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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Trump's Girl and the Abolition of Unity. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine is being squeezed into a weapons workshop
2025-07-17
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Denis Davydov

[REGNUM] The Verkhovna Rada votes for the resignation of Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal with fights and shouts, and then a new government will inevitably be formed. Regnum News Agency reported that this would happen a month ago - all this time, the bargaining for seats continued, and the rotation in power shifted a little.

However, the logic of the political process was preserved, and the forecast regarding the candidacy of the new head of government (it will be headed by the current Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko ) and the change in the leadership of the Ministry of Defense turned out to be correct.

The new Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, according to the plan of the Office of the President, should appear as early as Thursday, July 17, and illegally, since the candidate should have been nominated by the parliamentary majority, and not by Zelensky, who announced it to everyone as a given.

In addition to “rearranging the beds,” there will be several consolidations in the cabinet—it is obvious that maintaining entire ministries that produce nothing but information noise is pointless.

Therefore, the “optimization” will affect such a funny institution as the Ministry of National Unity, and a separate ministry for strategic industries of Ukraine will be merged with the Ministry of Defense.

The minister of the cabinet of ministers will disappear - this position was introduced back in 2003, when Leonid Kuchma abolished the institution of state secretaries. The new head of the cabinet was to be responsible for organizing the work of the government and coordinating the activities of ministries.

Finally, the Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and the Ministry of Ecology will become a single entity - this will make it easier for the new boss to control the money.

All of these are symptoms of a serious illness, in which both the system of state administration and the spheres that are subject to management are. But we should start with the person of Sviridenko, because if we talk about symptoms, then she is the main pimple, signaling the state of the whole organism. And at the same time, she is the key person, explaining, if not everything, then a lot about what is happening.

"ONE MAN BAND"
Yulia Anatolyevna is a representative of the very same managerial elite that foreign organizations have been systematically preparing for Ukraine for many years.

The career growth of the girl from Chernigov cannot be called rapid, but in 10 years she has climbed the management ladder from the Chernigov Regional State Administration to the Cabinet of Ministers and the President's Office. And this happened thanks to the right connections.

After graduating from university, having worked in a company whose ultimate beneficiary, by a strange coincidence, is the main Turkish entrepreneur and philanthropist, CEO of Baykar Defence, Lutfü Haluk Bayraktar, Sviridenko went to accounting courses at the Kyiv School of Economics.

This non-profit organization was created back in 1996 specifically as a training ground for the countries of the collapsed Soviet Union. Its founders are The Economics Education and Research Consortium (EERC) and the foundation of Victor Pinchuk, the son-in-law of the second president, an oligarch and a systemic conductor of the interests of American Democrats and the Soros foundation in Ukraine.

At that time, the President of the KSE was already the future Minister of Economy, Timofey Milovanov, who himself received a master's degree in economics from the EERC, continued his education in the United States and worked there for some time in the field of education, so that after the victory of the Maidan he could immediately become a top official in his homeland.

The talented girl caught the eye of a foreign agent, so she was immediately placed in the State Property Fund of Ukraine to improve her skills. And over the next few years, she successfully completed several prestigious international training programs.

In particular, she completed two management training programs in Germany and a private sector growth strategy program organized by the Swedish International Development Agency Si2.

In 2015, when the victorious Maidan was building a system of power for itself, Yulia Anatolyevna was sent to help one of the owners of the Chernihiv region, a major agricultural businessman Valeriy Kulich, who became the richest governor in the country.

Before the “revolution of dignity,” Kulich was a people’s deputy from the Party of Regions, but he practically changed his masters by agreeing to head the region—Sviridenko became his advisor, director of the Department of Economics, and then oversaw decentralization issues as deputy governor.

"When I came to the Regional State Administration, even in the foreign economic department there were no people who knew English. Yulia was qualitatively different from other employees at that time," Kulich later said, after three years he had a falling out with Petro Poroshenko * and left his position.

In 2018, she became acting head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, holding the position for five months and sitting out until her new appointment in Kulich’s business.

Well, Milovanov invited her to Zelensky's team, nominating his protégé for the position of his deputy in the Ministry of Economy - even then, Sviridenko was known as a "one-man band" who had no problems with communication. By the way, in addition to English, she has known Chinese since her student years, and later learned Japanese as well.

