Terrorism and War

A smashed window is seen in one of the stores inside a shopping mall after looting in Maracaibo. Photograph: Isaac Urrutia/Reuters

theguardian.com - by Tom Phillips - March 26, 2019

. . . Maracaibo’s “madness” began on the night of 10 March – three days after a catastrophic blackout plunged almost the entire nation into darkness. But it had been long in the making thanks to years of economic and political neglect.

The 1.6 million residents of Maracaibo – an oil capital once celebrated as Latin America’s answer to Houston – complained of shortages of water, electricity and fuel and a worsening public transport system even before Venezuela’s crisis began to accelerate in 2016, with the onset of hyperinflation.

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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov in Moscow last year. General Gerasimov said Saturday that Russia should bring a blend of political, economic and military power to bear against its adversaries.  Credit: Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik

nytimes.com - by Andrew E. Kramer - March 2, 2019

The chief of Russia’s armed forces endorsed on Saturday the kind of tactics used by his country to intervene abroad, repeating a philosophy of so-called hybrid war that has earned him notoriety in the West, especially among American officials who have accused Russia of election meddling in 2016 . . .

. . . General Gerasimov said Russia’s armed forces must maintain both “classical” and “asymmetrical” potential, using jargon for the mix of combat, intelligence and propaganda tools that the Kremlin has deployed in conflicts such as Syria and Ukraine.

And he cited the Syrian civil war an example of successful Russian intervention abroad. The combination of a small expeditionary force with “information” operations had provided lessons that could be expanded to “defend and advance national interests beyond the borders of Russia,” he said.

FBI Director Christopher Wray; CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats arrive with other U.S. intelligence community officials to testify before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on "worldwide threats" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 29, 2019. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

CLICK HERE - STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD - WORLDWIDE THREAT ASSESSMENT of the US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY - January 29, 2019 (42 page .PDF report)

reuters.com - by Patricia Zengerle, Doina Chiacu - January 29, 2019

China and Russia pose the biggest risks to the United States, and are more aligned than they have been in decades as they target the 2020 presidential election and American institutions to expand their global reach, U.S. intelligence officials told senators on Tuesday.

The spy chiefs broke with President Donald Trump in their assessments of the threats posed by North Korea, Iran and Syria. But they outlined a clear and imminent danger from China, whose practices in trade and technology anger the U.S. president.

The Aquarius is operated by MSF and SOS Méditerranée Photograph: Boris Horvat/AFP/Getty Images

Prosecutors allege garments on Aquarius should have been labelled as ‘toxic waste’

theguardian.com - by Lorenzo Tondo - November 20, 2018

Italian authorities have ordered the seizure of the migrant rescue ship Aquarius after claiming that discarded clothes worn by the migrants on their voyage from Libya to Italy could have been contaminated by HIV, meningitis and tuberculosis . . .

 . . . “Clothing categorically is not, and has never been, an HIV transmission risk,” said Deborah Gold, chief executive of the National AIDS Trust.

“This would have stood out as ridiculous even amongst the misinformation of the 1980s, never mind in 2018. Migrants and people seeking asylum have historically been attacked using myths about HIV and infectious conditions, and we condemn this both for its stigmatising of people living with HIV and of migrants fleeing hardship.”