News of the World

[kyonides]

Jury Urged to Sentence to Death Man Who Killed 8 on New York Bike Path

A federal prosecutor urged a New York jury to sentence Sayfullo Saipov to death as the penalty phase of his trial began on Monday, saying his execution would be the only just punishment after he killed eight people in his 2017 attack on a Manhattan bike path.

It marked the first time jurors have been asked to vote for the federal death penalty since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021 after promising voters he would abolish the punishment.

Defense lawyers for the Uzbek immigrant called the death penalty barbaric, and urged the jurors to vote instead for life in prison for Saipov, who mowed down people with a rental truck on Oct. 31, 2017.

The death penalty is something New Yorkers are rarely asked to consider; the state’s death penalty was found unconstitutional in 2004, and federal capital cases are infrequent.

Prosecutors said Saipov deserved to be executed because he killed eight people and attempted to kill 18 more in a carefully planned attack inspired by ISIS, which the United States has designated a terrorist organization.

They also say killing Saipov is warranted because he has shown no remorse, and because he still posed a threat even in prison.

So how could anybody dare to defend a guy that  murdered many people and still wanted to kill even more?
This is one of those cases where the death penalty is just and badly needed.
Why should a  murderer have the right to live (in prison)?
Didn't his victims have that very same right from the very beginning?  And he didn't care about them!

Iranian President Raisi to Visit China to Shore Up Ties

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi will meet with his counterpart Xi Jinping during his three-day trip in China starting Tuesday, as the two U.S. rivals seek further cooperation.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the announcement Sunday, saying Raisi’s visit was at Xi’s invitation.

Raisi will meet with Xi and their delegations will sign cooperation documents, according to Iran’s state news agency IRNA. Meeting with Iranian and Chinese business leaders and Iranian expatriates in China is also part of his itinerary, the report added.
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The two leaders met last September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, when Xi underscored China’s support for the Iranian leadership, which is facing mass protests at home.

In December, Raisi pledged to remain committed to deepening the strategic partnership during a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua in Tehran.

China is a major buyer of Iranian oil and an important source of investment in the Mideast country. In 2021, Iran and China signed a 25-year strategic cooperation agreement that covered major economic activities from oil and mining to industry, transportation, and agriculture.

CCP Operates ‘Massive Spy Ring’ in US Research Institutes, Top Republican Warns

U.S. House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) warned on Feb. 12 that China is stealing intellectual property and operating “a massive spy ring” within institutions across the United States as he denounced the Biden administration for failing to take a tougher stance on that country’s communist regime.
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“They continue to steal our patents. They manipulate their currency,” he said. “We believe they have a big footprint in academia with a massive spy ring within our research universities where they continue to steal our hard-earned research and development.”

“So, China’s a problem. And this administration thus far hasn’t set a very good example of standing up to China,” he continued. “I think that, you know, shooting the balloon down in the Atlantic once it flew over all the military bases, including my own Fort Campbell, Kentucky, it’s very disturbing.”
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“We’ve got a whole lot bigger problem with China than the spy balloons,” he argued, explaining that the communist regime’s military “continues to grow and expand.”

“They’re continuing their Belt and Road Initiative all over the world where they’re trying to create a dominant world economy. This is a problem for the United States. And we need an administration to stand firm to China,” he said.
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“TikTok executives testified in Congress a year or two ago that none of the data that TikTok collected ever left the United States. But what we’ve learned from—from whistle-blowers and media accounts is some of that data did, in fact, go back to China and that’s a concern,” he said.
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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who originally introduced the legislation in December, reintroduced the bill, titled “Averting the National Threat of Internet Surveillance, Oppressive Censorship and Influence, and Algorithmic Learning by the Chinese Communist Party Act,” or “ANTI-SOCIAL CCP Act,” with bipartisan support this month.

Maersk Sues Evergreen Over 2021 Blocking of Suez Canal

The Panama-flagged vessel Ever Given, operated by Evergreen Marine Corp., ran aground in March 2021, blocking the global waterway for nearly a week. The enormous vessel was released in a massive salvage operation.

In an email to The Associated Press, shipping giant A.P. Moeller-Maersk said it filed a claim against Evergreen Marine, the vessel’s Japanese owner and its German technical manager, Bernhard Schulte Management, in the Danish Maritime and Commercial High Court in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Copenhagen-based shipping company said the claim is related to losses suffered during the canal’s blockage. It did not provide further details, including when it filed the claim.

