.
“I told them that I am healthy and getting stronger every day, focusing on what will help me heal in mind, body and spirit,” the princess emphasizes.
Of course, we can only wish her to successfully cope with her health problems, but overall the situation still looks like a failure of the royal press service. Even despite the emergence of new materials, various fantastic theories continue to multiply, and experts with a magnifying glass are looking for numerous inconsistencies in the footage.
In particular, earlier a friend of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, IT entrepreneur Christopher Busey, noted that Buckingham Palace lied about Kate Middleton’s health, and British journalists “gladly” helped him. Conspiracy theorists also have complaints about the princess’s recent video message. Users of social networks, in particular, are wondering why Prince William is not in the frame next to her, which breaks tradition.
To be sure, as Prince William's spokeswoman Sally Bedell Smith previously said, the prince is "focused on his work, not on social media." But fans of the royal family would still like to receive more first-hand details, otherwise conspiracy theorists will be happy to provide them to the public.
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Worth noting, korrespondent.net has compiled its Invasion of Ukraine series into separate months, beginning May 9th, 2023. Linked in the title.
[Korrespondent] 20:57 Kiev has three lines of defense, said the commander of the Ground Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Alexander Pavlyuk. According to him, the border with Belarus has been significantly strengthened, in particular the Chernobyl zone, which was not previously considered a defense line.
“We have done a huge amount of work: about 1000 km of fortifications, three rings of defense of Kyiv, we have greatly strengthened the Chernobyl direction, which had not previously been taken into account as a defensive line,” Pavlyuk noted. He added that construction of long-term fortifications is now underway.
19:40 In the Lviv region, the number of deaths as a result of a night strike has increased to two - another body was found under the rubble of the administrative building of a critical infrastructure facility. Rescuers continue search work, said the head of the OBA, Maxim Kozitsky.
19:34 The Russian Foreign Ministry officially accused Ukraine of involvement in the terrorist attack in Crocus. “Investigative actions indicate that the traces of the latest terrorist attacks lead to Ukraine. Russia has submitted a demand to the Ukrainian authorities for the arrest and extradition of all those involved,” the statement said. Moscow also demands from Kyiv the arrest of the head of the SBU Vasily Malyuk in connection with his statements about his involvement in the bombing of the Crimean Bridge and the murder of a number of people in Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry threatens Ukraine with liability for “violation of obligations under anti-terrorism conventions.”
18:53 The railway that Russia is building in the occupied territory could become a serious problem for Ukraine, Budanov
…no relation to Rantburg’s own badanov…
said: “Russia has actually been building a railway for more than a year to connect with our southern temporarily occupied territories. This process is almost completed, and this could pose a serious problem for us."
16:32 Pope Francis, in his traditional Easter message, called for an exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine according to the “all for all” formula: “My thoughts first of all go to the victims of the numerous conflicts ongoing in the world, starting from the war in Israel and Palestine, and also in Ukraine. May the Risen Christ open the way to peace for the suffering population of these regions. Calling for respect for the principles of international law, I express my wishes for a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine - all for all."
15:37 In the morning, the Russians attacked the Kherson region with ballistics, hitting industrial infrastructure, the Southern Defense Forces reported. The extent of the damage is being clarified; no casualties have been reported. The military noted that the enemy continues the tactics of targeted missile strikes, testing and reconnaissance of air defense systems.
13:49 The Russian fleet has been accumulating Caliber cruise missiles for a long time and may soon use them to strike Ukraine, said the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense Kirill Budanov. According to him, the military leadership of the Russian Federation decided to use Kh-101 cruise missiles instead of Caliber missiles, since they are more effective. “While the fleet was accumulating its missiles, the Russian Aerospace Forces were using the X-101,” Budanov explained. Now the number of X-101s with the enemy has been significantly reduced, so it is likely that “we will see Caliber again in the near future,” the head of military intelligence added.
13:28 Today, March 31, is the second anniversary of the liberation of Bucha, Kiev region, from Russian troops. However, the number of those killed and those who were tortured is still not final; the search for missing persons continues, said the head of the criminal police, Andrei Nebytov. According to him, a total of 1,190 bodies were discovered in the Buchansky district. To date, 514 residents of the Kyiv region are considered missing, 180 bodies remain unidentified.
11:56 At night, the Russians once again attacked one of the gas facilities, the Ministry of Energy reported.
11:21 In the Donetsk region over the past 24 hours, as a result of Russian shelling, two people were killed and five were injured, regional police reported. In particular, in Krasnogorovka two people were killed and one was injured. Three people were injured in Kurakhovo, another in Konstantinovka.
09:54 France will transfer hundreds of old VAB armored personnel carriers to Ukraine within a year, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said. He clarified that Kyiv will receive armored personnel carriers in the period from 2024 to early 2025. Despite the fact that some armored personnel carriers are more than 40 years old, they are “still on the move,” the minister added. In addition, France plans to supply Ukraine with additional Aster 30 anti-aircraft missiles for the French SAMP/T air defense system.
09:50 At night, the Russians again attacked energy facilities, the target was high-voltage substations of Ukrenergo in the southern region, the company reported. Due to equipment damage, emergency shutdowns were applied in Odessa and surrounding areas. Consumption restrictions also continue to apply in the Kharkov region and Krivoy Rog.
