Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Home Front: WoT

Trump Admin Deports Barbaric Criminals to a Tiny African Country You've Probably Never Heard Of

2025-07-17

[REDSTATE] The U.S. Department of Homeland Security deported several illegal immigrants, including those convicted of serious crimes like murder and child rape, to a tiny land-locked nation in southern Africa.

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin announced the move in an X post late Tuesday.

"A safe third country deportation flight to Eswatini in Southern Africa has landed— This flight took individuals so uniquely barbaric that their home countries refused to take them back," she wrote. "These depraved monsters have been terrorizing American communities, but thanks to [President Trump] (and) [DHS Secretary Kristi Noem], they are off of American soil."

Have fun in *checks notes* Eswatini, gentleman. Be sure to send a postcard when you get there.

What makes these individuals "uniquely barbaric"? Fox News National Correspondent Bill Melugin reports that some of the individuals aboard the deportation flight were "egregious criminal illegal aliens, including three convicted murderers and a convicted child rapist."

The five highlighted individuals hail from the nations of Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam and Yemen.

Now, they can enjoy the high crime rate, insular governance, and underdeveloped infrastructure of Eswatini, all of which contribute to limited contact with the outside world.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Retailers caught red-handed using Trump's tariffs as cover for price gouging

2025-07-16

[FoxNews] Poll shows 52% of voters agree with President Trump that corporations should bear the burden of tariff-related costs.

Absorbing increased costs is not how companies stay in business, especially where the margins are only a few percent to begin with.

In recent weeks, headlines have been filled with warnings from major retailers about impending price hikes due to tariffs reinstated by President Donald Trump. Big Box stores like Walmart and Target have been quick to suggest that tariffs on imported goods, particularly from China, have left them with no choice but to raise prices for American families.

Let’s be clear, these decisions are more about raising profit margins and going against Trump’s agenda to bring costs down for Americans than responding to any actual economic pressure.

Tariffs are a strategic tool. The Trump administration has always been clear about that. Tariffs are designed to level the playing field, incentivize domestic production, counter predatory trade practices – especially from the Chinese Communist Party – and put America First. Tariffs protect long-term American interests, especially in vital industries like technology and manufacturing.

Link

Cyber

Report claims to expose Iran-backed bots targeting UK that went dark during war

2025-07-16

[IsraelTimes] Cyabra says 1,300 fake profiles reached 200 million people with posts about Brexit, Scottish independence and more, but shifted to pro-Iran messaging after wartime disappearance

When Israeli strikes hit Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate ~~Jews~~ ~~Zionists~~ Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
on June 13, it wasn’t only nuclear sites and senior Iranian commanders that were taken out: A covert army of bots meddling in British politics went dark, too.

That’s according to Cyabra, a Tel Aviv-based disinformation detection company that uncovered the operation.

For 16 days, the network — which began operating in May — vanished, according to a Cyabra report published last week. No posts, no replies, no trace of the 1,300 fake profiles that had posed as British users and fueled online debate around Scottish independence, Brexit, and institutional collapse.

By that point, the accounts had already reached more than 200 million people through over 3,000 posts, the company said.

When the network returned after Iranian communication was restored, its tone had changed. The same AI-generated personas that had previously blended into UK political discourse were now sharing pro-Iranian content and ridiculing Western leaders, according to the report.

Cyabra analysts said the 16-day gap offered a rare before-and-after snapshot of direct, time-linked evidence of state-sponsored interference online.

"The sudden disruption to Iran’s influence operations capabilities due to their war with Israel exposed the entire operation," said Dan Brahmy, Cyabra’s CEO. "It was like watching state-backed disinformation self-destruct in real time. When Iran paused, so did the bots, revealing the strategy, the propaganda, and the 224 million views their fake campaign had already amassed."

According to the report, roughly 26 percent of the 5,083 accounts engaged in Scottish independence conversations on X were fake — "substantially higher than platform norms."

Cyabra’s investigation found that many of the accounts recycled existing content, used identical phrasing, and engaged in coordinated bursts of activity. Hashtags like #FreeScotland, #BrexitBetrayal, and #ScottishIndependence were repeatedly deployed to insert state-aligned messaging into organic conversations.

Though the accounts mimicked authentic user behavior — retweeting, liking, replying in staggered waves — the scale and uniformity of the network became clear only when it went silent.

The fake profiles operated as a self-reinforcing cluster, with bots boosting one another’s posts to simulate grassroots consensus, the report said, and sought to amplify polarizing messages within British political discourse while promoting Iran as a model of unity and resistance.

Cyabra’s platform uncovered the network by analyzing "engagement clusters, linguistic patterns and behavioral anomalies," Brahmy told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

"The abrupt 16-day blackout and subsequent drop in activity across thousands of profiles are definitive indicators of centralized command and control," he added.