So, as a proven and loyal employee, she remained in office after the minister was replaced, and at the end of 2020, she moved to the Presidential Office, where she dealt with economic issues and became part of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group to resolve the conflict in Donbas.

To feed her, she was introduced to the supervisory board of the NAK Naftogaz of Ukraine, and in addition, Sviridenko received a “ration” from the owners through the KSHE: she is regularly paid fees for some teaching activity - last year alone, she earned 3.1 million hryvnia (about 5.8 million rubles) here.

Already on November 4, 2021, Yulia Anatolyevna returned as "Yermak's person" to the Ministry of Economy, heading it as a minister, combining it with the position of first vice-prime minister. Under her hand, in particular, were such murky programs personally important for the Zelensky family as "National Cashback" and the All-Ukrainian mental health program "How are you?" of Elena Zelenskaya.

In 2022, it was Sviridenko who headed the joint Interdepartmental Working Group on the implementation of state sanctions policy, the purpose of which was to develop and introduce new sanctions against Russia. She joined the ongoing negotiations in European countries, effectively as a top diplomat, and after the arrival of the Trump administration, she led the dialogue on the so-called "Ukraine-US minerals agreement."

Her signature is under the final documents transferring Ukrainian natural resources to colonial management. So the position of the head of government is a very logical step in her career: a reliable and loyal person should lead the "post-war restoration" in favor of foreign owners.

REARRANGING THE BEDS
The fact that Yulia Sviridenko has built “constructive and effective” relations with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is decisive for the current rotation of prime ministers: there were no other candidates in principle.

"She will be one of the main contacts with the Trump administration on economic issues, first of all," says well-known Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko. At the same time, the almost Prime Minister enjoys the full trust of Zelensky and the head of his Office, who essentially runs the government manually.

So it is not surprising that Zelensky personally summoned Sviridenko and outlined her priority tasks.

The main thing, according to him, is to increase the production of domestic weapons, secure contracts for the production of the necessary volumes of all types of drones, carry out deregulation in order to “free up domestic economic potential,” and ensure the implementation of social support programs for Ukrainians.

“We have determined what results can be achieved in the first six months of the new government’s work,” Zelensky summed up after the meeting, and in principle it is clear that task No. 1 is to scale up weapons production and collect money from the population.

Other tasks are either impossible to accomplish or deeply secondary, as indicated by the proposed new composition of the Ukrainian Cabinet of Ministers.

This is what Sviridenko confirmed, stating that in her new position she needs to carry out a reduction in “non-critical government spending and duplication of functions of government institutions… and the complete concentration of government resources for the defense of Ukraine and recovery after military action.”

And “clearer instruments of social support” concern military personnel – former and current.

Therefore, the record holder for the longest tenure as head of government, Shmyhal, is moving to the Ministry of Defense and is taking over the system of the abolished Ministry of Strategic Industry - this is a huge enterprise, where an executive, loyal and completely unambitious Lviv resident would be more useful.

And the current minister Rustem Umerov, as reported by IA Regnum, is being kicked out of his post and, as expected, will be sent as ambassador to the States - the untouchable agent of influence who conducted negotiations with the Russian delegation against the will of his superiors is being returned home. Umerov's family lives in Florida, his father and brother have a business there, and in general, as we said, Sviridenko should now be in charge of coordination with the Trump administration.

Therefore, either a new leader of the group will appear at the next negotiations with Russia, or Kyiv will show that it does not intend to talk anymore.

Digital Transformation Minister Mikhail Fyodorov will probably become the first vice-president — he and the prime minister will work on drones together. And there is simply no replacement for such a specialist in the country.

The most curious thing about the current “reform” is the liquidation of the Ministry of Food – it is known to be headed by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Chernyshov, whose triumphant flight abroad and strange return as a suspect in a corruption criminal case became a prelude to the admission that there is no unity, and there is no point in suffering any longer.

The Ministry of Economy will be merged with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and the Ministry of Ecology into a single Ministry of Resources, which will be headed by Alexey Sobolev, Sviridenko's deputy. Everything is clear here: key economic areas will be under the general manager's control, and this is optimization.

And ecology figures here for a reason, since considerable funds are spent through this ministry on demining territories and other restoration activities, which the “one-man band” also managed to do.

All other changes are of little importance and are rather decorative. In general, one thing is clear: the main body of executive power is shrinking together with the state and reducing its activities to the minimum necessary. And subsequently it must make the transition to a new regime of existence under the complete control of foreign states.