09:38 At night, the Russians attacked with cruise missiles the same critical infrastructure facility in the Lviv region that was attacked on March 24 and 29. The administrative building was destroyed and the fire was quickly extinguished. As a result of the attack, one person died. Rescuers are clearing the rubble; there may still be people underneath.
09:20 In Odessa, due to a limitation in the supply of electricity, electric transport stops operating, the City Council reported. The number of buses on main routes has been increased.
09:03 In Kharkov, as a result of yesterday’s shelling of the Shevchenko district (probably KAB), two people were wounded, eight buildings and houses were damaged, said the head of the OVA Oleg Sinegubov. In addition, at night the enemy attacked the town of Borovaya, Izyumsky district - as a result of hitting the ground near a service station, two shopping pavilions were damaged, one person was killed, one was wounded.
08:57 The General Staff announced the estimated losses of the Russian Federation as of March 31:
personnel - about 442,170 (+650) people,
tanks - 6966 (+15),
armored combat vehicles - 13,304 (+20),
artillery systems - 11,050 (+44),
MLRS - 1023 (+0),
air defense systems - 743 (+7),
aircraft - 347 (+0),
helicopters - 325 (+0),
UAV of operational-tactical level - 8731 (+30),
cruise missiles - 2048 (+2),
ships/boats - 26 (+0),
submarines - 1 (+0),
automotive equipment and tank trucks - 14,717 (+47),
special equipment - 1823 (+9).
08:41 Over the past 24 hours, 85 military clashes took place at the front, the General Staff reported in its morning report. In particular, the enemy tried 36 times to break through the defenses of Ukrainian troops in the Novopavlovsk direction - in the areas of Krasnohorivka, Pobeda, Novomikhailovka and east of Vodyanoye, Donetsk region. Another 24 attacks were repelled in the Avdeevsky direction - in the areas of the settlements of Berdychi, Semenovka, Umanskoye, Pervomaiskoye, Nevelskoye, Donetsk region.
The enemy did not conduct offensive actions in the Kupyansk direction. In the Liman direction, the Defense Forces repelled six attacks in the areas of Ternov, Donetsk region and Belogorivka, Lugansk region; on Bakhmutskoye - seven attacks in the areas of the settlements of Chasov Yar, Ivanovskoye, Kleshcheevka, Donetsk region; in the Orekhovsky direction - five attacks in the districts of Staromayorskoye, Donetsk region and Rabotino, Zaporozhye region; on Kherson - two attacks on the left bank of the Dnieper.
08:18 Air defense destroyed 18 air targets at night - nine attack drones and nine missiles, the Air Force reported. In particular, the Russian Federation attacked with 14 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles from Tu-95ms strategic aircraft (launch area - Saratov region), 11 Shahed-type attack UAVs (Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Crimea), Iskander-M ballistic missile (Crimea ) and a guided aircraft missile X-59 (occupied territory of the Zaporozhye region). Nine Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles and nine Shahed-136/131 attack UAVs were destroyed.
07:29 At night, Russia again attacked Ukraine with drones and missiles. The enemy's targets were, in particular, the energy infrastructure of the Odessa region and the agro-industrial facilities of the Kherson region, the Southern Defense Forces reported. In the Odessa region, all eight drones were shot down, and as a result of falling debris, a fire broke out at one of the energy facilities. Several settlements were cut off from power. The fire was extinguished, no people were injured.
In the Kherson region, during a drone attack, the Russians also used ballistics and a guided aircraft missile. They hit a mothballed agricultural enterprise, no people were injured.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[NewsFront] 21:35 Advance of the RF Armed Forces –map.
1. In the Rabotino area (mostly now successes are to the west and north-west of Verbovoy; it is not yet possible to push through Rabotino directly).
2. In the Novomikhailovka area (where we move forward almost every day, both in the village itself and to the north or south of it).
20:33 Powerful explosions in Khar'kov. The city has reintroduced hourly power outage schedules.
Explosions have just thundered on the outskirts of Kharkov and Russian Aerospace Forces aircraft have launched strikes with KAB guided bombs on targets in the Volchansky region.
19:01 Sumy region. Another wave of strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Tactical aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forcesrevealsenemy positions for high-precision strikes. Several sounds of explosions were reported. In addition, the enemy reports on his telegram channels about the operation of our attack UAVs.
18:28 They report that as a result of strikes on Kharkov and the Kharkov region in the afternoon, a radar and one launcher of the S-300 air defense system, which were supposed to provide air defense for Kharkov, were destroyed. The hunt for air defense systems does not stop.
Increasing the accuracy of missiles and guided bombs + increased capabilities for satellite and technical reconnaissance make it easier to solve this problem.
17:30 Map: alarms in Ukraine.
16:15 Odessa region.
A powerful explosion occurred in the port area of Odessa.
In all likelihood, our rocket scientists launched ballistics and aviation sent the Ukrainian Armed Forces X-59 missiles.
15:31 Avdeevskoe direction.
Enemy Resources report about the most powerful attack of our army west of Avdievka.
The village is being stormed. Semyonovka, Berdychey, advance to Umansky and Yasnobrodovka.
The enemy reports that there has not been such a density of fire since the battle for Avdievka. Extremely intense attack. By evening we expect positive news from the direction.
14:40 Special military operation. Situation on March 31 –map.
12:35 Statement by the senior officer of the press center of the “South” group -video.
