News of the World

[kyonides]

 Do you remember the last Russian coup attempt lead by the Wagner group?
Well, it might have been the last one indeed.

Wagner Boss Prigozhin Killed in Private Jet Crash
North of Moscow, Says Russian State Media

An Embrarer-made private jet crashed in the Tver Oblast north of Moscow on Wednesday, killing all ten passengers and crew, Russian state media organisation TASS said Wednesday. In a separate flash shortly afterwards, the wires service also said Yevgeny Prigozhin was among those aboard.

It has been reported in the past that when travelling internationally, Prigozhin flew on a private jet of Embrarer type. The Federal Air Transport Agency said in a statement that an investigation had been launched into the crash, and it is said there were no casualties on the ground, as the aircraft crashed at an abandoned farm.

The claimed death of the warlord comes nearly two months to the day after he redirected his mercenary army from fighting in Ukraine towards Moscow, launching a march on the capital calling for serious changes at the top of the Russian state. While the coup quickly folded — allegedly in return for personal guarantees for Prigozhin’s safety — it was seen as a major event that shook the Russian state.

Prigozhin was said to have been exiled to Belarus, however, he has frequently turned up in Russia and Africa since. Just this week he said he was in Africa, making the continent “more free”.

While Russian state media has referred to the lost Embraer jet today as a “crash” and “incident”, a media channel previously widely acknowledged by Western media as being “affiliated with Wagner”, the private army Prigozhin led, has claimed the aircraft was purposefully shot down.
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According to a post on a Telegram channel linked to the mercenary Wagner Group, Dmitry Utkin, a former special forces officer in the GRU Russian military intelligence branch who reportedly went on to found PMC Wagner, died alongside the mercenary group’s commander, Yevgeny Prighozhin, in a plane crash inside Russia on Wednesday. The ‘Grey Zone’ channel said that Utkin “died as a result of the actions of traitors to Russia.”
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The Wagner-linked group wrote Wednesday evening: “The Embraer Legacy 600 business jet with registration number RA-02795, which belonged to Yevgeny Prigozhin, was shot down by air defense fire from the Russian Defense Ministry in the Bologovsky district of the Tver region.”

The group claimed witnesses on the ground heard “two bursts of characteristic air defense”.

Fulton County Releases Rudy Giuliani,
Other Co-Defendants’ Mugshots in Trump Election Case

Fulton County Sheriff’s Office released mugshots for Rudy Giuliani and other co-defendants in District Attorney Fani Willis’s case against former President Donald Trump.

Fulton County released the booking photos as the defendants turned themselves in this week. Bail bondsman Scott Hall on Tuesday was the first of 19 defendants to turn himself in this week, followed by Trump attorney John Eastman.
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The Sheriff’s office reportedly announced it would release the booking photos around 4:00 p.m. local time each day. Prosecutors gave the defendants until Friday to turn themselves in.

On Wednesday, the sheriff’s office released the booking photos for Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, and Sidney Powell.
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Kenneth Chesebro, Ray Smith, David Shafer, and Cathy Latham also had their mugshots released on Wednesday.
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Most defendants have negotiated bond agreements with prosecutors ranging from $10,000 to $200,000, as Forbes reported.

China Claims CIA Infiltrated ‘Critical Unit’ of a Communist Government Agency

The Ministry of State Security identified the CIA spy as a 39-year-old named “Hao” and claimed that the case “is under investigation” without specifying if Hao was in police custody, what ministry Hao allegedly helped the CIA infiltrate, or whether or not the Chinese Communist Party believed Hao was the only Chinese national involved in the alleged espionage. The Chinese state newspaper Global Times appeared to identify Hao as a man.

“Following the discovery of Hao’s espionage activities by one of China’s national security agencies, a lawful inquiry has been initiated into his actions in accordance with law, and the case is under investigation,” the Global Times reported.

“Hao” is the second person the Chinese Ministry of State Security has publicly identified this month as a Chinese national “flipped” by the CIA to be used as an American asset. On August 11, the ministry claimed to identify another person known as “Zeng” who similarly faced presumably criminal accusations of cooperating with the CIA.

The accusations follow the launch of a campaign by the Chinese Communist Party to pressure the general public to engage in “counter-espionage” activities. The Ministry of State Security debuted a page of the regime-controlled social media site WeChat in early August meant to make the law enforcement and anti-espionage agency a constant presence in the lives of ordinary Chinese people. The WeChat page also allows citizens to levy accusations against others they believe may be foreign spies.