That is why they raised such valuable specialists as Yulia Anatolyevna.

Link


Economy
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
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."
Related:
ProPublica 07/15/2025 Gavin Newsom Taunts Texas on Redistricting, but Can't Deliver on Threat
ProPublica 02/11/2025 CNN's Dana Bash Accuses Elon Musk of Making Money By 'Breaking the Rules'
ProPublica 01/15/2025 Summarizing the Confirmation Hearings, Day 1: Trump’s defense secretary pick: ‘I support Israel killing every last member of Hamas’

Related:
Microsoft 07/04/2025 Microsoft applies for 6,000 guest worker visas amid mass layoffs
Microsoft 07/04/2025 Microsoft Says Its New AI System Diagnosed Patients 4 Times More Accurately Than Human Doctors
Microsoft 06/28/2025 Windows 'Screen of Death' Will Change from Blue to Black

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


-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


Home Front: Politix
NYC mayor feuds with comptroller over Israel bonds investments
2025-07-15
[IsraelTimes] Eric Adams accuses Brad Lander of divesting from Israel in line with BDS policies; comptroller says decision was apolitical, city has hundreds of millions in other Israeli assets

New York City Mayor Eric Adams
...Hizonner da Mare of Noo Yawk. As a Manchurian candidate, Hizonner was all in favor of law and order and that kind of stuff. Once in office, a bunch of his friends found cushy jobs with the city, the windows kept getting broken, and Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg remained right where he was. Most people comfort themselves with the thought that he's not Bill di Blasio but that's pretty small comfort with kids who actually go to school getting bumped off while standing in front of them. But he's a Dem, so the rubes will vote for him next election too, so he's what they deserve...
on Sunday sent a letter to city comptroller Brad Lander, accusing Lander of effectively disinvesting from Israel bonds and linking the policy to the boycott campaign targeting Israel.

Lander rejected the accusations in a letter to Adams’s office, confirming that the city no longer held Israel bonds, but saying the decision against reinvesting in the bonds was in line with his office’s guidelines and not political.

Lander, as comptroller, is the highest-ranking Jew in the city government and identifies as a progressive Zionist. He partnered with New York City Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a harsh critic of Israel, during the city’s Democratic party mayoral campaign. Mamdani is a longtime supporter of the BDS campaign targeting Israel.

Mamdani won the campaign and is now the party’s nominee for the mayoral general election in November, when he will face off against Adams, who is running as an independent. Adams, who is not Jewish, is a staunch supporter of Israel who has leaned into the Jewish vote during the early stages of his reelection campaign.

Adams’s first deputy mayor, Randy Mastro, sent a letter Sunday on behalf of the Adams administration requesting a review of decision-making and "effective withdrawal" of New York City pension funds from Israel bonds. As comptroller, Lander is responsible for the city’s financial policy and acts as a check on the mayor. Adams and Lander have long had an adversarial relationship.

The Adams letter said "the public record is incomplete" regarding Lander’s Israel bonds investment policies. The mayor’s office said it appeared the city’s pension systems had held tens of millions of dollars in the bonds for decades, resulting in healthy returns with low risk. Under Lander, the bond holdings dropped to less than $1.2 million in the NYPD pension fund, the letter said, accusing Lander of a "sustained and coordinated decision" against reinvestment that had hurt the city’s investment returns because the Israeli bonds outperformed other similar assets.

Disputing Lander’s previous defense, that he had limited investment in all foreign debt, the mayor’s office said that Israel was the only country the city had bought bonds from, according to a copy of the letter Adams’s office shared with The Times of Israel.

"This policy appears to target only Israel bonds. This divestment, occurring amid a global ’Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS)’ campaign against Israel, appears to be in furtherance of that BDS campaign," the letter said.

Adams’s office requested all documents and communications surrounding the Israel bonds policy, including communications with third parties. The letter gave Lander one week to supply the information "because this matter implicates the financial security of hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers."

Lander disputed the mayor’s accusations in a response shared with The Times of Israel on Monday.

Lander mocked the mayor’s administration, saying it was "in poor position to question others about their legal and ethical obligations," an apparent reference to corruption allegations.

He confirmed that New York City had not reinvested in Israel bonds when they matured, does not hold any Israel bonds, and that Israel had been the only country the city had held bonds in. He said the purchase of the assets in the first place had been politically motivated, though, and at odds with his financial responsibilities.