Units of the “Southern” group of forces, supported by air strikes and artillery fire, improved the situation along the front line and defeated enemy formations in the areas of Belogorovka, Kurdyumovka and Chasov Yar.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces lost over 370 military personnel, 15 vehicles, two ammunition depots, the 122mm 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled gun, an electronic warfare station, and an M119 gun.
Air defense systems shot down 105 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, six Khaimars and Vampire MLRS missiles
. 11:15 Summary on the morning of March 31, 2024
Tonight, the Russian Armed Forces carried out another group strike on enemy power generation facilities. Explosions were heard in the Odessa region, after which there were power outages.
Since March 22, 2024, several series of attacks have been carried out on power plants in Ukraine, the consequences of which the enemy now assesses as catastrophic: restoration is comparable to new construction. Replacing transformers is not enough. The deelectrification of Ukraine is sweeping across the entire territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, including the western regions.
In addition to undermining the moral and psychological state of the population, the strikes are aimed at reducing the enemy’s industrial production, limiting its repair and restoration capabilities and minimizing the operation of railway electric locomotives. In a number of regions, diesel locomotives are already being installed where previously trains ran using electricity.
Along the entire length of the front, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are erecting fortifications, engineering and minefields. At the same time, a number of fortified areas are located in the rear. For example, yesterday shots of new powerful defensive positions in the Odessa and Kyiv regions dispersed. In the capital region, the enemy previously reported that over 1 thousand km had been built. frontiers.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine pay special attention to the Kharkov direction. Against the backdrop of ongoing terrorist attacks on the civilian population of the Belgorod region and previous attempts to break through the State border, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are distributed throughout the Kharkov region, preparing one of the defense centers southwest of Kharkov.
Apparently, before it, the enemy will leave units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for slaughter to slow down the advance of our troops. Residents of the front-line regions of Russia are impatiently waiting for the LBS to be pushed to the west; casualties among the civilian population are daily. A relatively new element was the regular use of powerful FABs with UMPCs by the Russian Armed Forces against targets in the rear of the Kharkov region. Planning modules allow heavy aerial bombs to travel tens of kilometers, and guidance systems allow them to accurately hit enemy military targets.
At the front, the slow advance of our troops continues in the Krasnolimansky, Avdeevsky, Vrem'evsky, Zaporozhye, and Ugledarsky directions. Our troops are also moving to Chasov Yar with heavy fighting.
The Russian Army’s advancement to a new technological level can contribute to decisive breakthroughs in enemy defenses in the current conditions. The enemy notes the constant modernization of our missiles, Shoigu tours defense enterprises, and at some he arranges a demonstrative flogging of the local authorities.
The risks of conflict escalation are increasingly higher. The French are planning to replace tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers on the border with Belarus, Poland has suspended the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. At the same time, the United States continues to delay sending military-technical assistance to Kyiv, trying to shift the burden of the conflict onto the shoulders of European workers and farmers.
10:41 Night raid by attack drones on the Odessa region.
On the night of March 30-31, 2024, by Russian troops applied attacks on energy infrastructure facilities in the Odessa region.
Coordinates: 46.6995149, 30.9316853
During the raid, the Adzhalyk 330 substation northeast of Odessa was disabled. After the strike, most of Odessa and nearby settlements were left without electricity. A large fire broke out at the site, which is also confirmed by satellite thermal indicators.
The resulting damage does not allow the transfer of power to the city from the Yuzhnoukran nuclear power plant in the Nikolaev region.
Coordinates: 46.4538478, 30.3870876
Another blow was dealt to one of the two autotransformers of the Novoodesskaya 330 kV substation. The 330 kV outdoor switchgear is working. After the explosions, temporary power surges in the network and short-term power outages were recorded in the Belgorod-Dniester region.
As a result of the strikes, the situation with the power supply in Odessa has approached critical: there is no own generation, and power from the South Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant simply does not reach the city. But we need to be realistic - with a high degree of probability, the situation will stabilize in the next few days.
09:56 Criminal Kyiv regime continues to fire at the civilian infrastructure of settlements on the left bank of the Kherson region, yesterday during the day the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired from cannon artillery:
-- n.p. Novaya Kakhovka four rounds;
-- to n.p. Kakhovka three rounds;
-- the village of Lyubimovka three rounds;
-- Malokakhovka settlement two rounds;
-- Brilevka settlement two missiles;
-- n.p. Alyosha seven rounds.
As a result of the artillery attack of the settlement. Brilevka, four civilians were moderately injured.
During the night, the Kiev regime continued to shell civilian infrastructure in the village. Kakhovka, n.p. Proletarka, n.p. Korsunka, n.p. Aleshki, firing a total of 13 rounds from cannon artillery.
Civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure are being determined.
09:27 Telegram channel «WarGonzo":
Frontline report for the morning of 03/31/2024
- Zaporozhye Front. No major changes here. Long-range weapons are actively working on both sides. Positional battles continue in Rabotino. Events are developing a little more actively northwest of Verbovoy, but so far without significant progress.
– On the Donetsk front, the Russian Armed Forces continue to fight their way into Novomikhailovka. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have to withdraw, but completely leave the settlement. They're not going yet. There are small tactical successes in Georgievka, where the Ukrainians also offer fierce resistance, but cannot stop the advance of the Russian Armed Forces. In Krasnogorovka there are oncoming battles.