Ukrainians Tell Indian Students to Go Home: ‘You Are Good Friends with Russia’

The Times of India (TOI) reported Sunday that conditions in Ukraine are increasingly difficult for visiting Indian students, because the Ukrainians resent India’s positive relationship with invading Russia. Indian visitors say the locals are increasingly telling them to “go back” as the war grinds on.

TOI explained that about 18,000 Indian students were evacuated from Ukraine after Russia invaded in February 2022, but 3,400 of them were obliged to return to complete their degrees.

“As per National Medical Council guidelines, students who are studying abroad after December 2021 cannot transfer to any other university. This is why I and many other students had to come back here,” one of the Indian medical students said.

Sending people back to the hottest war zone on the planet to finish their degrees seems like a big ask, but several hundred Indian medical students actually volunteered to return soon after the evacuation operation was complete. Others went back because they feared losing huge amounts of student financial aid if they refused, or because instructions from the Indian government and courts were so confusing they did not know what else to do. Some noted that studying anywhere in Eastern Europe outside of Ukraine would be more than twice as expensive.

A lucky few were transferred to internships in countries surrounding Ukraine. Others settled for online classes from Ukraine but feared their course credits might not count. The families of other students filed suit with Indian courts when they were told the medical careers of students who refused to go back to Ukraine would be destroyed, but they found the response from the courts to be slow and unsatisfying.

Chinese City Sends ‘Sweet Love’ Texts Urging Residents to Have More Babies

According to local media reports, the text messages from Xian’s Health Commission and Family Planning Association wished residents “sweet love, marriage, and childbirth” for Qixi and told them to create “good fertility” for the benefit of the nation.

The “sweet love” text messages were backed up by a post on Weibo, China’s tightly controlled version of Twitter, that ordered residents to “continue the blood of China and share the important task of rejuvenation” if they are at the “right age” for childbearing. This sounded more quintessentially Communist than wishing sweet love on people, especially since the Weibo post did not bother to specify what the “right age” for childbearing is.

Qixi is also known as Double Seventh Festival, because it falls on the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which works out to August 22 this year.

South Africa Welcomes Xi Jinping with Highest Honors for China-Led BRICS Summit

Genocidal communist dictator Xi Jinping landed in South Africa in the early morning hours of Tuesday to a personal welcome from President Cyril Ramaphosa, a traditional dance troupe, and the nation’s armed forces in anticipation of this week’s BRICS summit.

Ramaphosa and other senior South African government officials greeted Xi’s plane in Johannesburg. The visit is Xi’s second time leaving China this year; the Chinese dictator met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow in March.
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Upon landing, Xi delivered a pre-written speech, according to the Chinese state outlet Xinhua, celebrating South Africa as a close trade partner that allegedly shares the Chinese Communist Party’s values.

“A solid and growing China-South Africa relationship not only benefits the two peoples, but also brings more stability to a world which is undergoing transformation and turbulence, Xi said,” Xinhua reported, “adding that he believes with the two sides’ concerted efforts, the visit will definitely be a complete success.”

Xi reportedly also praised BRICS as a “constructive force for the the world’s economic growth, better global governance and greater democracy in international relations,” urging African leaders generally to engage in building “closer cooperation, greater development and a more peaceful world.”

Iran Releases Heavily Edited Clip of Alleged U.S. Navy Confrontation

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated terrorist organization, on Saturday released footage of its speedboats confronting two U.S. Navy ships in the Strait of Hormuz on August 17.

The IRGC claimed it forced U.S. Navy and Marine helicopters to land by threatening to shoot them down, a claim the Pentagon denied on Monday.
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The IRGC published heavily edited footage through Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency that depicted small Iranian speedboats maneuvering near USS Bataan and USS Thomas Hudner in the Strait of Hormuz last Thursday. The clip was spliced to make it appear the squadron of tiny Iranian craft “intercepted” the U.S. ships.

The IRGC included footage of Marine UH-1Y Venom and AH-1 Viper attack helicopters, plus a Navy MH-60S Knight Hawk helicopter. The voiceover from an IRGC officer includes a threat to shoot all three helicopters down if they did not land.
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This could have been a voiceover added to the clip later, rather than a genuine radio transmission sent to the American ships on August 17, an impression bolstered by the amusingly overwrought music the IRGC threw in.

Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday there were no reports of American helicopters forced to land under duress during the Strait of Hormuz transit.

“We’ve seen this from them before pushing out, I don’t know if it’s propaganda, but I would say like, untrue statements, and that just is not accurate,” she said.

The U.S. ships were part of an American buildup to discourage Iranian piracy in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. In early August, the U.S. offered to put armed sailors and Marines aboard commercial vessels to counter Iranian attempts to seize them.