News of the World

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Navy’s Task Force 59 To Keep Tabs On Iran With Armada Of Drones

The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command’s Task Force 59 began as an idea in a two-page white paper published 17 months ago, The War Zone learned in an interview with Commander Timothy Hawkins, force public affairs officer for U.S. 5th Fleet located in Bahrain. The command recognized the vast and dynamic nature of the Middle East’s maritime environment, and with that, the ways unmanned systems and artificial intelligence-enabled tech could be leveraged to more persistently monitor the tumultuous region. Then, in September 2021, Naval Forces Central Command officially stood up Task Force 59 to do just that.
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The team of roughly 20 is led by their commodore, Capt. Michael D. Brasseur, who himself has a history in maritime robotics. Task Force 59 has now been operating with Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) and U.S. 5th Fleet for well over a year, and they have several military exercises under their belts to show for it.

“The bottom line on why we’re doing this is so that we can develop and integrate unmanned systems and AI as a means to do two things,” said Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of NAVCENT, U.S. 5th Fleet and Combined Maritime Forces in September 2021. “One, enhance our maritime domain awareness, and two, increase deterrence.”

The NAVCENT and 5th Fleet command, which falls under the larger Central Command (CENTCOM) umbrella, is expansive. Its area of responsibility (AOR) broadly encompasses nearly 2.5 million square miles of water including the Arabian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea, and parts of the Indian Ocean, along with being comprised of 21 countries. With these areas being hotspots for adversarial activities, ensuring that the Navy can maintain vigilance over these regional waters at all times is an overarching goal of NAVCENT/5th Fleet that Task Force 59 is being called upon to address.
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As a matter of fact, just yesterday, Admiral Cooper publicly declared Task Force 59 as having achieved full operational capability.

South Korea Now Openly Discussing Arming Itself With Nuclear Weapons

South Korea's president has said that his country might build nuclear weapons in response to the continuing buildup of similar weapons in North Korea. This is the most explicit announcement so far from Seoul that it’s actively considering nuclear weapons, although the disclosure is also very likely calculated to pressure the United States into giving Seoul a role in nuclear war planning on the peninsula, and perhaps also to redeploy U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea, the last of these having being withdrawn in 1991.
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Pointing explicitly to North Korea’s rapid developments in nuclear warheads and delivery systems, Yoon noted:

“It’s possible that the problem gets worse, and our country will introduce tactical nuclear weapons or build them on our own. If that’s the case, we can have our own nuclear weapons pretty quickly, given our scientific and technological capabilities.”

Yoon also made it clear that Pyongyang’s expanding nuclear arsenal is a threat not only to the South but also to the United States and other allies.
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Another option that Yoon outlined would be to request that the United States redeploy tactical nuclear weapons to the South.
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At this stage, there is no formal policy regarding building nuclear weapons in South Korea. Instead, the immediate concern, Yoon said, is to strengthen the country’s military alliance with the United States.
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As a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, South Korea is currently prohibited from developing nuclear weapons. Under a separate joint declaration with North Korea dating from 1991, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed not to “test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.”

Hunter Biden lived at Delaware home where classified docs were kept

Hunter Biden lived off and on at the Delaware home where classified documents from Joe Biden’s time as vice president were found last month...hammering out shady foreign business deals and under federal investigation.
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Hunter also listed the home as the billing address for his personal credit card and Apple account in 2018 and 2019, respectively, Fox News Digital reported Friday after reviewing emails from his abandoned laptop.
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Hunter also frequented prostitutes during this time, dropping more than $30,000 on sex workers between November 2018 and March 2019 alone — making him a possible target for blackmail.

On Thursday, President Biden confirmed that sensitive papers had been found in the locked garage of the home, where he also keeps his vintage 1967 Corvette Stingray.
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On May 13, 2017, weeks after Hunter’s divorce was finalized, the now-first son was looped in on an email from business partner James Gilliar about a venture with Chinese state-backed energy firm CEFC China Energy. Gilliar’s email said that he, Hunter, and two other business partners would get 20% shares in the new business, with 10% going to Hunter’s uncle James Biden and the remaining 10% “held by H for the big guy.”

Another former Hunter business partner, Tony Bobulinski, alleges that he met with Joe Biden to discuss the CEFC venture on May 2, 2017, and that the president was the “big guy” referenced in Gilliar’s email. Gilliar himself also identified Joe Biden as the “big guy” in a communication retrieved from the laptop.

The following year, federal investigators began looking into whether Hunter and his business associates violated tax and money laundering laws during their dealings in China and other countries. Emails and other records related to the deals were found on the laptop, which Hunter dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in 2019 and never reclaimed.

Text messages recovered from the device indicated that Hunter frequently covered his family’s expenses — and gave as much as 50% of his earnings to his father.
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The laptop doesn’t contain any direct evidence of such money transfers but shows Hunter was routinely on the hook for household expenses — including repairs to the Wilmington home.

In December 2020, weeks after his father was elected president, Hunter Biden announced that his “tax affairs” were being investigated by federal authorities in Delaware, and said he was “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”
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Photos and emails uncovered by The Post indicate Joe Biden attended a 2015 dinner with a group of his son’s associates, including Vadym Pozharskyi — an executive at Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, where Hunter Biden was hired to serve on the board despite having no experience in the energy industry.