In the Pervomaisky Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, in heavy battles they continue to take enemy positions, literally one meter at a time. In the Tonenkoye area, Russian troops continue to attempt to advance westward. Fierce oncoming battles on the outskirts of Semyonovka and in Berdychi.
– Artemovskoe (Bakhmutskoe) direction. The Russian Armed Forces continue to push through enemy defenses towards Chasov Yar. In Kleshcheevka and Bogdanovka there were oncoming battles.
08:53 Telegram channel “Fisherman":
Chronicle of a special military operation for March 30, 2024
– Russian troops attacked enemy targets in the front-line and rear areas. The targets were substations, oil depots and locations of Ukrainian formations in the Nikolaev, Odessa and Poltava regions. The Ukrainian Armed Forces, in turn, intensified attacks on the border of the Belgorod and Kursk regions.
– In the Artemovsky (Bakhmutsky) direction there are battles on the approaches to Chasov Yar. The Russian Armed Forces are trying to push through enemy defenses along the railway leading to the eastern outskirts of the city. The enemy, meanwhile, is strengthening the front line of defense.
– In the Avdeevsky direction there are battles on the southern outskirts of Semenovka. In Berdychi and west of Tonenkoye there are no significant changes.
– In the Donetsk direction, positional battles continue in Krasnogorovka and Georgievka. The Russian Armed Forces are also advancing in Pervomaisky, fighting is taking place in the center of the village.
– In the Ugledar direction in Novomikhailovka, Russian troops have significantly expanded the zone of control in the center of the village and the outskirts. Soldiers from the 155th Marine Brigade advanced further to the west, taking control of the post office and village council buildings.
“In addition, information has emerged that the Russian Armed Forces began fighting on the eastern outskirts of the Mashinostroitel holiday village, and the enemy retreated from the forest belt to the south.
08:10 Official summary of Representative offices of the DPR in the JCCC:
31 cases of armed attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces were recorded by the DPR Representative Office in the JCCC.
One civilian was reported injured.
Damaged:
One residential building,
One civil infrastructure facility.
Ten attacks were recorded from the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Donetsk direction,
A total of 21 attacks from the Ukrainian Armed Forces were recorded in the Gorlovka direction.
In total, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired 101 units of various ammunition.
This is a dryly humorous explication of a new Russian television historical drama about WWII. by Vladimir Shigin
[CHERNARUSIANNARCOWARS] These days, a new military-heroic series “Admiral Kuznetsov” produced by Mostelefilm with the support of the Internet Development Institute (directed by Sergei Vinogradov) began to appear on the Internet.
The first thing that caught your eye when you got acquainted with the data on the film was the incredible number of screenwriters, eight people: Valentin Spiridonov, Liliya Vysokovskaya, Alexander Vysokovsky, Oleg Kirillov, Mikhail Kolodinsky, Igor Ter-Karapetov, Igor Torotko, Alexey Boletus! Moreover, none of them had ever had anything to do with the navy and therefore hardly fully understood what they wrote about...
To be honest, knowing the level of historical awareness and responsibility of modern screenwriters and directors, I did not expect anything good from the film in advance. But reality exceeded all expectations.
Once upon a time, writer Karem Rush wrote an essay “Bring Back Kuznetsov!”, dedicated to the history of returning the good name of the former People's Commissar of the Navy and Minister of the Navy of the USSR. Good name N.G. After much ups and downs, Kuznetsov was finally returned in the late 1980s. Alas, today after watching the first episode of the film “Admiral Kuznetsov” I got the impression that it was time to save the legendary People’s Commissar. This time from our zealous and clueless filmmakers...
[IsraelTimes] Defense minister claims ‘very great progress’ in Gaza war; troops at Shifa hospital find weapons hidden in maternity ward beds; strike hits Islamic Jihad center at 2nd hospital
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday that senior Hamas ...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,... operatives captured by troops in the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip have told interrogators "the group is collapsing from within."
"In the last week or two, hundreds of bandidosDeath Eaters have been captured and what they say about what happened to them tells the whole story. They say that Hamas is collapsing from within, the price they are paying is very heavy," Gallant said following an assessment at the 98th Division’s headquarters.
"We’re going to eliminate everyone who was involved in the events of October 7, the junior [officials], the senior ones and the very senior ones; those who were inside [Israel] or who gave instructions," he said, referring to the date of Paleostinian terror group Hamas’s massive attack on Israel that started the ongoing war.
He said the Israel Defense Forces will continue fighting until they reach all bandidosDeath Eaters in the Gaza Strip.
"In the last few days, we have also seen very great progress, both in [reaching] the bandidosDeath Eaters in the field and the more senior commanders, even very senior ones," Gallant added, referring to the IDF’s operations at Shifa Hospital, where more than 500 members of terror groups have been captured and some 200 have been killed, including several top commanders.
The IDF said Sunday that troops had seized a cache of weapons concealed in the maternity ward of Shifa Hospital, where a raid on the facility to rout out Hamas bandidosDeath Eaters at the site was entering its third week.
Troops have been raiding buildings at the Shifa complex following intelligence indicating that brass hats in the terror group are holed up there.
The Nahal Brigade’s reconnaissance unit found weapons, including mortars, bombs, sniper rifles, assault rifles, handguns and other military equipment hidden inside patient pillows and beds, and in the dropped ceilings and walls of the building, according to the IDF.
