The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
North America
Following an unforeseen break last week, The Freedomist’sWorld Situation Report is back.
For obvious and unfortunate reasons, the first item is the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a disturbed young man killed some 19 children and two school teachers, after mortally wounding his own grandmother. While the incident is certainly a tragedy of the first order, two even more disturbing events occurred in the aftermath. The first was the naked and seedy behavior of a major-party candidate to attempt to politicize the tragedy to try and boost his flailing campaign. [1] In the second, serious questions have been raised concerning the police response to the incident [2], where the shooter was allowed to continue his rampage for some ninety minutes, while police officials – whose leadership had undergone “active shooter” training as recently as December [3] – tried to decide what to do, even as the perpetrator continued to fire, raising serious question as to whether police are capable of acting at all to deal with these types of threats.
Turning to other news around the United States, the bomb threats against schools continue, as more schools received bomb threats via telephone and email, some – again – receiving multiple threats on a near-weekly basis. [4]-[8] Meanwhile, a West Virginia man, Joshua Aaron Edens, was arrested on charges of illegal possession of destructive devices, explosive materials, or incendiary devices (in this case, blasting caps), after police observed him acting suspiciously and discovered the explosive devices buried in a residential home’s backyard…Evens was already on police radar, after police officers executing a search warrant on April 12th discovered some 35“pipe bombs” in his living room. [9]
On the 23rd, in the town of Waukesha, Wisconsin, police responded to a local resident who stated that they had received a package via mail containing a “mysterious, white, powdery substance”. The resident had noted the strange package on heir doorstep, and was attempting to bring it to the police station, when they saw several Fire Department personnel in the parking lot in front of City Hall, and approached them with the package. As of press time, investigations continue as to the nature of the substance, and its origins. [10]
Finally, in two incidents that may be related, Federal officers arrested a 52-year old Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab, an Iraqi man who had filed a petition for asylum in the United States, on charges of aiding and abetting terrorists, as he was attempting to smuggle four other Iraqi men across the Mexican border, in an apparent plot to kill former President George W. Bush. The next day, Mirsad Kandic, 40, was found guilty of conspiracy and providing material support to the IS after a three-week trial in a Brooklynfederal court. According to authorities, Kandic was one of IS’s major recruiting officers, responsible for recruiting “thousands” of foreign volunteers for the terror group. He faces up to life in prison at his sentencing on November 9. [11][12]
In France, this week, police charged an unnamed 18-year old Muslim man with plotting a knife attack dedicated to the IS. Police said that the man was in possession of a video of himself swearing allegiance to the IS at the time of his arrest. [1]
In Sweden, meanwhile, sentenced to Swedish-born brothers to eight months in prison for attempting to join the IS as active fighters. The pair were arrested in February, because their “recruiting officer” turned out to be an undercover intelligence officer. [2]
In Burkina Faso, at least 50 civilians of Madjoari, in Kompienga Province, in eastern part of the country, were massacred by terrorists on the 25th, according to government officials. This follows two other attacks directed at civilians in the preceding week, which left some twenty-five dead or wounded. Burkina Faso’s war against Islamic terror groups has killed over 1,000 people and displaced over 1 million since 2015. [1]
In Nigeria, assassinations, bombings and kidnappings continued through the week, as terrorists kidnapped priests and congregants from their church, twelve farmers were massacred and a youth leader was assassinated elsewhere in the country. [2]-[5]
In a surprising twist to a story from March 28, the group who had killed eight and kidnapped an unknown number of people from a train, including a Pakistani national, in the central part of the country released videos of some of their captives as part of a public demand to release their children (aged 1 to 8), who they claim are being illegally held at an orphanage in Yola, the capital of Adamawa State. The kidnappers stated that they had been offered millions of naira (the Nigerian currency) to release the kidnapped victims, but that they had refused, saying expressly that money was not their motive. The group has stated (on May 24) that they would start killing hostages in seven days time if their demands are not met. [6][7]
The region was remarkably quiet this week, the only issues of note being an attack by IS terrorists on a wheat farm near the northern city of Kirkuk, in northern Iraq. The attack, in which the terrorists set fire to the farm, was used to lure security forces into an ambush. After killing three police officers and two civilians who had responded to try and put the fires out, the terrorists withdrew when reinforcements began to arrive. [1]
In Turkey, police in the southern part of the country killed a suicide bomber before he could detonate his vest. This comes two days after police in the country’s largest city, the world-famous Istanbul, arrested a man on suspicion of attempting to organize suicide attacks in the city for the Islamic State group. [2][3]
In the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, a series of bomb attacks on small mini-bus taxis killed nine, and wounded at least fifteen, on the 25th. The same day, a bomb attack on a mosque killed two and wounded ten others. [1] On the 23rd, unknown attackers blew up three power transmission towers in northern Samangan province, which run in from neighboring Uzbekistan, temporarily cutting power to several towns. These attacks have been occurring with greater frequency, as other attacks cut power to the capital city of Kabul two weeks ago. [2]
In Pakistan, two soldiers were killed when terrorists attacked their outpost in North Waziristan on the 24th. Elsewhere, police deployed tear gas and used riot batons to prevent supporters of ousted Prime Minister Imran Khan from reaching the capital Islamabad. Khan, who had been removed from power following a no-confidence vote on April 10th, has called on his supporters to march on the capital and occupy it until the new government is forced to step down, and new elections are held. [3][4]
Finally, in India, the conflict in Jammu & Kashmir continues, with at least ten terrorist suspects being killed in a 3 day period, as a soldier was injured by a landmine, and a police officer and local TV were assassinated (and their children injured) in separate incidents. [1]-[7]
Thankfully, the remainder of the nation was mostly quiet during the week.
A common argument, one of the fundamental arguments at a certain low level within military – and “wannabe” circles – is, “What is the best rifle for the battlefield?” We have resolutely avoided this dreaded question until now, because of the most important truism at the heart of the argument: place ten military professionals in a room and ask them this question, and you are guaranteed to get fifteen answers, every one of them passionately and adroitly argued with verifiable facts, figures and real-life examples.
There are many factors that go into this argument, not least, that it is a vital question at a basic level, because not answering it hamstrings any military at its inception, because service rifle selection impacts training, tactics and logistics simultaneously.
M12 Small Arms Storage Rack, secures ten M16/M16A1 rifles.
What are the features that a “service rifle” must have? There are a lot of considerations that need to be balanced in answering that question.
First, the weapon must be reliable. An unreliable rifle, prone to malfunction, is not capable of performing any other mission, and is both a waste of money, a guarantee of mission failure and a killer of your own troops, whatever its other benefits might be.
Second, the rifle needs to be “ergonomically sound“. This is a modern term, that essentially means that the rifle “handles well”, and is logically designed so that troops can use it when they are tired, dirty, cold, wet and slathered in mud — which they are guaranteed to be, when it counts the most.
Third, a service rifle must fire a projectile that can actually harm an opponent, preferably with lethal effect. There has been a great deal of controversy in the last few decades over this requirement, as more brutally-minded pundits have argued in favor of a rifle that is more prone to wounding opponents than killing them, as a wounded soldier is a severe drain on resources, requiring extensive medical care and rehabilitation, and is also a continuing negative reinforcement to morale. conversely, meanwhile, the dead soldier is simply…dead – his comrades will mourn him, but will usually be able to quickly recoup, and continue their mission.
The notion that wounding a soldier on the battlefield, versus killing him, is – very real psychological degradation aside – a very dangerous strategy for any nation actively seeking to deploy such a rifle, for the very simple reason that history is replete with examples of wounded soldiers – and sometimes horrifically wounded ones(video link) – continuing to man positions and fight on, long after they should have been felled(video link). A wounded enemy is, if anything, frequently much more dangerous than even a live enemy, much less a dead one.
Fourth, the rifle should be semi-automatic. This might seem like a misnomer in the Twenty-First Century, but it is a basic fact that most troops with fully-automatic rifles, who have not been trained as actual machine gunners, tend to waste vast quantities of ammunition to little effect. Forces who spend time on training, as well as experienced fighters without formal training, quickly learn that they get far more effect out of steady, aimed semi-automatic fire. Firing a full magazine of rounds blindly from a rifle is not “suppressive fire“.
A ration party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme.
Fifth, the rifle should be as light in weight as possible. Combat troops have always carried far more weight than is advisable…unfortunately, this has usually been a necessity. However, while every ounce saved is appreciated by the infantry, shaving too much weight from the rifle makes it prone to malfunction, overheating and inaccurate in rapid fire, to say nothing of fully automatic fire.
Sixth, the service rifle should have at least a twenty round magazine. The current world standard is thirty, given the current military touchstone of the intermediate cartridge.
Seventh, the service rifle should be affordable for the nation’s military. This is another touchy subject, as the lives of a country’s troops is usually seen as a matter of vital importance. However, most countries simply do not have the money to equip all of their troops with the absolute best weapons available (Switzerland‘s reliable, but incredibly expensive Stgw 57 comes immediately to mind), and compromises must be made. Some nations do a better job than others at this.
US Marines practicing bayonet combat.
Eighth, and last, is the requirement for a functional bayonet. This is also a controversial view, as bayonets have historically inflicted few casualties in actual combat, and whose actual use in combat has steadily declined, despite the occasional instance of an actual bayonet charge in the last thirty-five or so years. However, the bayonet will never die as a military weapon, because it is as much a psychological weapon as a physical one; it is as much a statement of determinationas desperation, both to the enemy as well as your own troops.
