News of the World

[kyonides]

US NEWS

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Spying Fears After Chinese Nationals Caught Entering U.S. Sites 100+ Times

Federal investigators believe spying networks are behind the 100-plus attempted entries by Chinese nationals into sensitive U.S. sites in recent years, a report Sunday set out.

The cases are reportedly many and varied, including people crossing into a U.S. missile range in New Mexico — and scuba divers swimming near a rocket launch site and Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Wall Street Journal said quoting officials familiar with the allegations.

Drones to take detailed aerial footage of sensitive military sites have been seen— while the Pentagon confirmed cases of people “speeding through security checkpoints.”
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For example, individuals and groups often claim to be looking for hotels or a Burger King when challenged.

The Defense Department and FBI are among multiple federal agencies which shared a review last year on how to limit the attempts, which officials told the WSJ are viewed as a form of espionage.

Congress might also consider legislation, Rep. Jason Crow (D- Colo.) told the paper, to toughen up how security is handled at the sensitive sites, with trespassing laws currently being state and local, not federal.
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The incidents that occurred in rural areas where there is little tourism typically involved Chinese nationals who were pressed into service and required to report back to the Chinese government, the report added.

“The advantage the Chinese have is they are willing to throw people at [intelligence] collection in large numbers,” said Emily Harding, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former deputy staff director at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

In many of these cases, officials told the WSJ, those who have been found trespassing on bases have been briefly detained and then escorted out of the country.

No cases appear to have resulted in espionage charges, the paper said.

Texas Police Cadet Imprisoned for Supplying
Mexican Cartel with .50 Caliber Ammo

A cadet at a Texas border-area police academy received a sentence of more than four years in prison for supplying a cartel in Mexico with .50 caliber ammunition.

Pedro Cruz Almeida, age 22, appeared before U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez last week and received a sentence of 50 months in prison for his role in helping smuggle thousands of rounds of .50 caliber ammunition into Mexico. Almeida had been free on bond after pleading guilty to the charges in late April.

The case began in February when a Hidalgo County Deputy Constable pulled Almeida over during a traffic stop, court documents obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed. When the deputy searched Almeida’s red Hyundai Elantra, he found several boxes of ammunition in the trunk and other parts of the vehicle. In total, the man had 600 rounds of .50 caliber tracer ammunition.

During questioning by federal authorities, Almeida said he was headed to one of the local international bridges where a man was waiting for him. The other man was driving a vehicle with Mexican license plates and was going to drive the ammunition into Reynosa, he stated. During a subsequent search of his house, authorities found 300 rounds of .50 caliber ammunition that had been shipped to Almeida. He also told authorities that he had acquired ammunition for his contacts in Mexico at least 30 other times in the past in exchange for cash, court records revealed.

NYC: Migrant Arrested 6 Times for Violent Crimes in 2 Months

According to a report from the New York Post, 29-year-old Daniel Hernandez Martinez of Venezuela first arrived in New York City on June 27 from the United States-Mexico border. The very next day, he allegedly robbed a Costco in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

Martinez was subsequently charged with petty larceny and, thanks to New York’s bail reform law, was released from police custody without having to pay bail.

The following week, Martinez allegedly robbed a Duane Reade in Columbus Circle in Manhattan and also allegedly sought to stab a security guard with a large knife while attempting to shoplift at a different Duane Reade location.

Martinez was charged with menacing and released again without bail.

On July 31, Martinez allegedly attacked independent journalist Jeffrey Bradac, 52 years old, who had just wrapped up interviewing him for his social media accounts. Bradac has been covering illegal immigration in the city and said Martinez assaulted him with a bike tire.

While Martinez initially got away before police officers could arrest him, Bradac saw him outside of the Row Hotel, where Mayor Eric Adams (D) has put thousands of migrants, and subsequently called the police who quickly arrested him.

EUROPEAN NEWS

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Putin Set to Meet with Turkey’s Erdogan
for Talks to Re-Establish Black Sea Grain Deal

The meeting in Sochi on Russia´s southern coast comes after weeks of speculation about when and where the two leaders might meet.

Erdogan previously said that Putin would travel to Turkey in August.

The Kremlin refused to renew the grain agreement six weeks ago. The deal – brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July 2022 – had allowed nearly 33 million metric tons (36 million tons) of grain and other commodities to leave three Ukrainian ports safely despite Russia’s war.

However, Russia pulled out after claiming that a parallel deal promising to remove obstacles to Russian exports of food and fertilizer hadn’t been honored.

Moscow complained that restrictions on shipping and insurance hampered its agricultural trade, even though it has shipped record amounts of wheat since last year.

Since Putin withdrew from the initiative, Erdogan has repeatedly pledged to renew arrangements that helped avoid a food crisis in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Ukraine and Russia are major suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other goods that developing nations rely on.
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Turkey hasn’t joined Western sanctions against Russia following its invasion, emerging as a main trading partner and logistical hub for Russia´s overseas trade.