Some 350 patients and medical staff at Shifa Hospital were evacuated by the IDF to a "designated compound" in another part of the complex, where the military has provided them with humanitarian aid and supplies.
The reconnaissance unit also encountered and killed senior Hamas operatives Fadi Dweik and Zakaria Najib during a chase and exchange of fire in the maternity ward last week.
Shifa, the Gaza Strip’s biggest hospital before the war, had been one of the few health care facilities even partially operational in north Gaza before the latest fighting. It had also been housing displaced civilians.
Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie sadly admitted that he was a better peeping Tom than he was a comedian... the IDF said it struck a Paleostinian Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... command center located in the courtyard of al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah.
According to the IDF, Islamic Jihad operatives were in the command room when it was hit.
The IDF said that after a "lengthy procedure," the command center was struck "in a precise manner to reduce the harm to the uninvolved [civilians] in the area of the hospital."
The hospital itself was not damaged in the strike, the IDF said.
Video footage from the scene appeared to show a number of maimed individuals.
Paleostinian health officials and Hamas media said the strike hit several tents inside the hospital, killing four people and wounding several, including five journalists.
"The presence of the command room and the bandidosDeath Eaters who operated in the hospital yard are further proof of the systematic use of humanitarian and medical infrastructure by the terror organizations in the Gaza Strip as a cover for terrorist activities," the IDF added in a statement.
International law stipulates that while a medical facility is a protected site in conflict, it loses that status if it is used for military activity. Israel has offered evidence bandidosDeath Eaters use such facilities as cover and says Hamas plunders humanitarian aid to take supplies for its fighters, depriving the civilian population.
Last week the IDF released footage of Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives detailing how the terror groups used Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital as a base of operations.
In other operations, the IDF said it carried out Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s on several buildings in Gaza City’s Rimal neighborhood that had been used to fire anti-tank missiles at troops the day before, as well as for sniper fire. At least one terror operative was killed in the strikes, the IDF said.
In central Gaza, the Nahal Brigade killed at least 15 button men over the past day, including with sniper fire and by calling in airstrikes.
Fighting also continued in the southern Gaza Strip.
The IDF said troops of the 7th Armored Brigade and Israeli Air Force killed several button men in the Khan Younis area, and combat engineers destroyed sites belonging to terror groups.
The Commando Brigade has been operating in the al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Younis, where the troops killed several more operatives over the past day, the IDF said.
In another operation in the Khan Younis area, the IDF says the Givati Brigade killed 15 terror operatives with sniper fire and tank shelling. The troops also seized weapons.
Over the past day, the Israel Air Force also struck some 80 targets across the Gaza Strip, including buildings and infrastructure used by terror groups, according to the military.
#2
the strike hit several tents inside the hospital
You can take them out of the desert, but not out of the tents.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/01/2024 9:06
Comments ||
Top||
#3
It is like ISIS in that Hamas the bureaucratic orderly hierarchy is unravelling. Training underlings to succeed you is considered bad for "career prospects" in a Honor-Shame Society. So killing the few effective/brutal/charismatic leaders causes an immediate power struggle to replace them...
Hamas, or ISIS, the concept is pretty much unkillable. The best you can do is to "kill the chicken to scare the monkey" as the old Chinese saying goes.
[IsraelTimes] The threat of rockets has caused northern worshipers to alter their plans on a holiday weekend that they are nonetheless determined to observe
Easter weekend is typically the highlight of the Da’abul family’s calendar. On the Christian holiday that marks Jesus’ resurrection, they take a road trip to his Galilee hometown of Nazareth, reconnect with their Maronite-Cathilic roots in the region, and enjoy its gorgeous springtime blossoms.
But not this year.
The war with Hamas ...a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",... in the south, and especially the exchanges of fire with Hezbollah that swiftly followed up north, made the family of four cancel their annual Easter trip and stay home Haifa, where they joined other Christians on one of the city’s two annual Good Friday processions.
Always solemn events, the Good Friday processions to commemorate Jesus’ crucifixion were especially muted this year with low turnout due to the war and the somber mood of the participants, who spoke of their desire for peace and prayed for the conflict to end.
"It’s a sad day during a sad time," said Maya Da’abul, who took part in the Maronite procession with her husband Imad and two teenage children, Kamal and Larene. It began at Haifa’s majestic Saint Louis the King Cathedral Maronites Church. A larger procession took place simultaneously around the Elias Cathedral of the Melkite Catholic, which has a larger community but a smaller hall, lit by candlelight.
In Jerusalem, hundreds also marched, many singing hymns as they made their way slowly through the Old City along the Via Dolorosa, the cobblestone path where tradition says Jesus bore the cross to his crucifixion. The tourists and pilgrims who usually attend the Jerusalem procession were mostly absent, adding to the sense of isolation that Israelis of all faiths have been feeling for the past six months.
On their Easter trips, the Da’abuls usually worship in Kafr Bir’im near the Lebanese border. Kafr Bir’im "is where our family comes from, before 1948," Maya said, referencing the expulsion of the village’s population by Israel during the War of Independence.
The expulsion of Bir’im, whose residents did not participate in any meaningful way in hostilities against Jews, is a painful episode in the history of Jewish-Christian relations in the State of Israel. It was carried out amid promises that residents, members of the Middle Eastern stream of Catholicism known as Maronites, could return, and the families of the displaced have for decades lobbied to be allowed to reestablish the village.