So – how have these eight requirements been applied over the years?
Reviewing a simple list of service rifles reveals a dizzying array of weapons, so many that it is tempting to ignore the list entirely. But…look at that list a different way: you should note that virtually every service rifle adopted in the last sixty years has been in one of three calibers: 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm, 7.62x54mmR or 7.62x51mm.
What’s more, throughout conflict zones around the world, were you suddenly transported from reading this to one of those places, you have approximately a 95% chance of picking up one of four rifles: an AR-15/M-16/M4, an AK-typerifle, an FN FAL or a CETME/G3-type, as we have covered in previous installments of this series:
There are two basic reasons for this phenomenon.
First, are the brutal economics of the Cold War: as small, poor nations sided with one bloc or the other, the powerful nations at the core of those blocs were happy to provide their rifle of choice at little to no charge, in trade for influence and control. This encouraged small countries to only buy either that rifle, or a rifle that used that ammunition.
Inside the Ross Rifle Factory, Quebec City, ca. 1904-1905
Second, the laws of Supply and Demand and Mass Production meant that three or four basic ammunition types would standardize, eventually. Together with 9x19mm ‘Parabellum’ (in military handguns and most submachine guns) and ’12gauge’ (for shotguns), the standardization of weapons and ammunition around the world were virtually guaranteed. Additionally, there are enough of the above four rifles out there, that their respective characteristics are well known, including their strengths and flaws.
But — what does all this mean for the budding army builder? Knowing all these factors, what service rifle should you choose?
The answer is simply this:
The best service rifle is the one that you can lay hands on in the largest quantity, in the shortest amount of time, that you can train the largest number of people quickly to use, that is at least reasonably reliable…in that order.
That’s it. Really.
The “Big Four” rifles – the AR, the AK, the FALand the G3– are: universally cheap (for various reasons); are all battle-proven designs; have had all of their major faults identified and (mostly) fixed; and all have vastquantities of both weapons and accoutrements readily available, virtually everywhere in the world.
You can spend the money on a “shootout” between the various weapons, or read through the exhaustive literature on all of the weapons to decide…of course, there is always the chance that you may need to use whatever is at hand. In that case:
The best service rifle in the world, is the one that will fire when you expect it to.
A pregnancy center in Baltimore was allegedly vandalized with threatening messages over the weekend as pro-abortion supporters took to the streets in protest of the pending Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade.
The Alpha Pregnancy Center in Reisterstown claims messages were spray-painted on its walls Saturday, threatening the safety of those who work there. “If abortions aren’t safe, neither are you,” one message read. “Not a clinic,” read another message. “You’re anti-choice and not pro-life,” read another.
On its website, Alpha Pregnancy Center said it does “not offer or refer for pregnancy terminations or birth control. Information is provided as an educational service and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional and/or medical advice.”
The messages were signed “Jane’s Revenge,” the same group that allegedly vandalized and set fire to a clinic belonging to Wisconsin…
More than 120,000 emails found on Hunter Biden’s discarded laptop have been posted online by a former Trump White House staffer.
Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Peter Navarro in Donald Trump’s Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, uploaded 128,775 emails to a searchable database this week through his organization Marco Polo.
The site, BidenLaptopEmails.com, also allows users to download all the emails for Mac or Windows computers.
Among the thousands of emails in the publicly posted database is the infamous ’10 for the big guy’ message, in which Hunter’s business partner James Gilliar appeared to suggest Hunter should hold 10% of the equity in their multi-million-dollar deal with the Chinese on behalf of his father, President Joe Biden.
Another email in the database, previously published by DailyMail.com, shows Hunter describing an extraordinary apparent quid pro quo with a Mexican billionaire’s son, outlining how he got him into the White House and inauguration, and…
Senate Democrats are facing pushback after they voted last week in favor of a bill that would legalize abortion nationwide for all nine months of pregnancy.
The Women’s Health Protection Act, which received support from 49 Democrats in the Senate and ultimately failed to succeed, would have given health care providers the “right” to provide abortion services with few limitations or requirements.
According to the measure’s text, health care providers would have been allowed to perform abortions without “a prohibition on abortion at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability” or “a requirement that a patient seeking abortion services at any point or points in time prior to fetal viability disclose the patient’s reason or reasons for seeking abortion services.”
The legislation would have also given way for the providers to perform the procedure without a “prohibition on abortion after fetal viability when, in the good-faith medical judgment of the treating health care provider, continuation of the pregnancy would pose a risk to the pregnant patient’s life or health.” Additionally, the bill states “in interpreting the provisions of this Act, a court shall liberally construe such provisions to effectuate the purposes of the Act.”
In Connecticut and Maryland, lawmakers passed bills this spring allowing registered nurses, nurse-midwives and physician assistants to perform medication and procedural abortions. In Delaware, legislators recently approved a bill letting nurse practitioners and nurse-midwives prescribe abortion pills. In Washington state, lawmakers codified an attorney general opinion that allows what are known as “advanced practice clinicians” to provide abortions.
While those policies were in the works ahead of an expected Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade this term, more efforts are now underway in the wake of the draft opinion POLITICO published two weeks ago.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is pushing lawmakers to create a “reproductive health access fund” with grants to train abortion providers and enact legislation that cements existing rules allowing advanced practice clinicians to perform abortions. And California Gov. Gavin Newsom released an amended budget proposal on Wednesday…
When Texas Republicans launched an overhaul of the state’s voting laws last year in response to the mass election fraud canard, legislative leaders stunned Austin insiders by tapping Rep. Briscoe Cain, a back-bench firebrand from suburban Houston, to lead the effort.
Cain ultimately bumbled his way through the rewrite, which passed the deep red legislature in spite of his foibles. But his selection to champion the cause validated his brand of pugilistic conservative politics in Texas, where Republicans are waging an increasingly hostile war against liberals.
ABUJA, May 17 (Reuters) – Nigeria is monitoring Meta Platforms Inc’s (FB.O) Facebook and other platforms to ensure they comply with demands to curtail hate speech on their sites, as it steps up its campaign for responsible use of social media, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said on Tuesday.
Mohammed’s comments came after meeting with Facebook’s team in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. He said Facebook had done nothing to curtail the activities of separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on their platform despite several complaints.
Nnamdi Kanu, IPOB’s leader, is standing trial on charges that include terrorism and broadcasting falsehoods. A judge will decide on Wednesday on whether Kanu should be granted bail. read more
Jeffrey C. McKay, a Democrat from Virginia on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, argued in a Washington Post opinion piece on Monday that protesting outside private homes “will almost certainly have the opposite effect” of what the protesters want.
The local Virginia Democrat argued that “the most appropriate venue for this to happen” is “at the public institution where policies are introduced, debated and ultimately agreed to or rejected. This is where we listen and where we act.”
A new video circulating on Chinese social media shows workers in full protection gear unloading a yellow body bag from the back of a hearse in Shanghai — only to make the shocking discovery that the person was still alive and moving, CNN reports.
The footage, which has gone viral on Weibo, shows the nursing home resident’s head poking out of the bag, presumably scaring the bejesus out of the employees.
A voice in the video can be heard saying that the “nursing home is such a mess,” as quoted by CNN. “They sent a living person on a hearse and said they were dead. The undertaker staff said they were still moving… It is irresponsible, really irresponsible.”
Anyone who protests in front of a private residence in Florida can face jail time and fines under a bill signed Monday.
The legislation makes it a second-degree misdemeanor to protest in a manner that is aimed at intentionally harassing or disturbing someone in their home. Violators face 60 days in jail and fines of up to $500.
Protesters can only be arrested after ignoring law enforcement’s orders to disperse, however.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said the new law will prevent protests in Florida like those waged by abortion rights protesters in front of U.S. Supreme Court justices’ homes in Virginia.
“Sending unruly mobs to private residences, like we have seen with the angry crowds in front of the homes of Supreme Court justices, is inappropriate,” DeSantis said in an email to news agencies. “This bill will provide protection to those living in residential communities and I…
Iowa school districts will no longer be allowed to issue sweeping mask mandates, a federal appeals court panel ruled Monday.
The 2-1 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has lifted an earlier court order that blocked a state law banning the mandates, ruling that the order is now moot due to lower coronavirus transmission and wider vaccine availability.
But the panel also emphasized that Iowa’s law does not apply in situations where a school would need to require masks to comply with another federal or state law. That leaves the door open for schools to continue to require masks in certain circumstances as an accommodation for students with disabilities in order to comply with federal law, said the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, which is representing a group of families suing the state.
The decision is the latest development in the months-long legal battle over Iowa’s local mask mandate ban.
From fortune.com
2022-05-16 23:25:14
Brian Melley, The Associated Press Excerpt:
A Los Angeles judge has ruled that California’s landmark law requiring women on corporate boards is unconstitutional.
Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis said the law that would have required boards have up to three female directors by this year violated the right to equal treatment. The ruling was dated Friday.
The conservative legal group Judicial Watch had challenged the law, claiming it was illegal to use taxpayer funds to enforce a law that violates the equal protection clause of the California Constitution by mandating a gender-based quota.