"Prior Comptrollers chose to depart from standard cash management best practices to purchase Israel bonds," the letter said. "There was no credit process in place, no risk management, and no documentation for how purchases were approved."

The investment was "a political decision, not a fiduciary one," the letter said. The city had held more than $39 million in Israel bonds when Lander took office in January 2022. The bonds matured a year later, and the comptroller’s office had decided not to reinvest, in line with guidelines.

The city holds other Israeli assets, Lander said, countering the BDS charge. In May 2025, during the most recent audit, the city’s public pension systems held more than $315 million in Israeli assets, mostly common stocks.

Lander said that, under his stewardship, for the third consecutive year, the city’s investments had outperformed the 7% return targeted by the New York State legislature.

"We treat investments in Israel as we treat investments in any other country. No better, and no worse. The BDS Movement asks investors to treat Israel worse than other countries; I oppose this effort," Lander said. "You appear to be asking that the City’s pension funds treat Israel better than all other countries. That would also be politically motivated, and inconsistent with fiduciary duty."

He accused Adams of seeking to "exploit division" with the charges, adding, "I reject these cynical efforts."

During the mayoral primary, Lander and Mamdani cross-endorsed each other, meaning they asked their supporters to rank the other candidate second in the city’s ranked-choice voting system, which allows voters to select up to five candidates in order of preference. The cross-endorsement was a boost to both campaigns, but primarily Mamdani, because Lander was eliminated as a candidate during the vote counting. His supporters helped Mamdani win the election.

The runner-up was former New York governor Andrew Sonny Cuomo, who had appealed to Jewish voters and highlighted his support for Israel throughout the campaign. Cuomo has registered as an independent and will be on the ballot again for the general election.

Mamdani caused repeated controversies during the campaign with his anti-Israel rhetoric, especially his defense of the phrase "Globalize the intifada."
Related:
Eric Adams 07/02/2025 Trump threatens to arrest New York City mayoral candidate Mamdani
Eric Adams 06/29/2025 Ex-Hochul and Cuomo Aide Arrested As Chinese Agent, Kash Patel Calls for Full DOJ Investigation
Eric Adams 06/10/2025 Jewish groups pull out of San Diego Pride festival over anti-Israel singer’s performance

Related:
Brad Lander 06/25/2025 NYC Democratic party primary: Pro-Israel Cuomo concedes to socialist Mamdani in mayoral race, ditto for Brooklyn council member, but there are already questions about irregularities
Brad Lander 06/22/2025 ICE Agents Now Face 500% Increase in Assaults While Trying to Arrest Illegal Aliens
Brad Lander 06/05/2025 Schism in the Democratic Party: NYC mayoral candidates spar over Israel’s right to exist as Jewish state in 1st debate

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Good Morning
2025-07-15



'Disturbing pattern' of Secret Service 'failures' exposed in new report on Trump's Butler assassination attempt
Tuesday 07/15/2025

Mary Jones, aka Alar the Human Arrow
International-UN-NGOs
Three members of UN commission investigating
Israel resign amid Trump crackdown
Africa Subsaharan
Nigeria jails 44 people for
involvement in Boko Haram terrorism
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Two French intelligence agencies did
not share Lebanon and 'burned' their own agents
Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
FSB burns 530 kg of cocaine worth over 1 billion rubles
Africa Horn
Somalia: Al Shabaab militants
have seized Tardo in central Hiiran region
Europe
In Copenhagen, Denmark, a fight broke out between Islamist migrants trying to convert people and a gay Chinese tourist
Syria says wildfires in Latakia
province contained after 10 days

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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.

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Europe
In Copenhagen, Denmark, a fight broke out between Islamist migrants trying to convert people and a gay Chinese tourist
2025-07-15
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]
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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."
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Down Under
Australia Hosts Largest-Ever Military Exercise as China Watches
2025-07-14
[Breitbart] The largest-ever war-fighting drills in Australia, Exercise Talisman Sabre, are underway and expected to attract the attention of Chinese spy ships.

Talisman Sabre began in 2005 as a biennial joint exercise between the United States and Australia.

This year, more than 35,000 military personnel from 19 nations, including Canada, Fiji, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Tonga, and the United Kingdom, will take part over three weeks, Australia´s defense department said Sunday.

Malaysia and Vietnam are also attending as observers.
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