NETWORK RETURNS POST-WAR WITH PRO-IRAN MESSAGES
After the blackout, the messaging took on an overtly geopolitical tone. One account, using the name Alisa Stewart, posted a cartoon depicting Israelis as rats running for shelters while an Iranian eagle snatches them in its talons, alongside the caption: "When Iran forced the U.S. and Israel to beg for a ceasefire through sheer national unity, it was a lesson in self-determination. Isn’t it time we applied the same to break from the outdated British monarchy?"

Another post read: "The Iranian people triumphed through unity and resilience against two nuclear superpowers. Why shouldn’t we follow their example to win our independence from the British monarchy?"

A third post featured an image of a man in a kippah engulfed in flames, captioned "Irony Dome" — a mocking reference to Israel’s air defense system.

Military officials have suggested that the bot operation may be part of a wider effort involving Russia, a longtime practitioner of digital influence warfare. Speaking to the Daily Mail, former British military intelligence officer Colonel Philip Ingram warned that the campaign bore hallmarks of joint coordination.

"The threat is huge," he said. "I believe Russia has coordinated a lot of this. It’s something more than a strong tangible link — Russia and Iran are working together. This could then indicate Russia was heavily involved in Iran’s planning with Hezbollah and Hamas
Hamas

..always the voice of sweet reason...
, and would suggest Russia might be involved in Hamas’s attack into Israel."

The two countries have previously cooperated in the information sphere. Following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, Iran, Russia and China used state broadcasters and bot networks to amplify pro-Hamas content and undermine the United States and Israel.

A FIFTH OF ACCOUNTS CELEBRATING BOULDER FIREBOMBING WERE BOTS
According to a November 2023 report in The New York Times

...which still proudly claims Walter Duranty's Pulitzer prize...
, one in four accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X posting about the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
war during its first month appeared to be fake, with US and Israeli officials saying the disinformation volume was "unprecedented."

Cyabra is a for-profit company that counts former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo as a board member and Elon Musk as a former client; he hired Cyabra to analyze bot activity on Twitter before he acquired the platform in 2022.

The company recently worked with the Combat Antisemitism Movement, a nonprofit, to analyze social media activity in the wake of the fatal Molotov cocktailing of Israeli-hostage demonstrators in Boulder, Colorado, finding that 22% of the antisemitic accounts celebrating the attack were inauthentic, yet they garnered millions of views.

Link

Cyber

National security experts raise concerns after Microsoft program exposed as possible avenue for Chinese spying

2025-07-16

[FoxNews] Microsoft defends security after report flags China-based insider risks: 'Asking the fox to guard the henhouse'

A new ProPublica report accused Microsoft of allowing China-based engineers to assist with Pentagon cloud systems with inadequate guardrails in an effort to scale up its government contracting business, raising espionage concerns from national security experts.

The report cited current and former employees and government contractors who worked on a cloud computing program deployed by Microsoft in 2016 that would allow the tech giant to sell its cloud services to the government, known as a "digital escort" framework.

The security measure, meant to meet federal contracting regulations, was effectively a program that included a "digital escort" chaperone for global cybersecurity officials, such as those based in China, so they can work on agency computing systems.

Defense Department guidelines require that people handling sensitive data be U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

According to sources who spoke to ProPublica, including some who had intimate familiarity with the hiring process for the $18-per-hour "digital escort" position, the tech employees being hired to do the supervising lacked the adequate tech expertise to prevent a rogue Chinese employee from hacking the system or turning over classified information to the CCP.

The sources elaborated that the escorts, often former military personnel, were hired for their security clearances more than their technical abilities and often lacked the skills to evaluate code being used by the engineers they were supervising.

In China, people are governed by sweeping laws compelling government cooperation with data collection efforts.

"If ProPublica’s report turns out to be true, Microsoft has created a national embarrassment that endangers our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. Heads should roll, those responsible should go to prison and Congress should hold extensive investigations to uncover the full extent of potential compromise," said Michael Lucci, the CEO and founder of State Armor Action, a conservative group with a mission to develop and enact state-level solutions to global security threats.

"Microsoft or any vendor providing China with access to Pentagon secrets verges on treasonous behavior and should be treated as such."

"This is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse and arming the chickens with sticks in case the fox gets mad," Michael Sobolik, a Hudson Institute foreign policy senior fellow, added. "It beggars belief."

Microsoft uses its escort system to handle sensitive government information that falls below "classified," which includes "data that involves the protection of life and financial ruin," ProPublica reported. At the Defense Department, the data is categorized as "Impact Level" four and five, which ProPublica reported includes materials directly supporting military operations.

A Microsoft spokesperson defended the company's "digital escort" model, saying all personnel and contractors with privileged access must pass federally approved background checks.

"For some technical requests, Microsoft engages our team of global subject matter experts to provide support through authorized U.S. personnel, consistent with U.S. government requirements and processes," the spokesperson added. "In these instances, global support personnel have no direct access to customer data or customer systems."