NATO member Turkey, however, has also supported Ukraine, sending arms, meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and backing Kyiv’s bid to join NATO.

And before you even think about celebrating the commencement of the grain deal talks...

Russia, Ukraine & Iran

Ukrainian Port Bombarded in Drone Attack
Ahead of Russia Grain Deal Talks

Two people were hospitalized following a 3½-hour Russian drone barrage on a port in Ukraine’s Odesa region on Sunday, officials said.

The attack on the Reni seaport comes a day before Russian President Vladimir Putin is due to meet with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss the resumption of food shipments from Ukraine under a Black Sea grain agreement that Moscow broke off from in July.

Russian forces fired 25 Iranian-made Shahed drones along the Danube River in the early hours of Sunday, 22 of which were shot down by air defenses, the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, described the assault as part of a Russian drive “to provoke a food crisis and hunger in the world.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attack was aimed at fuel storage facilities used to supply military equipment.

Zelensky Replaces Defence Minister
Amid Struggling Counteroffensive
and Growing Corruption Scandals

Oleksii Reznikov, who has led the Ukrainian war effort since the Russian invasion in February of last year, tendered his resignation on Monday, writing on social media: “It was an honour to serve the Ukrainian people and work for the Ukrainian Army for the last 22 months, the toughest period of Ukraine’s modern history.”

The former deputy prime minister’s resignation from the war effort comes as Kyiv has come under increasing pressure from Western allies for its slower than hoped for success in its counteroffensive against the now heavily entrenched Russian lines in the South of the country.

Reznikov has personally acknowledged that failures on the front may cause “emotional disappointment” abroad and that expectations may have been “overestimated”.
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Perhaps more significantly, however, the decision to replace Reznikov comes amid a flurry of corruption scandals, including the Defence Ministry allegedly purchasing food for soldiers at inflated prices as well as claims that the ministry had vastly overpaid suppliers in Turkey for winter military jackets.

Last month, President Zelensky also fired all of the regional heads of military recruitment for allegedly accepting bribes from young men seeking to avoid being sent into battle.

The outgoing defence minister has denied any involvement in corruption, yet the timing may appear to outsiders to indicate  the decision to replace him may have been motivated by Kyiv seeking to reassure its Western backers in Brussels, London, and Washington that their money isn’t going to waste and that the government is cracking down on corruption, which has plagued the country since regaining its independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Indeed, just hours before Zelensky announced his plans to change defence ministers, Ukraine’s State Security Service detained billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky on suspicion of fraud and money laundering. The oligarch, who was a backer of Zelensky’s 2019 presidential run, owned the television station upon which the Ukrainian president rose to fame as a comedian playing a fictional president. Kolomoisky also served as the governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and previously owned the country’s largest bank before it was nationalised in 2016 after $5.5 billion in assets went missing.

Russia Claims to Have Launched ‘Hypersonic’ Kinzhal Missile
From New Aircraft Against Ukraine for First Time

The Kinzhal missile, an air-launched ballistic missile which has seen limited use in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine over the past year and which they claim is ‘hypersonic’ — this is disputed by Western observers — has been effectively deployed from a new airframe for the first time, they claim. Moscow said in a press statement on Monday that a Sukhoi 34 fighter-bomber had fired the missile in what they euphemistically called the “special military operation”.

Russia was to give “state awards” in recognition of this to the crew involved, Moscow said.

The ability to attack Ukraine with the Kinzhal from the SU-34 is potentially significant, says an analyst cited by Newsweek, because at present they are generally launched from MIG-31s and moving the responsibility onto other airframes frees that aircraft up for other duties. It is claimed the MIG-31 has proven adept at intercepting Ukrainian fighters, and they could do more of this if they weren’t putting time into bombarding Ukrainian cities.
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The Kinzhal is a young weapons system in the grand scheme of air-launched missiles, having entered service in 2017. By Russia’s own account, it is still technically under evaluation, and is being used in Ukraine on an experimental basis.

U.N. Nuclear Agency Regrets ‘No Progress’ as Iran Ignores Commitments

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Rafael Grossi “requests Iran to work with the agency in earnest and in a sustained way towards the fulfilment of the commitments,” the agency said in a confidential report seen by AFP.

Tehran in March vowed to reactivate surveillance devices which were disconnected in June 2022 amid deteriorating relations with the West.

In a separate report, also seen by AFP, the IAEA said Iran’s total stockpile of enriched uranium was lower than in May but still more than 18 times the limit set in a 2015 accord between Tehran and world powers.

Iran’s total enriched uranium stockpile was estimated at 3,795.5 kilogrammes (8,367.7 pounds) as of August 19, down by 949 kilogrammes from May, the agency said.

The limit in the 2015 deal was set at 202.8 kilogrammes.

The stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60 percent is now at 121.6 kilos, up from 114.1 kilos in May.

Iran also has 535.8 kilos of uranium enriched up to 20 percent, up from 470.9 kilos in the last May report.