The number of US counties eligible for double cropping insurance will increase. Double cropping permits farmers to plant two crops on the same land in the same year, which expands their overall production. However, due to high risk, many farmers are unable to obtain crop insurance for this practice, so the Biden administration will increase the number of counties where double cropping qualifies for insurance by 681, bringing the total number of eligible counties to 1,935. This will allow more farmers more financial security to practice double cropping.
Technical assistance for precision agriculture will increase in order to cut costs for farmers. Precision agriculture uses technology to manage crops and helps farmers use less fertilizer without reducing production. The Biden administration plans to increase outreach to farmers and streamline the precision agriculture application process to allow more farmers to make use of it.
Funding for domestic fertilizer production will double. Biden is investing $500 million in domestic fertilizer production to increase availability and lower costs for farmers.
Progress to date: PresidentBiden announced his plan on May 11, 2022.
AUSTIN – The Texas Supreme Court Friday ruled that the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) can continue to investigate families in the state who provide medically necessary care for their Trans children, excluding the parties in the litigation that brought the matter forward in a lawsuit filed in March.
The DFPS investigation into the Travis County family of a transgender teen that sued the state earlier this year was blocked by a lower appellate court injunction. The high court did uphold the injunction into that case barring further action by DFPS. However, the court struck down a statewide injunction issued by the lower court Friday on procedural grounds, leaving open the state’s ability to have DFPS once again investigate other families that provide gender-affirming care.
The justices however, questioned why DFPS had acted in the first case.
Last year, a federal judge found that a similar law in Arkansas “would cause irreparable harm” as he blocked it from being enforced. The Arkansas law, known as the “Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act,” was passed by lawmakers after overriding a veto from Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, who contended that the legislation “puts a very vulnerable population in a more difficult position.”
Still, elected officials in conservative states have pursued a range of aggressive measures this year meant not just to limit transgender youth’s access to medical care but also to penalize parents and medical professionals who are helping them transition.
In Idaho, lawmakers advanced legislation that would alter the state’s genital mutilation law to make it an offense punishable to up to life in prison to provide gender-affirming care or help a child leave the state to obtain it.
Russian president Vladimir Putin once said that any more countries on Russia’s doorstep joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) constituted a threat to Russia, and would provoke “military and political consequences.”
In fact, Putin warned last year that NATO expanding its military infrastructure eastward into Ukraine would be a “red line” for Russia and perceived as a direct threat.
But three months into a Ukraine invasion that’s not going according to plan, and after two other countries close to Russia announced that they are joining NATO, Putin appears to be softening his tone, and resigning himself to the fact that NATO’s eastward expansion is happening anyway.
On Sunday, Finland—which shares an 800-mile border with Russia and was part of the Russian Empire for over a century—said it had applied to join NATO to ensure that its own national security would not be threatened by Russia in the future. On Monday, Sweden followed suit after a meeting…
Barrington, Rhode Island, schoolteacher Stephanie Hines asks me whether we can make our Sunday morning phone call an hour later than I had planned. She needs a little time after church.
But, for Hines, I soon learn, religion isn’t just about going to church once a week on Sundays. It’s about her life and how she lives it, in every detail. She has that in common with the two other Barrington schoolteachers I spoke with, Brittany DiOrio and Kerri Thurber.
The three teachers met this past October through a mutual acquaintance, because they had something else in common: They all needed a lawyer.
Unbeknownst to one another, each of the three teachers had requested a religious exemption from taking the Barrington school district’s mandatory Covid vaccine. On October 18, 2021, all three got a letter from Superintendent Michael Messore denying those requests.
Nonprofits including the American Federation of Teachers, the Anti-Defamation League and the LGBTQ advocacy group GLAAD are throwing their weight behind a Meta shareholder effort to place checks on “toxic” Mark Zuckerberg’s power at the company’s board meeting next week, The Post has learned.
On Tuesday, the groups came out in support of two Meta shareholder resolutions that supporters say would give much-needed oversight of Instagram and Facebook, as well as examine the potential “dystopian downsides” of Zuckerberg’s metaverse push.
SumOfUs, a corporate accountability group working with several activist Meta shareholders, introduced the resolutions in April, as first reported by The Post.
“Mark Zuckerberg is either unwilling or unable to run his company in a way that protects the best interests of Meta’s users or shareholders,” SumOfUs shareholder engagement advisor Christina O’Connell said on Tuesday. “We cannot let Mark Zuckerberg continue running Meta so recklessly.”
Bryn Mawr closes ‘racist graffiti investigation’ without any suspects
Bryn Mawr College officials recently closed an investigation into two incidents of “racist graffiti” found at the end of January and in early February.
The Pennsylvania women’s college hired an outside attorney to investigate the graffiti. The school’s original message and May 10 update does not provide specific details on what the slurs were.
The college announced:
After a comprehensive evaluation of all known and available information, including keycard records, text and social media messages, Campus Safety records, scene photographs, handwriting exemplars, and interviews with 22 individuals (several of whom were interviewed multiple times), Ms. Holland [the investigator] was unfortunately unable to definitively identify who committed the…
After student protests, complaints about inequity and the arrest of a professor, Concordia University Chicago resolved to meet with student groups and explore creation of a full-time position to better guide the school in “service to its diverse community.”
Russell Dawn, president of the university, said in a recent statement issued to students that other steps also were planned for the school in River Forest, such as a survey, a workshop and regular group discussions.
The statement followed protests after English professor Paul Stapleton was banned from the campus April 8, according to documents he provided to Pioneer Press. Concordia Associate Vice President for Communications and Marketing Eric Matanyi declined to offer a reason for the ban, but said Stapleton was offered the opportunity to teach online and Stapleton declined.
New York City’s mayor is calling on the Biden administration to yank the federal firearms license of a Nevada company that sells parts and kits for ghost guns, firearms without serial numbers that have been increasingly turning up at crime scenes around the U.S. Mayor Eric Adams joined with gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety on Wednesday to publicly call for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to immediately revoke the license of a Polymer80, Inc.
More than two decades ago, the United Nations created a program to curb the trafficking of small arms. It’s done nothing but fire blanks. So now, the U.N. wants to control bullets.
In 2001, the United Nations started the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects. Its next meeting will be held in New York from June 27 to July 1.
The Programme isn’t a treaty. It’s a political gathering that’s meant to encourage voluntary cooperation. It meets every other year to produce an outcome document that’s politically (but not legally) binding.
It’s supposed to work by unanimous consent.
The Programme has achieved very little, if anything. That’s not just my view. The U.N. secretary-general said so in 2008. New Zealand said so in 2012. Its supporters said it was “firing blanks” in 2014. In 2018, the Red Cross said that governments in the Programme talk a lot, but do nothing.
In practice, that suits most of the U.N. fine: All the nations get credit for participating in the Programme while actually doing nothing, while the Programme focuses on peripheral issues, such as 3D-printed guns.
ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ/Roanoke Gas Release/Western Virginia Water Authority Release) – Western Virginia Water Authority and Roanoke Gas Company have broken ground on part of a joint project to produce commercial quality renewable natural gas, or RNG, from biogas produced at the Roanoke Regional Water Pollution Control Plant.
The product, which both agencies cite as the first of its kind in the Commonwealth, will need a digester gas conditioning system and interconnect facility at the Water Pollution Control Plant. It was groundbreaking for that project that took place Tuesday.
The agencies say biogas, also known as digester gas in wastewater treatment, a mixture of methane (63%) and carbon dioxide (37%), is produced as a “by-product of the anaerobic digestion treatment process as bacteria consume the organic solids that are removed earlier in the wastewater treatment process. Anaerobic digestion is employed at the WPC Plant as it is a much more energy efficient way to treat solids…
Lab-grown diamonds are a new and more sustainable alternative to mined diamonds because they use less energy, less water, and produce less carbon emissions than regular diamonds. In order to help with the environmental issues that mined diamonds have caused, many jewelry brands have opted for a lab-grown alternative.
Are Sustainable Lifestyle Choices Rising?
According to consumer trends in 2020, the number of consumers who are aware of sustainable lifestyle choices is rising. While this phenomenon has a long way to go, it’s still considered to be an improvement. Additionally, this increase in sustainable options has led to an enormous growth in the industry. However, this awareness and demand in sustainable alternatives in the jewelry industry remains low.
Trying to Shed Light on the Negative Impacts of Natural Diamonds
Until now, not a lot of people have cared enough to learn about the process of mined diamonds. For instance, entrepreneurs Shivani Movaliya and Surali…
The confidential personal data of 1.8 million Texans was exposed and available to the public for almost three years, according to a state audit report released last week. Information including names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers and dates of birth of Texans who filed workers’ compensation claims with the Texas Department of Insurance was publicly available online from March 2019 until January 2022.
The unauthorized disclosure resulted from a glitch in the programming code of the department’s web application that manages workers’ compensation information, the department said.
TDI became aware of the issue on Jan. 4, took the application offline and…
TOKYO — The Japanese and U.S. governments have begun coordinating on the wording of a joint statement to be released during their summit meeting on Monday in Tokyo, Nikkei has learned. The statement will clearly state a policy of cooperation to “deter and respond to” China’s activities in the Indo-Pacific region.