Link

Europe

The Spanish Government wants Huawei to manage wiretaps for government

2025-07-16

The title is slightly less inflammatory than that, but it doesn't match the text of the article.
[TechRadar] Huawei will manage authorized wiretaps for the Spanish government

Huawei has won a contract to provide digital storage for the Spanish Government
The Chinese tech giant will store and classify court-ordered wiretaps
This contrasts other western states that now largely avoid Huawei, and Chinese tech

Any Spanish government wiretaps carried out by law enforcement agencies will soon be managed by Chinese telecom giant Huawei thanks to a recently-won contract.

The €12.3 million contract was awarded to Huawei after a standard public procurement procedure - and the contract includes digital storage of judicially-ordered wiretaps, reports The Objective.

Huawei will supply its own high performance storage servers, OceanStor 6800 V5 for the project, which will store and classify intercepted communications and data collected through state agencies.

MIXED MESSAGES
Sectors of the National Police in Spain have grown uneasy with Huawei’s involvement in sensitive systems, with sources expressing concern over strategic inconsistencies regarding China and the state’s access to data and a potential threat to national security.

Huawei points out that no backdoor has ever been identified within its telecommunications equipment, and the company asserts that it would not answer CCP requests for intelligence, nor would its equipment be used to spy (unless you count government wiretapping contracts).

Spain’s PM Pedro Sánchez has been one of the least combative towards Huawei’s presence, with Spain remaining a close partner within the EU for the company - holding several contracts with public administrations.

Interestingly enough though, the recent procurement comes in contrast to Spain’s de facto banishment of the Chinese telecom giant from all critical infrastructure, having reduced Huawei’s presence in the 5G cores of the largest three Spanish operators to 0%, according to Euronews.

European and American governments have been increasingly distancing themselves from Chinese technology firms in recent months, primarily citing national security concerns and the threat of exfiltrated data.

An ongoing trade war between the US and China has seen firms on both sides cut off from the opposing market, with market leaders like chipmaker Nvidia saying US tariffs mean it faces a multi-billion dollar hit.

Link

Afghanistan

'More effective than NATO': SCO welcomes Taliban and is not afraid of Trump

2025-07-16

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Gevorg Mirzayan

[TEGNUM] On Tuesday, July 15, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov concluded his major Asian tour. In the Chinese city of Tianjin, he took part in a meeting of colleagues from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and before the meeting he was received by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The success story at the meeting was unexpectedly Afghanistan, the same one that used to be the main threat to the SCO. They managed to find a common language with the Taliban. But Russia's relations with the US are not so cloudless - at the summit, Lavrov, taking advantage of the opportunity, spoke about the pressure that the United States is exerting on Moscow and other members of the organization.

The SCO itself has long been a model structure for a multipolar world. Firstly, it has no vertical leadership: everyone, from China to Kyrgyzstan, has an equal voice and veto power. Secondly, because the SCO includes rivals at odds with each other (for example, India and Pakistan) and thus encourages them to cooperate.

THE PILLAR OF EURASIAN SECURITY
This is primarily about cooperation in the area of collective defense. “ The SCO was initially created as an organization focused on economic cooperation. Now the economy has gone to BRICS, and the SCO is primarily concerned with security,” Nikita Mendkovich, head of the Eurasian Analytical Club, explains to Regnum.

It just so happens that all members of the organization are interested in stability, progressive development and the preservation of the secular nature of power in Central Asia. That is, simply put, it is necessary to protect the region from radical Islam and the influence of third overseas countries - those that are located far away, but still try to turn Central Asia into a source of unrest.

"It was decided to create a Universal SCO Center for Combating New Challenges and Threats in Tashkent on the basis of the current Regional Anti-Terrorism Center. At the same time, an SCO Anti-Drug Center is being created in Dushanbe, which will be linked by a special agreement and interaction procedures with the Center for Combating New Challenges and Threats, and a structure aimed at combating organized crime will be formed in Bishkek," Sergey Lavrov said following the meeting.

At the same time, some threats that have poisoned the atmosphere in Central Asia for decades have now been neutralized. For example, Afghanistan, with whose authorities Moscow has managed to reach an agreement. And not only Moscow. “Almost all SCO members are stepping up work with Kabul on a bilateral basis, and we are all united in the importance of effectively assisting in the restoration of this country and its sustainable development as an independent, neutral, peaceful state free of terrorism and drugs,” the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

This means that it is possible that Afghanistan will soon transform from a source of problems into a transit region for North-South transport corridors, and will also conclude agreements with Russia, China and other countries – “deals,” as US President Donald Trump would say – to develop its mineral wealth. Such equal agreements could also contribute to the growth of prosperity for ordinary Afghans.

Possible, yes. Have the Taliban given up their idea of an expansive Caliphate — Al Qaeda’s, if not their own?

"We can safely say that in the case of Afghanistan, the SCO succeeded more than NATO," Nikita Mendkovich sums up. It is not surprising, because when you respect other people's choice and sovereignty, and do not bomb weddings and do not teach other people how to live, these people are drawn to you.