The ShippingWatch, a news outlet covering maritime industry, however, reported Monday that 50 of Maersk’s container ships were delayed because of the canal’s blockage.
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The Ever Given was on its way to the Dutch port of Rotterdam on March 23, 2021 when it slammed into the bank of a single-lane stretch of the canal about 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) north of the southern entrance, near the Egyptian city of Suez.

A massive salvage effort by a flotilla of tugboats helped by the tides freed the skyscraper-sized vessel six days later, ending the crisis, and allowing hundreds of waiting ships to pass through the canal.

After it was freed, the Ever Given was held for more than three months in Egypt amid a financial dispute with authorities. Its release came after its owner reached a settlement with canal authorities over compensation following weeks of negotiations and a court standoff.

Maryland Bill Would Require Embedded Tracker on Most Guns

Maryland House Bill 704, introduced by Democrat Del. Pam Queen, would establish a requirement that if one party transfers 10 or more firearms to another party, each of those firearms must have a tracking device embedded in the frame or receiver. The bill requires that each tracking device “is not readily capable of being removed, disabled, or destroyed without rendering the firearm permanently inoperable or destroying the frame or receiver.”

The bill states a seller or transferrer must provide this tracking information to the Maryland secretary of state police. A seller who does not embed these specified tracking devices in a bulk firearms transfer or does not report this tracking information to the state is guilty of a civil offense punishable with a fine of up to $2,500.
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“Someone needs to figure out what in the wide world of dystopian Buck Rogers in the 25th Century sci-fi fantasy world is going on in Maryland’s legislature,” wrote Larry Keane, the foundation’s general counsel and senior vice president for government and public affairs.

Keane said retailers, including gun shops, have radio frequency identification (RFID) technologies as an internal inventory tracking tool, but those devices are designed to be turned off and removed at the store.

An embedded tracker would have to be powered, which raises the question of how tamperproof it could feasibly be, Keane said. He said a technology that relies on passive emissions like RFID would still be impossible to affix to the frame or receiver of a gun in a way that would make it tamperproof.
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In her response, Queen referred to a 2013 example of RFID inventory tracking technology being used at a gun industry show and examples of military units adopting RFID inventory systems for their armories. The technologies she referenced don’t appear to include an ability to render a firearm permanently inoperable or to destroy its frame or receiver if removed, as is stipulated in her bill.
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Several companies have been working to bring such guns to the general market. In 2014, a German company called Armatix created a smart gun product, but hackers figured out a way to block its user verification technology to render the gun operable for unauthorized users.

Gun rights activists have also been wary that smart gun technology could create a justification for requirements that the technology be imposed on all firearms. They have also raised concerns about introducing additional user verification steps in situations where seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

So let's ask our local  Wulfo if he truly lives in the dystopian world of Buck Rogers, in a long lost corner of the galactic empire, namely Maryland.

Philippines Says Chinese Ship Briefly Blinded Its Coast Guard
in Spratly Islands With ‘Military-Grade Laser’

The Philippines said on Monday that a Chinese coast guard vessel used a “military-grade laser” against its ship in the disputed South China Sea last week to impede a resupply mission, temporarily blinding its crew.

The incident occurred on Feb. 6 in Ayungin Shoal, also known as the Second Thomas Shoal or Renai Reef by China, of the Spratly Islands about 105 nautical miles (195 kilometers) off the Philippine province of Palawan.
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The Philippine coast guard (PCG) said its vessel was assisting a navy resupply mission in Ayungin Shoal in the South China Sea—which Manila calls the West Philippine Sea—when the Chinese ship beamed a green laser light at it.

“The Chinese ship illuminated the green laser light twice toward the BRP Malapascua, causing temporary blindness to [the] crew at the bridge,” the PCG said in a statement.

The Chinese ship also made “dangerous maneuvers” by approaching within 150 yards (137 meters) of the Philippine vessel’s starboard quarter.

“The deliberate blocking of the Philippine government ships to deliver food and supplies to our military personnel on board the BRP Sierra Madre is a blatant disregard for, and a clear violation of, Philippine sovereign rights in this part of the West Philippine Sea,” it stated.
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China’s Foreign Ministry responded by claiming that a Philippine coast guard vessel intruded into the waters of the Renai Reef “without Chinese permission.”

Foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters that the Chinese coast guard ship “acted in a professional and restrained way” that is in accordance with “domestic and international laws” to uphold China’s sovereignty and maritime order in the South China Sea.

“China and the Philippines are in communication on this through diplomatic channels,” Wang said.

Biden Orders Inter-Agency Team to Investigate Unidentified Aerial Objects

“The president, through his national security advisor, has today directed an inter-agency team to study the broader policy implications for detection, analysis, and disposition of unidentified aerial objects that pose either safety or security risks,” Kirby said at a press conference.
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Kirby noted that the new inter-agency project followed a bipartisan effort to stand up an office in the Pentagon tasked with studying unidentified objects in partnership with the intelligence community, academia, and the private sector.

“The president… instructed the intelligence community to take a broad look at the phenomenon of unidentified aerial objects,” Kirby said. “Indeed, President Biden conducted the first ever daily intelligence briefing session devoted to this phenomenon back in June of 2021.”

“These unidentified aerial phenomena had been reported for many years without explanation or deep examination by the government.”
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“We were able to determine that China has a high-altitude balloon program for intelligence collection that’s connected to the People’s Liberation Army.”
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Kirby also added that Congress previously received classified briefings on China’s spy balloon program, with at least one such briefing occurring in August of 2022.

UK to Review Airspace Security After Chinese Spy Balloons Found Over Americas

[Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said on Feb. 12.] “This development is another sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse.”
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UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decline to comment on whether similar incidents have occurred in the UK’s airspace.

“We will do whatever it takes to keep the country safe,” he said.

“We have something called the quick reaction alert force which involves Typhoon planes, which are kept on 24/7 readiness to police our airspace, which is incredibly important.
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“It is also possible, and I would think likely, that there would be people from the Chinese government trying to act as a hostile state,” [Transport Minister Richard Holden] said, noting that the UK has to be “realistic about the threat these countries pose to the UK.”
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He said the UK is “well prepared to deal with threats to our airspace, as the prime minister highlighted,” noting that threats would be judged on a “case-by-case basis.”

Asked whether the prime minister agreed with Holden’s description of Beijing as a “hostile state,” the spokesman said the characterisation will be considered when updating the Integrated Review.

“As we’ve said on a number of occasions, China poses a systemic challenge to our values and interests,” he said. “It is a challenge that grows more acute as it moves to even greater authoritarianism.”

Pressed on whether the UK government is likely to change the Chinese regime’s designation, the spokesman said, “You’ll see our position when it is published.”

China Seeking to Use Balloon Incident to Undermine Trust of American People

“We are seeing the unfolding of unrestricted warfare, the use of all kinds of tools, whether it be TikTok or balloons, or even the financial markets, China is basically undermining the faith and confidence of the American people in our ability to defend ourselves and continue in the form of the Republic upon which it was founded,” [Retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General] Spalding said in “China in Focus” on Feb. 10 on NTD.
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“I think the piece that Washington DC misses is the psychological and political narrative that goes along with allowing the balloon to completely traverse the entirety of the United States. And that’s really the more important part to Beijing,” he said.

“They’re trying to signal to the world that China is rising and America is weak, ‘Look how weak they are. They can’t even stop this balloon, this Chinese surveillance balloon, from going across the entire country.’

“The more fear they can create, the more uncertainty they can create about our ability to thrive and survive in a democratic republic, [the more] they win. That is what they’re looking for, because that allows them to not only continue in power in China, but continue to form and shape the world in ways that support that continuation of power of the Chinese Communist Party,” he added.

The general depicted it as an effort to indoctrinate the belief that “democracy is bad, we need a system more like China’s, so that it can protect us.”
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“So we have to begin to realize that the way that you work with them is really to make them approach you, not to have you approach them consistently. You have to put them a little bit back on their back foot,” he contended.

In his opinion, the United States should have shot down the balloon immediately as it crossed U.S. territory before “bringing the ambassador in and issuing a severe demarche.”

Spalding echoed the concerns issued by some experts that the Chinese spy balloon could have been used for prepping electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks on the United States.

He suggested that America should prepare itself for such a potential conflict.