Protests in Iran continued Monday as more Iranians took the streets to show their disdain for the regime in Tehran. Over the weekend reports said up to five people were killed following a crackdown by authorities. A semi-official government news agency put the number of dead from the protests at one according to the Associated Press.
The protests began last week when the government slashed food subsidies on eggs, milk, chicken, and cooking oil leading to price rises of some 300%. Since then, protests have spread to many areas of the country and according to observers have taken on a much more anti-government current.
Protesters, showing no fear of retribution by the state security services have been heard shouting, “Death to Khamenei! Death to Raisi!” referring to Iranian…
Legal Insurrection readers have been keeping up with the news about the swarm of covid infections hitting the vaccinated and boosted among Washington DC insiders. The infected include Kamala Harris,Merrick Garland, and Nancy Pelosi.
Now the media is slowly revealing what many of us have known for some time. The vaccines aren’t as effective at preventing covid as initially advertised.
To begin with, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal revealed that state health data indicate the vaccinated are contracting covid at about the same rates as the vaccinated. Interestingly, the disparity in health outcomes has also become less substantial.
The [Wisconsin department of Health Services] DHS found that in March, those not fully vaccinated were being diagnosed with COVID-19 at a similar rate as those who were fully vaccinated. To be exact, people not fully vaccinated were diagnosed with COVID-19 at a rate 1.1 times higher than people who were fully vaccinated. The state attributes this…
Republican Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley want the US attorney in Delaware to divulge whether a senior Justice Department official recused himself from the federal tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden due to his links to the first son’s lawyer.
Nicholas McQuaid, who leads the Justice Department’s criminal division, formerly worked with Hunter Biden’s lawyer Chris Clark at the large multinational law firm Latham & Watkins.
Johnson (R-Wis.) and Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote to US Attorney David Weiss, saying that Attorney General Merrick Garland ignored three letters they sent last year regarding McQuaid’s possible recusal from the Weiss-led investigation.
“Dear Mr. Weiss: On Feb. 3, 2021, March 9, 2021, and Nov. 10, 2021, we wrote letters to Attorney General Garland with respect to Nicholas McQuaid…and his conflicts of interest in the Hunter Biden criminal case,” the senators wrote.
“Reminder,” Jean-Pierre wrote in response to an article about Governor Brian Kemp’s handling of Covid-19 in the early days of the pandemic, “Brian Kemp stole the gubernatorial election from Georgians and Stacey Abrams.”In 2018, Abrams refused to concede the election despite losing. Abrams is running again, against the man who won the first time, incumbent Governor Brian Kemp. Abrams has gone on to defend her unwillingness to concede.She lost by 1.4 points. Her refusal to concede was over allegations of voter suppression. She said that a concession would be to acknowledge that “an action is right, true or proper,” and that she couldn’t do it.
Airbnb’s billionaire cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky is making his biggest philanthropic donation so far: a $100 million pledge to former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama’s charitable foundation for an initiative that links education and travel. The funds will go toward scholarships for college students pursuing careers in public service, according to an announcement from the Obama Foundation on Monday. The program, called the Voyager Scholarship, is intended to relieve students of college debt, enable them to travel and expand their horizons—and provide them with mentors.
The two-year program will provide students with up to $25,000 in financial aid for their junior and senior years of college. Recipients will also be given $10,000 and free Airbnb housing to go on a “summer voyage” where students will design their own work-travel program to “gain exposure to new communities.”
Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), a graduate of GW Law, attacked Professor Jonathan Turley for defending President Donald Trump during his impeachment hearings, saying Turley had used his position for “wrongful ends.”
“You must be wary of those seeking to use their influence and their expertise to wrongful ends,” Wild told the graduates.
Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar and frequent pundit on legal matters and holds expertise in constitutional law. But despite his classical liberal leanings, he has become a fan favorite among conservatives for calling out the excesses of the progressive left.
“GW Law, for example, has a tenured professor who is without question well versed in constitutional law but has recently made a name for himself on cable news and social…
Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney reached a new milestone in her transition from a center-right lawmaker to a full-blown collaborator in the left’s cultural revolution within 18 months. On Monday, Cheney claimed, without evidence, members of GOP House leadership where she was expelled last May are enablers of white supremacy.
“The House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and antisemitism,” Cheney wrote on Twitter. “History has taught us that what begins with words ends in far worse. [GOP] leaders must renounce and reject these views and those who hold them.”
The post was published Monday morning after an 18-year-old shooter allegedly killed 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket on Saturday. Moments before the killing spree, in which the majority of victims were black, the white shooter published an online “manifesto” airing antisemitic grievances in 180 pages where he also showcased anxiety over “replacement.”…
As pro-abortion and pro-life activists continue to spar over the future of Roe as a Supreme Court ruling in another abortion case approaches, the radical left and its media allies are beginning to put the screws to companies to toe the line and come out in favor of abortion.
Some large companies have done so, seemingly of their own volition. Amazon, as well as Microsoft, Airbnb, Apple, and Citigroup are just some of the businesses that have announced they will pay out-of-state travel costs for employees to get abortions if the state they live in curtails the procedure.
But to leftists, nothing but complete and utter obedience and obeisance will suffice, so they’ve moved on to pressuring companies to support their policies even…
A Michigan Court of Claims judge has granted a preliminary injunction to Planned Parenthood of Michigan that would stall the enforcement of Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the landmark 1973 Roe decision enshrining abortion as a constitutional right.
Court of Claims Judge Elizabeth Gleicher issued a preliminary victory to Planned Parenthood of Michigan that would stall the enforcement of Michigan’s 1931 abortion ban should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn the landmark 1973 Roe decision enshrining abortion as a constitutional right.
Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel said she won’t appeal Gleicher’s order. Nessel, the named defendant in the case, said the ruling against her office is a “victory for the millions of Michigan women fighting for their rights.”
A Democratic state representative from Connecticut is criticizing her own party’s platform on abortion as “extreme,” saying pro-life Democrats like her are being shunned.
Connecticut state Rep. Trenee McGee, a Democrat who represents New Haven and West Haven and was elected last year, said on the latest episode of The Church Politics Podcast that “there are many pro-life Democrats” nationwide that have been “pushed out” by the party.
The Democratic Party platform, she said, “went from safe, legal and rare to extreme.” The party’s platforms in 1996, 2000 and 2004 said abortion should be “rare.” The 2008, 2012 and 2016 platforms removed that word yet still listed a goal to “reduce the need for abortions.” The 2020 platform did not include language about reducing abortions or making them rare.
Many people in the pro-choice movement, McGee said, have become radical.
“Right now, the pro-choice movement has taken a switch – from tweets that were once…
Katie Britt is defending her pro-life record following an attack ad by fellow U.S. Senate candidate Mike Durant.
“She let abortion pills be supplied to teenagers,” the Durant ad said, in reference to recent stories on the passage of a 2003 resolution by the student body association requesting that the Morning After pill be available at the University of Alabama’s health center while Britt was SGA president.
Britt did not veto the resolution, a fact that was drawn to light in a recent news article by 1819 News, and publicized further by Durant’s campaign.
“Alabama needs a pro-life conservative fighter in the Senate to ensure we overturn Roe v. Wade, not weak-kneed insider Katie Boyd Britt,” Scott Stone, a Durant spokesperson, said in a statement to AL.com
Finnish electricity companies are refusing to sign electricity contracts with Russian search engine Yandex, which has a data centre near Helsinki, due to suspicions it may be distributing war propaganda. Read more.
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EU INSTITUTIONS
MEPs ask that frozen Russian billions be used to rebuild and arm Ukraine. Seventy-three MEPs have called for $300 billion in seized Russian funds and assets to fund the Ukrainian military and the country’s reconstruction in a letter sent to EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell. Read more.
U.S. natural gas prices more than doubled since the start of the year, and this summer’s air-conditioning season could send them soaring by at least another 25%.
In the futures market, gas prices rose 4% Tuesday as hot spring weather in the Southern U.S. pressured a market that has already been concerned about tight supplies. The warmer weather is forecast to continue across the region.
“In the last month, there has not been a meaningful uptick in U.S. lower 48 states production,” said Matt Palmer, senior director North American natural gas at S&P Global Commodity Insights. “You’re seeing exports running full out on LNG; power burn from the power sector is really strong and layer in the heat we’re seeing and the expectation that the southern tier of the continent in May and June will see well above normal temperatures. That’s a recipe for higher…
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has started to take affirmative steps to include non-binary classifications on agency forms. In an announcement last month, individuals will be able to choose a non-binary gender markers when filling out intake and charge of discrimination forms used by workers for discrimination complaints levied against employers. On these forms, an individual will be able choose “X” for the voluntary self-identification questions and use the prefix “Mx.”
This announcement builds on a previous announcement in which the EEOC explained that it was exploring ways to collect non-binary data from employers on an EEO-1 form. At present, employers can voluntarily submit such information using the “comment” section on their EEO-1 forms, but there is currently no requirement for employers to submit this data to federal agencies like the EEOC or DOL. Any such requirement will require a vote of the Commission.
Eight months after El Salvador became the first country to make bitcoin an official currency, its president has invited 44 other countries to discuss bitcoin’s “rollout and benefits”. The meeting will take place in Guatemala on Monday, May 17, where officials from Africa, Asia, and Latin America will discuss financial inclusion and the digital economy.