THE BACKGROUND OF THE ULTIMATUM
The agenda of the meeting also included a topic that is outside the jurisdiction of the SCO – Ukraine. Lavrov spoke about the Kyiv regime’s refusal to negotiate, about the participation of Europeans in the SVO – but many were primarily interested in Trump’s fresh threat to introduce 100% tariffs against Moscow and its trade partners if an agreement that would end the armed struggle is not reached within 50 days.

Lavrov said that Russia responded to this statement calmly, making it clear that it would wait. "We want to understand what is behind this statement of '50 days'. There were 24 hours and 100 days before. We have been through all of this, and we really want to understand what motivates the President of the United States," the minister explained.

And the issue here is not so much about the motives for the threats - they are quite clear. Trump was, of course, driven by the desire to force the Kremlin to accept his scheme (which only assumed a deep freeze and did not take into account the goals of the SVO).

"Without the ability to convince Moscow within the framework of bilateral relations, the President of the United States, apparently, decided to do this through Russia's partners - members of the SCO. To put pressure on them so that they, in turn, put pressure on Moscow," Dmitry Suslov, deputy head of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, suggests in a conversation with the Regnum news agency.

The question is what the White House owner will do next. In Moscow, they believe that his new strategy is doomed to failure. "Our trade partners hear what has been said, but they can hardly predict their actions now. They have obligations, international obligations. And knowing these partners of ours, I do not see how they can abandon their independent policy," says Lavrov.

BENEFITS FROM PARTNERSHIP
The addressees of Trump's ultimatum are obviously such SCO members as India and China - the main buyers of our energy resources. It is highly likely that they will not refuse to purchase. Not only because of their independent policy, but also because of their unwillingness to lose the benefits of partnership.

China, which understands that Russia's importance as a major supplier of resources is only growing on the eve of an inevitable conflict with the United States, will not refuse. India, which, after the start of the NWO, sharply increased its purchases of Russian oil for processing at its refineries and subsequent sale as fuel and other oil products, is unlikely to refuse.

Last month, purchases reached an 11-month high of about 2.08 million barrels per day, according to Indian media.

"And on each barrel they save about 10 dollars. In general, Russia now accounts for 40 to 50% of all Indian crude oil imports," explains Igor Yushkov, a lecturer at the Financial University and an expert at the National Energy Security Fund, to Regnum.

Delhi does not want to lose this income, especially because of empty threats. “India has not yet responded to Trump’s threats. So far, he has only made words. When these words become actions, then there will be some kind of reaction,” Alexey Kupriyanov, head of the Indian Ocean Region Center at IMEMO RAS, explains to Regnum.

THE GENERAL LINE IS UNCHANGED
Moscow is betting on patient waiting, which has its own logic. Trump has made loud promises and threats on trade, security, and relations with allies more than once or twice. His threats rarely develop into specific systemic actions. Including because these steps, as it turns out, can often harm the United States itself more.

This was the case with the sharp increase in import tariffs for China – and this will most likely be the case with the threats of tariffs against the same India. If not Trump himself, then at least his advisers should remember how the story ended with Delhi, which was threatened for cooperation with Tehran several years ago.

At that time, these threats provoked the anger of Indian politicians, scientists and civil society in general. The attack on sovereignty had the opposite effect to what was desired. As a result, Washington, not wanting to lose a promising partner in South Asia, backed down.

We have stated that our common line on strengthening the SCO as one of the supporting pillars of a more just multipolar world order remains unchanged," Lavrov said following the meeting in Tianjin. According to him, this common vision is supposed to be reflected in the SCO development strategy until 2035.

Link

China-Japan-Koreas

China becomes the first Asian country to export attack helicopters — with its first batch delivered to Pakistan

2025-07-16

[X]

🚨 China becomes the first Asian country to export attack helicopters — with its first batch delivered to Pakistan. 🚁🇨🇳🇵🇰 pic.twitter.com/9DOTpRIZHn
— Defence Index (@Defence_Index) July 15, 2025

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Chinese illegals accused of plotting to scam elderly Americans out of life savings

2025-07-15

[FoxNews] U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested two Chinese illegals accused of conning elderly Americans out of tens of thousands of dollars, authorities said Tuesday.

"It takes a real dirtbag to prey on our most vulnerable community members by attempting to swindle them out of their hard-earned savings," ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Deputy Field Office Director Joseph Freden said in a statement. "We remain committed to the arrest and removal of aliens who undermine the safety of our communities and the integrity of our laws."

The suspects, charged with separate crimes, have been identified as Jian Chen and Rihui Yan.

Chen allegedly conned a 63-year-old woman out of $42,000 and arranged to obtain nearly $100,000 more in Potsdam, New York. He found agents from Homeland Security Investigations and ICE Enforcement Removal Operations instead of the victim when he went to meet, authorities said.

Yan, whom ICE dubbed a "scam artist and illegal alien," allegedly tried to swindle an elderly Wyoming County couple for $20,000 -- their life savings.

Both are being held without bond pending removal.