Independently of any grievances they have against Israel, the Da’abuls loathe His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah ...The satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb... , the head of the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah, which has launched thousands of rockets into Israel since October 7, killing about 20 people, including Arab Israelis.
"He’s holding us hostage, and it’s infuriating," Maya said.
ECONOMIC AND SECURITY FEARS
Also at the march, Hanna Afara, a 42-year-old father of three, speaks with quiet but seething anger about the war.
"My oldest, he’s 9, and he’s afraid to go out of his home after experiencing two warning sirens," said Afara, who lives in an older building with no communal shelter. "We’re all suffering right now, and that’s kind of the feeling here at the procession too."
Afara and his family had planned to visit Tiberias and worship at the nearby Church of the Multiplication, which boasts a restored 5th-century mosaic. But, like the Da’abuls, the Afaras stayed in Haifa.
"It doesn’t make sense to take the whole family up north right now," Afara said.
Part of Afara’s considerations for staying was to lower costs. The outbreak of war on October 7, when Hamas bandidosbully boyz murdered nearly 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 253, has hurt the four mills where he works.
"We used to make flour that would go to Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... but now there’s no more orders. So there’s less work, fewer shifts and no end in sight," he said.
In Jerusalem, the Good Friday procession attracted a fraction of the usual number, which normally includes thousands of foreign pilgrims.
"Comparing last year’s Easter festivities with this year is like night and day," Fayaz Dakkak, a Paleostinian store owner whose family opened the shop in 1942, told the News Agency that Dare Not be Named. His shop stood empty.
"Usually people are joyful today and kids are excited," he said. "But when you compare children here who have water and food and a family to what’s happening in Gaza, how can you be happy?"
The Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip claims that some 32,000 people have died in Gaza as a result of the war set off by Hamas’s devastating October 7 terror attack. The number is unverified and does not distinguish between civilians and terror group operatives, of whom Israel says it has killed at least 13,000.
In the north, Hezbollah rockets continue to rain down. One of the rockets last week killed a 38-year-old resident of a Druze village near Kiryat Shmona.
Israel has killed more than 200 people, most of them terrorists, in retaliatory strikes in Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... . More than 20,000 from Israel’s north remain displaced, even as the vast majority of the 60,000-odd evacuees from the area near the Gaza Strip in the south have returned home.
’IN HIS HANDS’
In Haifa, which has heard several warning sirens since October 7 due to inbound objects from across the border, residents are bracing for an escalation. Many remember the Second Lebanon War of 2006, when Hezbollah fired hundreds of rockets into Haifa, killing several people. According to one training scenario by the Israel Defense Forces’ Homefront Command, Hezbollah is capable of launching 4,000 rockets a day at Haifa.
The toned-down atmosphere during Good Friday didn’t prevent vendors from setting up shop along the processions’ routes, selling mostly children’s toys — including plastic toy rifles. At the Catholic procession, a priest heading the march tried to lighten the mood when he sprayed a bit of perfumed water on some children from an aspergillum, evoking shrieks of joy and laughter.
In the pleasant spring breeze wafting from the nearby Haifa Port, the citrus-scented liquid’s aroma blended with the incense billowing from another priest’s thurible.
The marchers sang prayers in Arabic as they made their way slowly through downtown Haifa, an ill-lit part of town with several churches and many stone-tiled homes that have been vacant since the flight of their Arab former inhabitants in 1948, amid heavy fighting between Arabs and Jews in the city. Haifa, where about 290,000 people live, has approximately 70,000 Arabs, evenly split between Moslems and Christians.
Immediately behind the priests, a group of men carried a giant wooden crucible, lowering it periodically to avoid touching power lines and overhanging traffic lights.
"Look, it’s Easter, when we celebrate God’s absolute power over life, death and everything we know," said Adel Antoine, a mechanic from Haifa’s Wadi Nisnas neighborhood, in reference to the fact that the holiday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his Crucifixion. "So it would make little sense to fear this or that. We are in His hands, and that’s fine."
[IsraelTimes] Undeterred by the conflict keeping most away, a few hardy Christian worshipers from Israel and abroad experience the holiday under unusual circumstances
Jerusalem Old City’s Via Dolorosa was unusually quiet on Easter Sunday, as Bella Simanjuntak and two friends ascended the famous alleyway where Jesus Christ is believed to have been marched on his way to being crucified.
Simanjuntak and her friends — all agriculture students from Indonesia — are among the relatively few pilgrims undeterred by the war and related friction from making the Jerusalem pilgrimage, where they prayed for peace.
Like several other pilgrims interviewed for this article, Simanjuntak said she felt safe, inspired and fortunate to experience the Christian sites of the Old City without the crowds that usually occur here.
"I feel a mix of joy, gratitude and, of course, deep sorrow for Jesus Christ and how he suffered right here," said Simanjuntak, who comes from the city of Ambon in the province of Maluku in Indonesia, a predominantly Moslem country where only 11% of the population are Christians.
Simanjuntak, 26, came to study agriculture in the Arava region in Israel’s south in 2023, just before war erupted when Hamas ...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... bully boyz murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped 253 on October 7, prompting Israel to launch a ground invasion of the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip.
"Our government offered to bring us back, and we all said no," she said of the 100-odd members of her delegation from Indonesia, which does not have diplomatic relations with Israel. "Our visas would have expired, and it’s a very long process to get a new one. So we just stayed and it has been ok," Simanjuntak said.