President Nayib Bukele took to Twitter to announce the conference. “Tomorrow, 32 central banks and 12 financial authorities (44 countries) will meet in El Salvador to discuss financial inclusion, digital economy, banking the unbanked, the #Bitcoin rollout and its benefits in our country”, reads his tweet.
The omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 that has swept across the U.S. since late last year has taken a grimmer toll than earlier variants, including in people who were vaccinated and even had booster shots.
The data are based on the date of infection and limited to a sampling of cases in which vaccination status was known, the paper reported. The deaths were mostly in elderly people and people with compromised immune systems. Almost two-thirds of those people who died during omicron were aged 75 and older.
Pushing forward Chinese President Xi Jinping’s concept of a “Global Security Initiative”, an important Chinese official has said that the Indo-Pacific strategy of the United States, “if left unchecked”, would bring “horrible consequences and push the Asia-Pacific over the edge of an abyss”.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Le Yucheng, who is one of the top contenders to succeed Foreign Minister Wang Yi, also said, “Rather than learning the painful lessons of conflict and suffering in Europe, they seek to create a “second theatre” and bring the conflict to the Asia-Pacific.”
Beijing refers to the Indo-Pacific as Asia-Pacific, and Vice Foreign Minister Le has been one of the voices presenting the Chinese government’s view on developments in the region. Le, a former Chinese ambassador to Le spoke about a “global NATO”, and responded to concerns over China’s “no-limits” partnership with Russia, in the context of the invasion of Ukraine. Responding to a question about the US wanting to control Europe while letting the Europeans bear the losses, Le said: “There is a famous line in (the American web series) House of Cards: “Politics requires sacrifice. The sacrifice of others, of course.””
A Turkish academic and her team are working hard to create the technology of processing the solar cell, which they embroidered on fabric and successfully managed to turn led lamps on and charge a battery, into disposable bioplastics that can be dissolved in water, in a goal to charge mobile phones with wearable and organic solar cells.
Yıldız Technical University (YTÜ) Faculty of Arts and Sciences Faculty Member professor Serap Güneş, won the “Academy 2022” award within the scope of the “Turkey’s Energizing Women” awards organized by the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, thanks to the solar energy project she developed with a team of seven people at YTÜ Organic Electronics Laboratory.
Güneş told Anadolu Agency (AA) that they set out to explore the technology after thinking whether they could both produce energy and perform daily routines with a solar panel weaved onto a shirt.
Lithuania’s parliament has designated Russia a terrorist country and its actions in Ukraine as genocide.
The Lithuanian Seimas tweeted Tuesday that its members had passed the resolution unanimously.
This makes Lithuania the first country to declare Russia a perpetrator of terrorism, according to Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security. It’s not the first to formally accuse Russia of genocide: Canadian lawmakers unanimously adopted such a motion last month.
Lithuania’s resolution says that Russia’s armed forces and mercenaries have committed war crimes in Ukraine, citing the atrocities reported in places Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol, Borodyaka, Hostomel and other cities, according to public broadcaster Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT).
“The Russian Federation, whose military forces deliberately and systematically target civilian targets, is a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism,” the resolution reads.
A small town in Catalonia has declared itself “liberated” from Spanish control as activists say they are beginning a new strategy of confrontation with the state to gain independence for their region.
On Saturday in Bàscara, in the northeastern region, activists set up informal checkpoints at the entrances to the town, which has a population of 1,000, to mark its supposed border with Spain. The checkpoints were manned by locals who waved the Estelada secessionist flag and handed out home-made Catalan passports to those entering the town. They also gave out an invented new currency called the “cat” to locals. One painted slogan on a wall at the entrance to the town said: “You are entering liberated territory.”
Six years ago, army chiefs and senior members of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) initiated a mission to smear National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and other NLD figures.
Their mission began after the NLD won a landslide victory in the 2015 general election. Now, following last year’s coup, the mission continues.
Ahead of the 2015 poll, military and USDP leaders deliberately inflamed religious and racial sentiments to prevent an outright NLD victory in the election. Often, the NLD was portrayed as a pro-Muslim party whose rise to power would mean the fall of…
The United States hopes India will reverse its ban on wheat exports, Washington’s top diplomat to the United Nations said Monday, warning the move would worsen global shortages of the commodity.
“We’re encouraging countries not to restrict exports because we think any restrictions on exports will exacerbate the food shortages,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said during a ministerial gathering on food security ahead of a meeting of the UN Security Council.
The UN meeting — to be chaired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken — will include Vellamvelly Muraleedharan, India’s minister of state for external affairs.
India holds a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
“We hope that (India) can, as they hear the concerns being raised by other countries, that they would reconsider that position,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
South America
Leading off, this week, a “tear gas grenade” was thrown into a student body election meeting at the Tomas Frías Autonomous University in the city of Potosí, Bolivia on the 9th. In the resulting panic-induced stampede, four young women were killed, and over 80 students were injured. Bolivian police have arrested four suspects: Manfred Flores, 25, Mauricio Quintanilla, 25, Milton Fuentes, 35 and Ariel Quispe, 40, on suspicion (currently) of homicide and possession of a gas grenade.
Bolivian authorities have not speculated on the reason for the attack, and are attempting to discover how the men obtained the grenade, which is normally very difficult to obtain in Bolivia.
The odd nature of the on-going wave of bomb threats against schools continued to develop in the United States this week, with four incidents of note: two handwritten notes making threats were found, resulting in one arrest [1] and police seeking a “person of interest” [4]; another, in which an 8th Grader apparently called in a threat [2], and another threat made via Instagram [3]. As usual, there were many other similar incidents, but those stories had too little information to reference. While these threats are widely dispersed, they do cluster, and this new tack in the course of the wave remains an object of interest, deviating from the previously reported robocall format.
In Mali, four soldiers were killed and one was wounded, when their patrol vehicle struck an IED near Djenné in the central part of the country. Two children were killed and four other people were wounded in Diondiori, also in central Mali, by what officials describe as “shellfire” from “Armed Terrorist Groups“, as authorities frequently do not know which of the many groups that have been fighting inside the beleaguered nation since 2012 are responsible. [1]
In neighboring Burkina Faso, meanwhile, army units reported that they successfully ambushed a group of terrorists in Mouhoun Province, killing 40, and capturing a large amount of weapons and equipment. In another incident, however, other terrorists attacked a prison in the town of Nouna, on the border with neighboring Mali, freed and escaped with all 60 prisoners, leaving one person dead. [2]
Burkina Faso has battled their insurgency since 2015, when fighting in Mali spilled over the border.
In what may be a disturbing expansion of the ongoing war in the north, the nation of Togo saw an attack on an army outpost in the Kpendjal prefecture on its northern frontier border with Burkina Faso. Officials report that some eight troops were killed and 13 wounded. Togo has remained largely free of violence in the last ten years, but that could be changing, as violence continues moving south. [3][4]
In related news, the West Africa Centre for Counter-Extremism (WACCE) released a report warning that the nation of Ghana, which has also escaped the violence to its north so far, was increasingly exposed to danger, pointing out that some 53% of ECOWAS (the “Economic Community of West African States”) nations are currently in the midst of mostly Islamist terrorist insurgencies, and that the contagion is spreading.
In Nigeria, the last few weeks of relative calm were shattered this week, as a combination of terror groups and simple bandits emerged on the attack, killing dozens (including civilians, soldiers and police), hijacking buses – crucial to Nigeria’s infrastructure – and kidnapping victims that ranged from a pair of nursing mothers to traditional monarchs and tribal chiefs.
Elsewhere on the continent, 14 people were reported killed in an attack on a “displaced persons” camp outside the town of Fataki, near the city of Bunia in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the 10th. The CODECO terror group, accused of being loosely affiliated with IS-CAP, is believed to have been responsible, as they were responsible for an attack on a nearby mining camp on the 8th. The fighting is part of the Ituri Conflict, which has been continuing in fits and starts since 2003. [1][2]
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have reportedly begun to actively recruit child soldiers, although the Taliban leadership have said that they are forbidding the recruitment of “teenagers”…video footage under the link. [1]
In Pakistan, a spate of attacks this week killed at least eight people, including three children and three soldiers. This comes as the country’s government denied, yet again, that it was harboring terror groups that targeted its neighbors. [2]-[5]
In India, the long-running conflict in the northern Jammu & Kashmir region saw a burst of violence, as well, this week, with several operations – both jihadist and national – taking place during the week, leading to multiple arrests, but also to the death of a police officer by assassination. [1]-[7]
The week also saw the emergence of a little-known group, JKFF (‘Jammu Kashmir Freedom Fighters’), who hurled an explosive device at a bus loaded with Hindu religious pilgrims. Very little is known about the group, aside from them being ‘broadly‘ Muslim, and “jihadist” in nature. [8]
On Friday, at least 12 schools in the city of Bhopal received bomb threats via email, in a manner similar to a wave a month ago, that targeted schools in the southern city of Bangalore. In this case, some school received as many as 50 emails with bomb threats, coming from several email addresses. Police bomb squads cleared all of the targeted schools, and are continuing their investigation to attempt to trace the emails’ ISP addresses. [9]
India’s “Red Corridor” saw a sudden burst of activity this week, with multiple arrests and arson attacks throughout the troubled region. Small arms and explosives were recovered in several areas. As well, a Naxal couple surrendered to authorities in the Gadchiroli district, citing the constant threat from security forces and wild animals, forced sterilization and separation of couples and attractive surrender policy of the Maharashtra government. [10]-[15]
Finally, Sri Lanka‘s economic crisis – the worst since its independence in 1948 – came off the rails this week, as protests turned into riots, and violence has escalated to the point of the government in Colombo issuing orders to the armed forces to open fire on anyone vandalizing or looting public property. The violence has left over two hundred people injured and eight dead, including a member of Parliament and his bodyguard.