"This HSI Massena investigation underscores HSI’s commitment to disrupting and dismantling transnational criminal organizations and groups intent on exploiting our vulnerable communities," said HSI Buffalo Special Agent in Charge Erin Keegan. "We will never stand idly by while bad actors – in this case, illegally present Chinese nationals – target innocent New Yorkers for their own selfish gain,"

A third Chinese suspect, Hui Chen, was arrested on similar charges in October 2024 and is in custody pending deportation, authorities said.

Border officials told Fox News last year that the fastest growing group of illegal migrants crossing the southern border was coming from China.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has led a massive removal campaign targeting criminal aliens across the country.

Link

Government Corruption

Dr. Fauci referred to top prosecutor for criminal charges after bombshell Biden autopen pardon revelation

2025-07-15

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Republican Rand Paul is redoubling his efforts in his investigation into the man who led America's COVID-19 response, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

The Kentucky senator, who has grilled Fauci about the pandemic since 2021, is demanding that he be criminally prosecuted for lying to Congress in light of new shocking details about his presidential pardon.

Fauci was granted a preemptive pardon by ex-President Joe Biden as he left office, which could shield him from some consequences related to the pandemic.

But Biden admitted the pardon was signed by autopen, and not himself, raising questions about his mental state as he issued the sweeping relief for Fauci.

'If the President didn’t authorize this pardon personally, then the Department has a duty to investigate and prosecute as it would any ordinary citizen,' Paul wrote in a post on X made Monday afternoon, announcing his latest legal move against Fauci.

Paul told the Daily Mail last month that he was preparing to subpoena Fauci as part of an expanded Senate investigation into the origins of Covid-19 and US-funded research in Wuhan, China.

The goal: scrutinize Fauci's role in approving controversial virus experiments.

Paul announced earlier on Monday that he would 'reissue [his] criminal referral of Anthony Fauci to Trump DOJ!'

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Japanese Salmon in a Russian River: How Kurosawa Rubbed Soldiers' Belts

2025-07-15

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Vasily Avchenko

[REGNUM] In July 1975, Akira Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala premiered at the Moscow International Film Festival, soon winning an Oscar and a bunch of other awards. What is interesting about this Soviet-Japanese film, shot half a century ago, today?

Its literary basis is the books "Along the Ussuri Region" and "Dersu Uzala" by the Far East researcher, scientist, and writer Vladimir Arsenyev (1872-1930). In them, according to Gorky's formulation, he managed to unite Brehm and Fenimore Cooper.

HIS EXCELLENCY'S ADJUTANT IN THE USSURI TAIGA
The works describing the expeditions to Primorye and other events of 1902–1910 are linked by a common hero, the Gold (Nanai) Dersu Uzala. His prototype is the Ussuri taiga hunter Derchu Odzhal, who lost his family due to a smallpox epidemic.

In 1906 and 1907 he was a guide for Arsenyev's detachment. A year later, Derchu was killed near Khabarovsk, at Korfovskaya station.

Akira Kurosawa knew and loved Russian classics. He made The Idiot based on Dostoevsky and The Lower Depths based on Gorky, used motifs from Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich in To Live, and thought about adapting Taras Bulba and Notes from the House of the Dead.

Kurosawa became interested in Arsenyev's works back in the late 1940s and even looked for locations on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. However, he later said: "In Hokkaido, such a film... could not have been made. The scale of nature there is different, not like the Ussuri taiga. A person like Dersu Uzala could not have lived there."

In the early 1970s, the Japanese classic was going through a crisis. His film "Under the Knock of Tram Wheels" was a flop, the director was thinking about suicide... And suddenly - as a sign of warming between Japan and the USSR and a life preserver - an invitation to Mosfilm.

The script was written by Kurosawa himself and writer Yuri Nagibin. The director approved Yuri Solomin for the role of Arsenyev, having highly praised the actor's work in Yevgeny Tashkov's "Adjutant of His Excellency".

It was more difficult with the lead actor. If in the Soviet film by Agassi Babayan "Dersu Uzala" (1961) the "foreigner" was played by the actor from Kazakhstan Kasym Zhakibayev, then Kurosawa initially saw his "talisman" Toshiro Mifune in this role.

Among others, they tried out Dersu and the Nanai Kola Beldy, who sang on stage on behalf of all the northern peoples at once (“I’ll take you to the tundra,” “And the deer are better,” “The Chukchi in the tent,” etc.).

In the end, however, Arsenyev’s companion was played by Tuvan actor Maxim Munzuk.

PAINTED BOARS AND GILDED LEAVES
The filming took place in Primorye, the expedition was based in the city of Arsenyev. Not only people were involved, but also animals - tiger Artyom, bear Rita, red deer Katya. Wild boars were played by black-painted state farm boars.

Translating Arsenyev’s semi-documentary prose, a hybrid of “Western” and scientific report, into the language of cinema is not easy: lengthy descriptions of landscapes, a mass of Latin terms… Kurosawa, who was maniacally demanding of every frame, insisted that the straps on Dersu’s knapsack be made of rawhide, and that the actors’ moustaches and beards be real.