Jerusalem’s Good Friday procession, which kicks off the three-day holiday of Easter commemorating Jesus’ crucifixion and celebrating his resurrection, attracted a fraction of the usual number of participants to the capital. A crowd of a few hundred people, most of them Christian Paleostinians, marched solemnly up the Via Dolorosa. Several men carried giant crucifixes as the participants recited and sang prayers in Arabic.
Ramadan, the month when observant Moslems fast during the daytime, coincides with Easter this year, contributing to the unusual stillness of the Old City because far fewer Moslem patrons go to the dozens of cafes and restaurants that dot the Old City.
Zaher from Tiberias and Christina from Austria, two Catholic pilgrims, were happy to find one open eatery — Celia, a kebab shop next to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The location is central to the Easter story because it is believed to be where Jesus was buried on Good Friday before he was resurrected three days later on Easter.
Christina, who declined to give her last name citing privacy concerns, spent the past three months walking to Israel from Greece as part of a pilgrimage that she had been conducting, on and off, since she set out from Spain in 2019.
"I don’t feel any tension, actually," said Christina, who added that, while she is Catholic, her main motivation for the pilgrimage was to promote peace.
Zaher noted that many Paleostinian Christians did not participate in the Easter festivities and events "not because they are afraid, but because they are simply sad. So they celebrate the resurrection and Easter, but on a smaller scale, at home or with family," said Zaher, who also declined to give his last name.
But for Zaher, he added, "the political story is separate from the religious one, which is far bigger and eternal." Zaher arrived in Jerusalem specifically for Easter, has participated in the Good Friday procession and is now ready to return to Israel’s north.
"I’m happy and grateful here, right now. I am also pained by the war, but that’s separate," he said.
Simanjuntak draws reassurance from the Israelis she knows in the Arava and their conduct in Jerusalem, she said.
"People tell us we have nothing to fear in the Arava and also here, I don’t see people reacting in fear. When you see the locals aren’t afraid, it really reassures you as a foreigner," said Simanjuntak.
Next month, Simanjuntak and other students are planning to visit Israel’s north, which currently is under frequent rocket attack by Hezbollah.
"We are not afraid. We want to see as much of the Holy Land as possible while we’re here," she said.
[IsraelTimes] Paleostinian assailant rubbed out while trying to attack officer who responded to scene; security footage shows victim attempting to fight off stabber in weight room
Three people were seriously maimed in a suspected terror knifing at a mall in the southern Israeli city of Gan Yavne late Sunday, authorities said, as concern mounted that a relatively calm Ramadan period could give way to a fresh outburst of violence.
The attack at the city’s Friendly mall was the second of the day, after an off-duty soldier was stabbed and lightly injured at Beersheba’s main bus station.
The three victims, identified by the Magen David Adom ambulance service as two men aged 25 and 20, and a 17-year-old boy, were all rushed to Assuta Hospital in nearby Ashdod with multiple stab wounds.
The rescue group said all three were transported at death's door and that medics had fought to save the 25-year-old man from dying of his wounds on the way to the hospital.
Police described the incident as a terror attack.
The attacker, identified as a 19-year-old Paleostinian, was rubbed out by security officers who responded to the scene. Security camera footage published by police overnight showed two officers arrive in a police car, with one looking over a man seen bleeding from his back as the second enters an outdoor portion of the shopping center.
As the knifeman sprints in his direction, the officer begins to run away. Just as the stabber jumps on the officer, the second cop runs up and shoots the assailant, killing him.
A police statement identified the two as a police officer and city municipal enforcement officer who rushed to the scene after hearing a commotion.
In a second video, the stabber can be seen running through a weight room and repeatedly stabbing a man as the two scuffle. The victim eventually manages to get away.
According to police, the assailant used two knives in the attack.
Reports in Hebrew and Arabic-language media identified the suspected attacker as a 19-year-old from the town of Dura, outside of Hebron, in the southern West Bank.
Southern district police commander Amir Cohen said the suspected attacker had entered Israel from the southern West Bank via a hole in the security barrier, though authorities were investigating if he may have been employed illegally in the mall.
Cohen said the suspect had been issued a work permit in the past. According to various reports in Hebrew-language media, he had not met the criteria for a permit allowing him to work in Israel, but rather the permit had only been valid for a West Bank industrial zone run by Israel. It had expired in August reports said.
Medics said the victims were found in different parts of the shopping center, indicating the breadth of the rampage.
"It was a tough scene," first responder Shiri Barlev said in a statement provided by MDA.
Visiting the mall following the attack, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said an increased police presence and continued programs arming civilian quick response squads were needed to bolster the fight on terror.
"We’re at war, and certainly the enemy has more motivation to harm us," he said.
Earlier Sunday, an off-duty Israel Defense Forces officer was stabbed and lightly maimed in a terror attack at Beersheba’s central bus station.
According to police and the IDF, after stabbing the victim at a bus platform, the terrorist was shot by another soldier, and was later pronounced dead.
The stabber was identified by defense sources as Naji Abu Freh, 28, a resident of the nearby Bedouin city of Rahat.
That attack came weeks after another Rahat resident originally from the Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response... Strip fatally stabbed an IDF noncommissioned officer at a gas station north of Beersheba in a terror attack.