“Security forces have been ordered to shoot on sight anyone looting public property or causing harm to life,” the ministry said as reported by news agency AFP.
The protests that began on April 9th, are over the country’s downward economic spiral, brought on by a combination of the government’s response to the 2019 Easter Bombings, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, staggeringly bad economic and monetary policy decisions, and the continuing economic shock-waves of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Hidden Conflict With The Potential To Shatter Global Trade
Beginnings
Since 2017, a war has been raging. This war has remained largely ignored in the world media, because, as wars go, this war has been rather “low-level”. As well, this war is the living example of an uncomfortable truth – that the so-called “Islamic State” is not dead, despite losing its major base areas in Iraq and Syria.
Following the same broad strategy as the rest of IS’s offshoots (extreme violence and torture, brutal oppression of women, use of child soldiers, etc.), ISCAP initially appeared to be focusing on destabilizing the Great Rift Valley region of Central Africa. Long unstable and prone to large-scale violence, ISCAP’s entry into this region of staggering mineral and agricultural wealth initially went rather unnoticed — Central Africa was not seen as having significant potential for the IS, and while of some concern, ISCAP was relegated to the figurative “back burner”, as there were much more immediate terrorism problems in Africa, like “Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)” and Boko Haram.
But then…Mozambique exploded. Somewhat literally.
Map of the region of Cabo Delgado-Mozambique with Kirimba archipelago
Cabo Delgado Province is one of only two provinces in Mozambique with a majority-Muslim population (the other being neighboring Niassa Province). Both of these northern-most provinces are badly underdeveloped, economically speaking, and are grindingly poor as a result. Things seemed to be looking up, however, as the American energy company Anadarko Petroleum (now a subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum) decided to launch a major expansion onshore of its previously discovered offshore liquid natural gas (LNG) fields. This would create a large number of well-paying jobs, directly, and create “knock-on” industries to support development of the region.
The future looked bright.
But then, beginning on 5 October 2017, a predawn raid was staged on police stations in the seaside town of Mocímboa da Praia that killed some seventeen people, including two police officers and a community leader. The attack quickly fell apart, and nearly half the raid force was captured. Interrogations of the prisoners indicated that the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabaab terror group from Somalia (also known as “Ansar al-Sunna”) had suborned some disgruntled ex-police officers to train local recruits.
Not being known for having a delicate touch, the Mozambican response was rather heavy-handed, with widespread arrests on questionable evidence, and the closing of several mosques in the provincial capitol of Pemba for “suspected connections” with “Islamic fundamentalism“. A subsequent attack on the village of Mitumbate reportedly killed some fifty people, including women and children, although it remains unclear as to what, if any, connection the casualties may have had to the insurgents.
Attacks continues apace through the remainder of 2017, and continued throughout 2018 and into 2019. Increasing numbers of people were kidnapped or murdered outright, houses, businesses and government buildings were burned, and civilians began fleeing the area, in numbers that would eventually displace an estimated 400,000 people by 2020, resulting in panicked calls to the international community for help by various national, international and non-governmental agencies.
ISCAP Arrives
At some point, likely in late-2018 or early-2019, ISCAP seems to have arrived in Cabo Delgado, and either displaced or absorbed the Al Qaeda affiliate. It is important to understand the implications of this event. Where Al Qaeda-aligned groups at that time rarely left the terrorist model to engage in actual guerrilla warfare tactics, the Islamic State was almost the exact reverse – while certainly not shying away from terrorist attacks, the IS usually focuses on trying to act as an “actual” army.
This difference quickly became apparent.
On June 4, 2019, “Islamist” forces attacked a Mozambican Army outpost in the town of Mitopy, reportedly killing or wounding some 30 people, and capturing equipment. Attacks continued to escalate, as Russia began delivering military equipment to the Mozambique government (Russia, recall, had intevened in Syria in 2015 to shore up Bashar Al Assad’s government against relentless IS offensives), and the “Wagner Group“, the PMC aligned to the Russian government. This did not go well…for the Russian contractors. Despite some initial successes, the ISCAP forces repeatedly hit back at least as hard as they were being attacked.
(One of the ongoing frustrations in this conflict is the lack of press freedom, which dramatically limits the range of detail available.)
This activity continued through the end of 2019, when a break in ISCAP’s offensive seems to have occurred. The cautious optimism engendered by the break was shattered when ISCAP came roaring out of the forests, in a Syria-style offensive, on March 23, 2020. ISCAP forces stormed Mocímboa da Praia and captured the town, destroying government buildings, looting banks…and then distributing much of the loot to locals, in an apparent propaganda campaign. ISCAP withdrew from the town the next day, and launched a wide-ranging offensive across the province. Worryingly for military observers at the time, this particular attack was a coordinated land-sea assault. This period also saw South Africanspecial forces units deployed to the country.
The see-saw series of skirmishes continued for the next five months, with Mozambique government forces claiming to have killed hundreds of insurgents, even as attacks increased. ISCAP forces seem to have focused on Mocímboa da Praia in particular; the reason for this focus would not become apparent until August of 2020.
Beginning on August 5th, ISCAP launched a ferocious assault that focused on Mocímboa da Praia. after skillfully isolating the town, ISCAP forces hammered their way into the town. Mozambican forces, although supported by helicopters of the the South African PMC “Dyck Advisory Group (DAG)“, were either overrun and destroyed or captured, with the survivors fleeing the town by sea in commandeered boats. ISCAP forces engaged the retreating boats from the shore, sinking a French-built HSI-32 “interceptor” vessel with fire from RPG-7‘s. After the town’s capture, ISCAP declared it to be their “capitol”, and began a series of amphibious raids throughout the neighboring Quirimbas Islands, driving local island inhabitants ashore as refugees.
Even for regular, professional militaries, these were not “simple” operations.
ISCAP would hold Mocímboa da Praia for a full year, until August of 2021, following the intervention of Malawian and Rwandan army units deployed to the country to help stem the tide. However, before pushing ISCAP out of Mocímboa da Praia, ISCAP attempted to capture the border town and port of Palma in a 12-day long battle, a murderous fight that – while ultimately beaten back by Mozambian forces – left the city largely destroyed, suspending oil and gas company operations in the area, and killing numerous civlians, both Mozambicans and foreigners.
Although, as of February of 2022, ISCAP seems to have been battered back into the forests, there have been multi-month-long lulls in the fighting before. This fight is not over.
Meanwhile, though, as Mozambique burned, other things were happening…..
Two Unconnected Events & A Brutal Attack Make Three
While all the fighting was happening in Mozambique, the rest of the world lumbered onward, as it always does. Amid all of the other things going on in the military and security spheres of that time, there occurred yet another massive, bloody attack on civilians…
Religion in Sri Lanka, 2012; Source: Government of Sri LankaBloodstained statue of Risen Jesus after renovation of 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings at St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya
On Easter Sunday, April 21, 2019, suicide bombers struck three Christian churches and three luxury hotels in the city of Coloumbo in coordinated attacks between 8:25am and 9:20am, local time; two smaller explosions occurred later in the day in other parts of the city. In total, 261 people were killed and over 500 were injured.
Sri Lanka’s population is less than 10% Muslim, inclusive of several different sects, which seriously calls into question how much support the NJT – a hyper-radical, Sunni-based sect – would have had. Another problem is that Sri Lanka is simply not on IS’s radar; it is well outside IS operational theaters, and committing more than “lip service” resources to an operational group there would be wasted effort, when the IS itself was under continuous attack elsewhere, and was hemorrhaging money, fighters, trainers and resources trying to defend its core territories.
While Sri Lanka is absolutely no stranger to suicide bombing attacks, having fought a blood-soaked 26-year war against the “Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)“; that group, though, was wiped out quite decisively in 2009. The LTTE, however, could in hindsight be viewed as “Islamic State, Beta“, in that it created a functional government from scratch, with very little external support, as well as a functional military establishment, including an air force and a navy.
As these kinds of things usually do, the Sri Lankan attacks quickly faded from the news, and the world shuffled onwards. Then, as ISCAP was preparing to launch its offensive against Mocímboa da Praia in August of 2020, a blunder of staggering incompetence happened.
At roughly 5:45pm local time, fire crews were summoned to Warehouse 12 at the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, on a report of a warehouse fire. The first crew to arrive on-scene immediately called for backup — the blazing warehouse was massively engulfed, and completely out of control. Some twenty minutes later, at 6:07pm local time, the dockside warehouse exploded in a titanic blast, registering an estimated 3.3 on the Richter Scale. The blast was heard in Cyprus and Israel, some 150 miles/240km distant, and was felt as far away as parts of Europe. Estimates of the blast force ranged from 1.5 to 2.5 tons of TNT, equivalent to a small nuclear warhead.