He personally aged soldiers’ belts with sandpaper, straightened stones in a stream, and tinted leaves to prolong the golden autumn… In his memoirs, Kurosawa called these filmings in the USSR “the spawning of Japanese salmon in a Russian river.”

The Eastern-style meditative philosophical film almost turned into a scandal.

Relations between China and the USSR in those years, after the 1969 battles on Damansky Island, left much to be desired. Beijing perceived the film adaptation by Arsenyev (who was indeed a real hawk in matters concerning Russia's national interests) as an element of an "anti-Chinese international conspiracy."

The Chinese media wrote: this is propaganda of "expansionist policy" by "the renegade clique of Soviet revisionists." In particular, criticism was raised about the scene where an old Chinese man bows to Arsenyev: "This was done on strict orders from the leaders of the Soviet revisionist empire, who want modern China to bow to the USSR in the same way."

The head of the KGB, Yuri Andropov, even reported to the Central Committee of the CPSU that the case could turn into a “rather burning political problem”…

Kurosawa, however, wisely noted: “I… am against including politics in this film.”

THE ENCHANTED WANDERER
Today, hardly anyone would see a political subtext in it. But in Arsenyev's books and Kurosawa's film, something else remains - the main and timeless: man, his place in the world, responsibility for everything that happens on the planet.

Arsenyev called Dersu a "primitive communist", alien to the "vices that... urban civilization brings". His Dersu is a person living in harmony with himself and the world, critical of technical progress in the absence of moral progress. He is a bearer of ecological consciousness and tolerance (in the highest sense of the word), a stalker-guide not only to the "temple of the taiga", but also to the hidden dimensions of another, subtle world.

No less important is Arsenyev himself, the author and hero, an enchanted wanderer, a city dweller who became a taiga dweller. This metropolitan native settled forever in a distant Far Eastern province, making his own personal "turn to the East." The infantry officer became a scientist of the broadest profile, a defender of indigenous peoples and nature.

His books, written at the same time as Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West, contain not only descriptions of the taiga, rivers and mountains of the Ussuri region, but also criticism of modern civilization.

Finally, Arsenyev is a consistent patriot who at all times (including dark and troubled ones) defended the interests of his Fatherland, no matter what it was called at one or another historical moment.

Soon we will be able to see Dmitry Kiselev's series "Arsenyev". The main role is played by Yevgeny Mironov, Dersu is played by Kazakh actor Ondasyn Besikbasov.

The journey through the wilds of the Ussuri region, which began more than a century ago, continues.

Link

Science & Technology

NIH Director Bhattacharya warns U.S. taxpayers are funding science journals compromised by China

2025-07-14

[JustTheNews] Publisher behind 'Proximal Origin' paper that dismissed lab leak, covertly shaped by Collins and Fauci, reportedly flush with Chinese money. "What exact service is being provided" for massive publishing fees, Bhattacharya wonders.

The National Institutes of Health isn't just concerned about how much taxpayers are spending to read scientific and medical journals where the published research has already been funded by taxpayers. It wants to know more about publishers' possible ties to hostile powers.

NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya announced a cap starting this fall on how much journals can charge "NIH-supported scientists to make their research findings publicly accessible" and told investigative journalist Paul Thacker the fees prop up Germany-based publisher Springer Nature, which has a "tremendous investment and interest in the Chinese scientific establishment."

The 3,000-journal publishing behemoth declined to confirm to Fox News last month the Trump administration terminated one contract and didn't renew three others, claiming there was "no material change" to its "global business."

One of its journals is Nature Medicine, which published the "Proximal Origin" paper dismissing a COVID-19 lab leak from China after forcing the coauthors to completely rule out the plausibility of a leak as a condition of publishing it.

The paper was covertly shaped by Bhattacharya predecessor Francis Collins and then-National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, who funded the research that may have unleashed the pandemic with U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Then-interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin sought information from Nature Medicine this spring, suggesting it committed a quid pro quo with Collins and Fauci, who soon after gave coauthor Kristian Andersen federal grants, by leaving their names off "Proximal Origin."

Springer Nature also publishes Scientific American and Nature, which both endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for president in 2020. The former tried to quash the Chinese lab-leak theory as "xenophobia."

ESTIMATED $2.5 BILLION IN OPEN-ACCESS FEES IN 2023
Bhattacharya's announcement Tuesday, two months after rushing a new policy to immediately make public NIH-funded research, said major publishers charge up to $13,000 per article for "immediate open access" on top of subscription fees, apparently referring to Nature's "gold open access" option.

He said "one publishing group reportedly" got more than $2 million from NIH subscriptions, not including "tens of millions more through exclusive article processing charges." A Canadian study estimated the six largest publishers charged more than $2.5 billion in open-access fees in 2023, nearly triple the spending from 2019.

Bhattacharya said he once pulled his own "self-funded" paper from a journal after realizing it charged an "exorbitant" publishing fee.