Following the Gan Yavne attack, the Hamas ...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,... terror group released a statement praising it as a "heroic operation," and calling on Paleostinians to "escalate" attacks on Israelis, an oft-repeated message that has largely gone unheeded, according to Israeli analysts.
#Damascus: Documentation of the attack on the Institute for Scientific Research in Jamrayah and the fire there, according to sources in the Shia axis. pic.twitter.com/gPJjFkwfQc
[IsraelTimes] Syria’s state-run SANA news agency, citing a military source, says Israeli Arclight airstrike ...KABOOM!... s in the Damascus area this evening maimed two civilians.
The report also says that unspecified "material losses" were caused by the strikes.
Israel has allegedly carried out several airstrikes in Syria over the past week, killing Iranian-linked operatives, including members of Leb ...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers... ’s Hezbollah, and reportedly also targeting weapon depots.
Syria: Israel bombed tonight the NW. outskirts of Damascus, presumably targeting the Scientific Research Base in Jamraya. It's the 4th time Israel bombs Assad-held Syria & Iranian assets this week. pic.twitter.com/8TlFTwupUH
[IsraelTimes] Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... is licking his wounds after voters dealt him and his party their biggest electoral blow in a nationwide local vote that reasserted the opposition as a political force and reinforced Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu as the president’s chief rival.
Nobody has deserved his comeuppance more.
With most of the votes counted, Imamoglu led by 10 percentage points in the mayoral race in Istanbul, The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the occupiers of Greek Asia Minor... ’s largest city, while his Republican People’s Party (CHP) retained Ankara and gained 15 other mayoral seats in cities nationwide.
It marked the worst defeat for Erdogan and his AK Party (AKP) in their more than two decades in power, and could signal a change in the country’s divided political landscape.
In a post-midnight address, Erdogan called the resounding defeat a "turning point."
He tells crowds gathered at AKP headquarters in Ankara that his alliance had "lost altitude" across the nation and will take steps to address the message from voters.
"If we made a mistake, we will fix it" in the years ahead, he said. "If we have anything missing, we will complete it."
Erdogan, who in the 1990s was also mayor of his hometown Istanbul, had campaigned hard ahead of the municipal elections, which analysts described as a gauge of both his support and the opposition’s durability.
The results represent an even worse showing than losses that had been predicted by opinion polls due to soaring inflation, dissatisfied Islamist voters and, in Istanbul, Imamoglu’s appeal beyond the CHP’s secular base, analysts say.
"Those who do not understand the nation’s message will eventually lose," Imamoglu, 53, tells thousands of jubilant supporters, some of them chanting for Erdogan to resign.
"Tonight, 16 million Istanbul citizens sent a message to both our rivals and the president," said the former businessman, who is now widely touted as a likely presidential challenger.
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#4
The results represent an even worse showing than losses that had been predicted by opinion polls due to soaring inflation, dissatisfied Islamist voters and, in Istanbul, Imamoglu’s appeal beyond the CHP’s secular base, analysts say.
Not always better
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2024 10:04
Comments ||
Top||
Bibi was Israel’s Trump — capable of reducing otherwise clever and thoughtful persons to frothing rage by his mere existence— long before The Donald entered politics. But this is beyond parody.
[IsraelTimes] The Israel Business Forum, which represents most workers in the private sector in Israel from 200 of the country’s largest companies, says employees will be permitted to participate in a protest in Jerusalem that is scheduled to start this evening and will continue till Wednesday, without sanctions.
"This is an emergency for Israel and those who are interested should be allowed to participate in the democratic act," the forum says in a statement.
Each company in the forum will set the terms for its own workers.
In addition, dozens of tech firms have also said their employees can join the protests without sanctions.
The organizers of the demonstration against the Netanyahu government are demanding elections, the cancellation of the Knesset recess scheduled to start on April 7, and the return of all hostages that remain in Gazoo ...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
[IsraelTimes] The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court overturns the conviction of protest leader Gonen Ben Yitzhak, who lay under a water cannon to prevent its use during an anti-government demonstration in 2020.
Despite the cancellation of the conviction for obstructing police work, the court rules Ben Yitzhak perform 500 hours of community service.
“A morning that gives impetus to the protests,” Ben Yitzhak tells the Ynet news site.
#6
#5 Ever heard the expression "Perfidious Albion"?
Israel a parlamentary democracy. Means a government doesn't resign unless there is a vote of no confidence in the Knesset. As to the "protesters" - they're the usual few thousand bunch of toxic waste product of overindulgent society funded & organized by foreign.
I sure hope cops break some heads, and the f*cking judges have it explained to them that this is not America.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a regional Iranian catspaw,...
[Daily Caller] Pennsylvania Democrat Senator 
[Business Insider] During the earliest stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, many Americans reminisced about the things that used to bring them joy. They never stopped thinking about that last big trip with their families or that last in-person concert they enjoyed with friends.%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_image%2Fimage%2F30977929%2Fdarpa_artist.jpg.0.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=a98345c4961902bc4adfae060aca0092015328cdb162d885dbec027c2b289f28&ipo=images)
...always the voice of sweet reason...
...always the voice of sweet reason...
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the 
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[REGNUM] The health of Kate Middleton, 
...not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
[IsraelTimes] The threat of rockets has caused northern worshipers to alter their plans on a holiday weekend that they are nonetheless determined to observe
...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important...