Port of Beirut, Lebanon. Before (Left, 7/30/2020) and after (R) comparison showing blast damage from the August 4,2020 explosion (circled area)
Despite early attempts by various terrorist groups, both inside and outside of Lebanon, to claiming responsibility for the attack, it was quickly determined to have been the result of a level of bureaucratic lethargy and incompetence, coupled to irresponsible work practices on a scale that boggles the imagination.
In November of 2013, the Moldovan-flagged cargo ship ‘MV Rhosus‘, carrying 2,750 tonnes (3,030 short tons) of ammonium nitrate bound for Mozambique (this was well before the current war there), was seized by the Port of Beirut’s Port state control officials for, according to Lloyd’s List, some US$100,000 in unpaid bills. Ammonium nitrate, while used primarily as and agricultural fertilizer, is also a significant component in explosives. As the ‘MV Rhosus‘ was deemed unseaworthy by Port state control, the ship was condemned and her cargo was unloaded in February of 2014 and stored in Warehouse 12. The crew, all either Ukrainian or Russian, were allowed to return home on compassionate grounds, as the ship owner had reportedly gone bankrupt, and was unable to either repair the ship or pay the fines it had accrued.
The ammonium nitrate cargo then sat in Warehouse 12 for the next six years, as Lebanese officialdom tepidly argued over what to do with it. During this time, in a staggering display of irresponsibility, a massive load of fireworks were stored in a section of the warehouse complex, right next to the bays holding the ammonium nitrate. Inevitably, a construction crew working on a loading door with a welding torch apparently set the fireworks alight, and as the blaze spread, the heat and pressure eventually touched off the ammonium nitrate…..
Over 200 people are known to have been killed in the blast of August 4th, and over 7,000 wounded, collapsing local medical capacity. Somewhere in the ballpark of 300,000 people were left homeless. Damages exceeded US$15 billion, a staggering sum for a small country with a wobbly economy. Numerous terro groups in the region tried to claim responsibility in the aftermath, in the end it was a disaster brought on simply by monumental levels of incompetence.
Aerial photo of the explosion in West, Texas, taken several days after blast (4/22/2013)Texas City disaster. Parking lot 1/4 of a mile away from the explosion
This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened…and it certainly wasn’t the last…
Contrary to popular belief, ocean-going vessels — even in the modern day — run aground all the time. No one is perfect. However, sometimes, all the stars will align in the worst possible way.
Today, contanerization is the primary mode of moving “non-bulk” freight loads via ship; somewhere near 90% of all non-bulk freight moving by ship moves in intermodal containers. The “Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU)” is the one of the standards for measuring the capacity of a container ship. The more than 9,000 vessels of this type (per UNCTAD, 2010) are typically massive vessels, with truly massive carrying capacities.
Container Ship ‘Ever Given’ stuck in the Suez Canal, Egypt, March 24th, 2021
The “Ever Given“, with a capacity of over 20,000 TEUs (if loaded onto trucks, those trucks (all 10,000 of them) – if lined up nose-to-tail, all at once – would stretch from Downtown Dallas, TX to north of Durant, OK, a distance of over 100mi/160km), was transiting the Suez Canal that March day, bound for the port of Rotterdam. Although the precise details of the incident remain a bone of contention, the “Ever Given” ended up jammed hard into the banks of the canal, in one of the worst possible stretches of the canal. As a result, at least 300 cargo vessels – including five other container ships of similar size, 41 bulk carriers and 24 crude oil tankers – were stuck waiting at either end of the canal for six days.
“Ita quomodo huc venisti?” (So, how did we get here?)
So — What point are we making, here? While the foregoing are certainly interesting points for study, they have little, if anything, to do with each other on the surface. However, there is a time-bomb lurking beneath the surface. The following is an example of “predictive analytics.” The key points are as follows:
It is a given, that the “Islamic State” (IS) sees itself as the enemy of the West. It is also a given that IS operatives around the world very much watch the news. They are fully aware, at the very least, of every event outlined above. Believing otherwise is simply not a valid world-view.
Given the IS’ proclivities for grandiose attacks, and given the fact that they have been heavily battered – being on their third leader in four years – IS is increasingly desperate to stage a major attack to regain its former prestige in the world.
Mozambique as a theater of operations for the IS – or Al Qaeda, for that matter – makes little sense at this point, if taken as a circumstance by itself. While only roughly three days via boat from Somalia at 10 knots (11.5mph/18.5kph), the rest of the factors are out of whack: the Muslim population in the country is tiny; the country as a whole is economically depressed; language is a serious issue; and the nation’s infrastucture is rudimentary, at best. These are all significant negatives to IS’ normal mode of operation…And yet — someone is expending a significant amount of resources and manpower to secure an Islamist foothold in the country.
Locally in Cabo Delgado, the Islamist insurgents are known as “Al Shabaab“…and, significantly, as “Somalis“. Despite insistance from certain quarters that there is no known connection between the “Ansar Al-Sunna/Al Shabaab” group in Mozambique and the similarly-named group in Somalia, the connection from the operational area in question is too significant to ignore.
If a connection does exist, that bodes ill all by itself, as it indicates a potential thaw in relations between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, as the two have been, at the very least, “not friends” since the IS separated from the Al Qaeda orbit in 2014.
Then, there is the curious case of the Easter, 2019 bombings in Sri Lanka. For the reasons outlined above, there was little to be gained by these attacks. While they certainly demonstrated the potential reach and influence of the IS, it gained them very little, either tactically or strategically.
Finally, the seeming outlier points are the explosion in Beirut and the stranding of the “Ever Given”. Both were absolutely accidents, and not connected to any known terror group.
There are too many coincidences in the above points for the total picture to be some random splatter of a bizarre avant-garde art movement. Something is missing.
The Corporal and the Sea Pigeons
The problem in dealing with all “non-state actors” is that they are able to remain largely anonymous, until they surface publicly and act. There are so many possibilities, they get lost in the shuffle.
U.S. Marine artillerymen set up their 155 mm M198 howitzer…20 January 1991 during Operation Desert Storm
Hussein was activated with the rest of his unit, and served in Operation Desert Storm in 1990-1991. Later, as Operation Restore Hope got underway in his native country in late 1992, Hussein was activated again, being assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, as an interpreter, being the only person in the Marine Corps at that time who spoke any Somali dialect, and to provide a link to his father. He would serve in this capacity only briefly, being withdrawn after three weeks, once other Somali volunteers from the United States (mostly college students) volunteered to return. The Marine Corps was well aware of Hussein’s family background, and as his father was a prominent warlord in the country’s worsening civil war, following the ouster of dicator Siad Barre, they wanted no possibility of a conflict of interest arising for the young Marine. As a result, he was not present in Somalia when US forces launched Operation Gothic Serpent in an attempt to arrest some of his father’s lieutenants, in what became known as the “Battle of Mogadishu“.
At some point between 1993 and 1996, Hussein was named as his father’s ‘heir apparent’ to the leadership of Habir Gidir clan. When his father died during surgery after being shot during a battle with rival forces, Hussein Farrah Aidid advised his reserve unit that he would be traveling abroad for a number of months, and would miss his next several drills. Traveling to Somalia, he assumed the leadership of his clan, and initially continued his father’s policies of armed confrontation with opposition forces. However, this did not last — by 1997, Hussein turned to negotiation instead of armed conflict, and actively advocated working with not only the international community, but the United States directly.
Although he would later be named to several cabinet-level posts in Somalia’s shaky transitional government, Hussein would not simply be forced out of the Somali government structure, but out of the country itself — by 2007, Hussein Farrah Aidid had been forced into exile in Eritrea, making accusations that Ethiopia was guilty of “genocide” in its intervention into Somalia and calling for the withdrawal of its forces from the country. Ethiopia stated that it intervened “reluctantly”, but with the support of the United States and the African Union (AU), and it did withdraw its forces as soon as AU troops entered the country.
Although staying well under the radar in the years since his exile, confidential intelligence sources (speaking on condition of anonymity) reveal that a potential link to Hussein Farrah Aidid is being seriously investigated. The probability of his involvement in southern Africa is considered to be high, although absolute proof has not been uncovered.
The reasons for this are as simple as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend“. While seeming to be nominally friendly to the Ethiopian government by aiding it in its ongoing conflict with the Tigray people, Eritrea is out for revenge against the Tigray, with whom it fought a sharp war in 1998-2000. There are indications that militia’s loyal to the younger Aidid are taking part in Eritrean operations, at the very least in supporting capacities.
The thinking behind the notion of Hussien Farrah Aidid siding with Islamist groups lays in the fact that he appears to have valued his personal connections to both the United States and its Marine Corps highly, but those connections have done him little good over the years, as his attempts at diplomacy and conciliation have left him in exile. While many people would regard him as a “mere corporal” (and likely make allusions to a certain Austrian of similar rank), it is important to remember that one of the core principles of leadership is the willingness to delegate – the catch being, that a leader still needs to give guidance on what to look for, in order for the subordinate to get started.
Hussein Aidid possesses exactly those abilities. In a direct sense while he, himself, was almost certainly never involved in any form of higher-level strategic planning, he would know what to look for, if he wanted to set up a training program for his loyalists. As well, being exiled to Eritrea freed him, in a sense, from focusing on his father’s form of “desert power“, and shifting to the other major form of Somali warfare…
The ability to move troops, equipment and supplies by sea is a huge challenge over any significant distance…but, if a person – or a staff – were able to think in those terms, the oceans of the world provide a nearly-uncontested avenue for movement.