"Big publishers – Springer Nature, Elsevier – have effective monopoly power" over scientific publishing, and it's "crazy" to charge so much for just "putting it out there on the internet" when most journals don't pay scientific reviewers and pay their editors "very little," Bhattacharya told Thacker. "So what exact service is being provided?"

The new cap will keep publication fees "reasonable across the research ecosystem," NIH said. Asked for a more specific figure, Bhattacharya told Just the News "we're still working that out … No firm number yet."

'ESSENTIALLY TAKING THE CHINESE AT THEIR WORD'
Bhattacharya called out Springer Nature as tainted by Chinese government influence when Thacker asked how "Proximal Origin" had still not been corrected to note the participation of Fauci, Collins and World Health Organization chief scientist Jeremy Farrar, who convened the authors and made a key change to the paper.

"Essentially taking the Chinese at their word," the paper was published "very early in the pandemic and somehow concluded on the basis of very, very flimsy if any evidence" that SARS-CoV-2 must have come from a wet market, he said.

Thacker noted 2017 reporting by the Financial Times that Springer Nature blocked at least a thousand academic articles in China mentioning "sensitive" subjects to the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and 2021 Unherd reporting that Chinese institutions paid Springer Nature an estimated $10 million in sponsorship agreements the previous year.

HHS sources told Thacker, a former Senate pharmaceutical corruption investigator, the agency is looking at CCP influence on U.S. science agencies and universities as well, he said.

"I don't want to paint with too broad a brush" about scientists in China and Chinese scientists in the U.S., Bhattacharya said. "But we are in a competition with the Chinese establishment for the preeminent position of biomedical sciences in the 21st century" and "have to think carefully and strategically about our links with the Chinese government."

The NIH director declined to comment on "any ongoing investigations" when Thacker noted in his reporting last month that the Justice Department is investigating a federal grant to a viral "spillover" research program that includes "Proximal Origin" coauthor Andersen.

'WE NEED A PROFESSIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION'
Andersen was "in the process of fleeing" the U.S. amid the DOJ investigation, and Norwegian molecular biologist Sigrid Bratlie claimed "several sources" told her that University of Oslo scientists were trying to recruit Andersen, according to Thacker.

A public records production to public health watchdog U.S. Right to Know revealed that Andersen was one of the scientists cited in an unclassified State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research report, obtained by Thacker, that came out a week after "Proximal Origin."

Those scientists gave a briefing to the department that claimed "available genomic evidence" shows SARS-CoV-2 "probably emerged naturally in an animal," the unclassified report said.

A Dec. 4, 2020, email from State official David Feith, whom President Trump fired this April, relayed that Andersen sai in the briefing his initial doubts about SARS-CoV-2 being fully natural were "put to rest by more detailed analysis," which contradicted what Andersen told his coauthors a month after the briefing.

While Andersen, who claims to hold dual Danish and U.S. citizenship, told the San Diego Union-Tribune he has "considered leaving the United States" following NIH's ban on foreign subawards and NIAID cutting the spigot to his spillover research as "unsafe for Americans," he denied he had accepted a post at the University of Oslo.

“Did we have a foreign national parading into the intel agencies and convincing senior officials to not look into a matter?” an unnamed State official told Thacker. "That’s a counter-intelligence matter. We need a professional law enforcement investigation."

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Special Forces raid on 'narco tanker' that could expose the Irish gangsters behind the largest drug smuggling cartel in the world

2025-07-14

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] An undercover operation by American agents that successfully infiltrated a global drugs trafficking ring run by the Kinahan cartel has been revealed for the first time - days after eight gangsters who were caught in a Special Forces raid on a 'narco-tanker' in the Irish Sea were jailed.

In a dramatic operation akin to something from a movie, operatives from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) penetrated the gang's vast international network.

The high-stakes mission, revealed for the first time in newly unsealed federal court records, exposed how the bloodthirsty group was expanding its empire globally in a bid to rival the likes of Mexico's fearsome Sinaloa Cartel.

Gangsters from the Irish narcotic empire - which has links to mainland Britain - are accused of trafficking methamphetamine and fentanyl precursor chemicals worldwide.

The discovery by the DEA will undoubtedly worry drugs barons within the group, with the authority's investigation now exposing the cartel's move towards smuggling synthetic drugs - a shift from its traditional cocaine trafficking operation.

News of the dramatic operation by American agents comes after eight men from the Kinahan cartel were jailed earlier this month for their part in trying to smuggle 2.2 tonnes of cocaine, worth £132million ($178million) into the country.

The vast haul was found after special forces soldiers from the Irish Army Range Wing fast-roped from a helicopter onto the Panamanian cargo ship, MV Matthew, in September 2023.

The bust was hailed the biggest-ever cocaine seizure in Irish waters and exposed how the Kinahans were linked to the Iran-backed terror group, Hezbollah.

They’ve been embedded with the Mexican cartels at the American border and south in cocaine country for decades, as I recall...

Details of the American mission combined with the Irish special forces raid, are raising fresh questions about just how powerful the Kinahan cartel is in the global drugs trade - and how far their reach now extends across the globe.