Which brings us to the next puzzle piece: the Sea Pigeons.
When Sri Lanka was deep in its war against the Tamil Tigers, the Tigers maintained a naval force that conducted suicide and interdiction attacks against Sri Lankan naval and merchant vessels throughout the long war. These “Sea Tigers“, however, had another asset.
The so-called “Sea Pigeons” were a kind of “ghost fleet” of ocean-going merchant vessels, usually operating with “flexible” papers. The ships of this merchant fleet carried arms and equipment to resupply the LTTE directly, but also operated around the world, carrying legitimate cargo’s for profits like any other shipping company, profits that were a major source of funding to the LTTE. While at least ten of these ships were destroyed by the Sri Lankan Navy by 2009, no one is entirely certain how many ocean-going vessels the LTTE operated…And, while the remnants of the LTTE have struggled to keep the glimmer of resistance alive since the destruction of the main movement in May of 2009, there has been little word of any remaining Sea Pigeons.
Which brings us back to the Easter Bombings of 2019, from above.
IF Hussein Farrah Aidid was looking for a way to strike a blow that could greatly elevate his status within both the radical Islamist and African spheres…and, IF he were in contact with surviving Sea Pigeons, HOW could he entice those former guerrillas – after surviving underground for a decade – to aid him?
Getting the Islamic State to stage a significant attack in Sri Lanka – as a “sign of good faith” – could be viewed as a “down payment” to gain access to the remaining Sea Pigeon fleet.
But to what end?
The Threat
The international shipping and trade network is the critical artery of the modern Western world. And it is anchored on two locations: The Suez Canal, and the Panama Canal.
The panamax ship MSC Poh Lin exiting the Miraflores locks, March 2013
Along with the Suez Canal, discussed previously, the Panama Canal is the other major choke point of international shipping, as it removed the need to use the highly dangerous route around South America‘s Cape Horn. A relatively minor accident in the Suez Canal, solved in six days, nearly unhinged world trade.
What would a pair of attacks, against both canals simultaneously, do? Especially if those attacks did not simply close the routes for a few days, but for months, if not years? But – how would such attacks play out?
In the case of Suez, simply limpet mining or scuttling one or two very large vessels in the right place[s] would be sufficient, as the ships and their cargoes would have to be fully cleared before traffic could resume.
Panama, however, is more difficult. The lock system that makes up the canal is not really susceptible to scuttling, because of the canal’s layout. A ship scuttling inside a lock, while certainly a disaster, would be relatively easily to resolve.
But — what about a ship carrying three or four thousand tones of ammonium nitrate “suddenly” exploding in the Panama Canal?
The explosion of the ammonium nitrate cargo in the Port of Beirut left a blast crater over 400ft/124m in diameter, and some 140ft/43m deep. What effect would a larger explosion have, in the tight confines of a lock system like Panama’s? At the very least, the Panama Canal would cease operations for months, if not a full year…
…And, coupled to a similar closure of Suez, world trade would be forced to make long and dangerous detours…
So — Why would this benefit the Islamic State, encouraging it to expend significant resources in an attempt to establish a base in northern Mozambique, well outside their normal operational zones?
Because, if Suez were to be closed, the shipping detour around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope has to run right past Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado region.
Location of Mayotte and neighboring countries in the Mozambique Channel
But — If the above is true, what would the benefit be for the surviving Sea Pigeons to help Hussein Farrah Aidid and the Islamic State? Simply put: Revenge.
The United States – as well as India – aided the Sri Lankan Navy in attacking the Sea Tiger/Sea Pigeon layover areas with satellite imagery showing those assembly area’s locations and layouts. Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia directly supplied the Sri Lankan government with military weapons, equipment, vehicles and aircraft for its final, apocalyptic campaigns against the LTTE. Great Britain was largely responsible for the confused and messy end of Colonialism in Sri Lanka, and was directly responsible for the ethinc divisions that ultimately led to the island’s civil war. France and the rest of the major nations of the world eagerly lined up to proscribe and hunt down the remainder of the LTTE outside of Sri Lanka, and actively worked to dismantle the group’s international financing network…And every one of these states would be critically damaged by an attack of this nature.
If any non-religious group has reason to want to destroy the West, it is the remnants of the LTTE.
Turkey, as we pointed out in April, was deeply involved in the creation and expansion of the Islamic State’s original form. However, once Erdogan’s plan to launch a religious war against Iran failed, he dropped the Islamic State like a hot potato, leaving it to die on the vine…except that, like troublesome weeds, it refused to die quietly.
It Islamic State learned from this. And the primary lesson it learned, was that it was just as much of a pawn in international “realpolitik” as any other group. And – like their institutional ancestors, Al Qaeda, in the aftermath of carrying the CIA’s water in expelling the Soviet’s from Afghanistan – they refused to simply go home.
Turkey Opens Largest Foreign Military Base in Mogadishu, 2017
Money is money, after all — and everyone’s money is good, if it buys you ammunition.
But Turkey has gone a step further, expanding its reach into Africa, but especially into Somalia and Libya where it is actively working with other major powers against Islamist militant groups, even as it plays multiple sides in Ethiopia. An attack that closed the Suez Canal would do as much, if not more, damage to the Turkish economy as it would to the wider world.
Again — the Islamic State is capable of assembling all of the above points into a strategic picture; the Freedomistis not saying anything not publicly-available. Additionally, even if the educated guesses about Aidid and the Sea Pigeons are completely wrong, if we can work through this, so can the Islamic State. In fact, any competent intelligence analyst can see it, if they do the work…as many have.
The question is: Will those the analysts work for, listen to them?
In our first installment of this series, we talked about the FN FAL, as one of the “other” assault rifles of the world, post-World War 2. Today, we will talk about the next one in line. (Also, there will be a Part 3 to this story, coming later.)
In the aftermath of World War 2, Germany was a shambles: it had been heavily bombed, many millions of its civilians, as well as the bulk of its professional armed forces, had been killed or displaced, and the country itself had been occupied and partitioned off between the victorious Allied powers, and its industry was severely restricted in what it was allowed to manufacture. (We are not here to discuss the morality of those actions; that is another conversation, entirely.) For Germany’s many weaponsmiths, they had to either find something else to make, or they had to leave the country for other nations, nations in need of innovative weapons designers.
German soldiers armed with HK G3 rifles exiting a Marder IFV
The world of 1946 was not “standardized“, as we would think of the term, now. There were few industries that even attempted to design to internationally accepted standards. As of 1946, a quick (and thoroughly unscientific) glance shows that there were some ten or eleven different rifle calibers in “widespread” use in the world, minimum, depending upon how one describes “widespread” and “rifle caliber“.
Spain – still recovering from a brutal civil war in the mid-1930’s, as well as a grain blight and a recovering agriculture industry that caused severe food shortages during WW2 – had largelysat out the war, but had had paid careful attention to its course and the technological developments emerging from it. After the war was over, Spain decided that it needed to catch up to the other major powers, beginning by revamping its pre-war small arms inventory.
The design is rugged, robust, reliable and adaptable. As well, it is a relatively simple system to manufacture, making great use of stamped-steel construction, rivaling (almost) even the AK-47 in its simplicity. It is also highly modular, able to swap major components between various models, in a manner only approached (but not equaled) by the AR-15/M-16/M4 series.
MP5 A3. This is the retractable buttstock version of the MP5
The G3 rifle and its many legendary derivatives – the H&K MP-5, HK21, HK33, SG-1, and PSG-1 – would go on to be adopted by over 40 nations and anyone else who could lay hands on them, and with manufacturing licenses being sold to some 18 countries, there were – and are – plenty to go around.
HK21 Light Machine Gun
The G3 and it’s descendants have fought – and continue to fight – in virtually every theater of conflict in the world, today. Whatever conflict zone you might find yourself in, you will likely find G3’s in abundance; knowing how they – and other major small arms – operate is in your own best interest.
Last week, Republicans in the Florida delegation threw their support behind U.S. Rep. Steve Womack’s, R-Ark., “Veterans First Act.”
The proposal, which Womack introduced last week, “will stop the White House from diverting resources from our veterans to manage their self-inflicted southern border crisis” and “specifically prohibits the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) from prioritizing the needs of illegal immigrants over our nation’s heroes as the Biden Administration expects a surge at the southern border following their efforts to rescind Trump-era immigration policy, Title 42.”
Womack weighed in on the proposal last week.
“First, the Biden administration floated compensating illegal immigrants with hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. Now, they’re considering taking resources from our veterans to deal with a border surge of their own making,” said Womack. “It’s insanity. Our heroes…
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken marked World Press Freedom Day Tuesday, calling out Russia and China and the Taliban government in Afghanistan for attacks on journalists and freedom of the press. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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At some point, likely in late-2018 or early-2019, ISCAP seems to have arrived in Cabo Delgado, and either displaced or absorbed the Al Qaeda affiliate. It is important to understand the implications of this event. Where Al Qaeda-aligned groups at that time rarely left the terrorist model to engage in actual 
Although, as of February of 2022, ISCAP seems to have been battered back into the forests, there have been multi-month-long lulls in the fighting before. This fight is not over.