Founded in the late 1990s in Dublin, the narcotics ring is led by 'Dapper Don' Christy Kinahan, a former street dealer-turned-international cocaine trafficker.

The cartel is notorious for its brutal tactics, having been accused of a number of gangland hits against rivals.

Now based in Dubai, Kinahan and his sons Daniel and Christopher Jr are the subjects of international sanctions, with a $5million bounty from the US authorities hanging over their heads.

Now, new details have emerged revealing how DEA agents had infiltrated the Kinahans more than a year before the mega drugs bust in September 2023.

The operation began in the Turkish city of Ankara, in June 2022, when the authority's office there recruited a confidential informant, codenamed 'Queen', to penetrate the gang's trafficking operation, reports The Times.

The insider gained the trust of Opinder Singh Sian, a Canadian national accused of holding a top position in the network, who was arrested in Nevada last month.

Singh is a Sikh name, right?

It's alleged Sian told undercover agents he was linked to the Kinahan cartel, the Italian mafia and a major Turkish trafficker wanted since 2019.

An ambitious man..

The Kinahans are known to have strong links to Turkey, with the gang having substantial investments in the country. Kinahan's cartel also supplies drugs to Australia.

Under the guidance of DEA handlers, Queen introduced Sian to an undercover agent posing as a relative, who claimed to have the ability to shift vast quantities of drugs via the Port of Long Beach, one of America's busiest container ports.

According to US documents, the three met in March 2023 at a restaurant in Manhattan Beach, California, to set up a new trafficking deal smuggling methamphetamine to Australia, where prices can exceed $200,000 per kilo.

Over the summer of 2023, Sian worked with a team of undercover agents to set up a staged shipment of meth via a safehouse in Pomona, east of Los Angeles.

DEA agents then staged a fake handover, seizing the real drugs for analysis before replacing them with decoy packages.

Meanwhile, when the ship arrived in Australia, police there used a GPS-tracked container to trace the trail to a suspected drugs den in Sydney.

Court documents also show how Sian had used encrypted apps such as Threema to communicate with Queen and other suspected traffickers.

And further investigation uncovered plans by the Kinahans to allegedly smuggle fentanyl precursor chemicals from China into the United States via Canada, with Queen reportedly meeting two Canadian collaborators of Sian who were aiding the narcotics expansion.

The extensive undercover operation provides fresh insight into how the Kinahans have linked up with other key figures in the criminal underworld to try and gain a foothold in the international drugs trade, shifting drugs through global ports.

It's unclear whether this undercover operation provided intelligence which ultimately led to the huge bust on the drugs container ship in September 2023.

As previously reported, the gang's plans were dealt a major blow when its £132million haul of cocaine was seized by the Irish authorities.

An elite strike force from the Irish Defence Force roped in from helicopters in gale-force winds while the container ship's crew desperately attempted to evade them. Dramatic footage of the raid showed how Irish troops were in 'hot pursuit' of the criminals, which included warning shots fired by the Naval Service before army rangers stormed the ship.

The Panama-flagged MV Matthew entered Irish territorial waters on September 23, 2023, having set off from Curacao, an island off the coast of Venezuela. But unbeknown to the crew, suspicions about its activities had been relayed to An Garda Siochana - Ireland's national police organisation -which ordered teams from its drugs and organised crime bureau to monitor the ship.

As part of the mission, the FV Castlemore fishing trawler, which had been purchased by two men with funding from an organised crime group, was also tracked. The two men on the FV Castlemore were communicating with criminal cells in Dubai and beyond about the MV Matthew 'mothership'.

The trawler engaged in a number of failed attempts to receive clandestine transfers of the cocaine from the MV Matthew.

During what would be its final attempt, the Irish Coast Guard engaged with the vessel to warn it of dangerous conditions and inquire about its lack of movement.

The FV Castlemore later put out a distress call to the Coast Guard after running aground on a sandbank off the Wexford coast.

The crew were rescued by Coast Guard helicopter and taken to the naval vessel, the LE WB Yeats - essentially inadvertently handing themselves in for arrest.

When the mothership became aware of the distress call, a change of plan was ordered.

Voice messages from an individual in Dubai, identified as 'Captain Noah' and who gardai believe remains in the Middle East, show the crew on the MV Matthew were instructed to load all cocaine into a lifeboat for a rendezvous with a different vessel - which would not occur due to the interception by Irish authorities.

The MV Matthew repeatedly ignored instructions from Revenue and the Naval Service's LE WB Yeats.

Text messages and voice notes show panicked communications within the criminal network, including the incorrect belief that the ship would not be boarded if it headed further into international waters.

While trying to evade the naval service, the LE WB Yeats entered a 'hot pursuit' and - acting as a warship - fired warning shots in the vicinity of the MV Matthew.

The captain of the MV Matthew communicated that it was a commercial vessel and was not in jurisdiction covered by the Irish navy: 'Irish warship, please do not fire at us.'

He added: 'Can you advise if you are in hot pursuit of us?'

Link

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