Monthly Archives: December 2025

The Real US Drug Trafficking Partners

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Héctor Bernardo

A non-conclusive list of politicians, allied with the US and involved in narco-trade, with, last but not least, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

The false rhetoric of the fight against drug trafficking used by the US government and right-wing groups in the region collapses when a quick review is made of Washington’s partners linked to drug trafficking. Among them are Juan Orlando Hernández, Horacio Cartes, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Felipe Calderón, Enrique Peña Nieto, Daniel Noboa, Guillermo Lasso, Keiko Fujimori, Luis Lacalle Pou, José Luis Espert, and even the Secretary of State himself, Marco Rubio.

The pardon that US President Donald Trump granted to former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández undermines the false rhetoric that Washington uses to attack Venezuela.

While the Pentagon deploys its troops in the Caribbean Sea and carries out extrajudicial executions by attacking boats of alleged drug traffickers, Trump orders the release of Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison by a US Federal Court in New York, after being found guilty of drug trafficking.

But the case of the former Honduran president is not the exception, but the rule. The list of Latin American right-wing leaders accused of links to drug trafficking is long.

Some of the leading figures of the Latin American right who have been denounced for their links to drug trafficking are: Paraguayan Horacio Cartes, Colombian Álvaro Uribe Vélez, Mexicans Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, Ecuadorians Daniel Noboa, Guillermo Lasso, Peruvian Keiko Fujimori, Uruguayan Lacalle Pou, Argentine José Luis Espert and even the Secretary of State himself, Marco Rubio.

Paraguay

In 2023, the former president of Paraguay, Horacio Cartes (partner of former Argentine president Mauricio Macri), was sanctioned by the United States Treasury Department for having links to drug trafficking and was included on the Specially Designated Persons List (SDN), prepared by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Following Donald Trump’s arrival in government, in 2025 OFAC decided to remove Cartes from the list. However, businessman Darío Messer, a partner of the former Paraguayan president and whom Horacio Cartes referred to as his “brother,” was arrested in Brazil in July 2019 and convicted in 2020 for money laundering (Messer pleaded guilty and negotiated a reduced sentence).

Mexico

Felipe Calderón, who was president of Mexico from 2006 to 2012, declared a “war on drugs,” however, testimonies from former officials of his government and members of criminal organizations claim that his government provided protection to the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas Cartel.

Along those lines, Genaro García Luna, who was the Secretary of Public Security during the government of Felipe Calderón, and who was considered the president’s trusted man, was arrested in the United States in 2019 and convicted of drug trafficking in 2023.

Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexican president from 2012 to 2018, was also accused of having ties to the Zetas Cartel. Former associates and officials in Peña Nieto’s government made allegations regarding these connections.

On September 26, 2014, the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College disappeared. This case exposed the links between the Guerreros Unidos Cartel, municipal police officers, members of the Armed Forces, and officials from the state and federal governments under Peña Nieto.

Ecuador

In 2023, links were revealed between Rubén Chérrez, an Ecuadorian businessman and close friend of Danilo Carrera, brother-in-law of President Guillermo Lasso, and the Albanian mafia. Chérrez was found to have ties to Dritan Gjika, the leader of this criminal organization. The Ecuadorian Attorney General’s Office merged the investigations into Carrera and Chérrez, focusing on corruption and drug trafficking. In November 2024, Danilo Carrera was sentenced to ten years in prison for organized crime.

Meanwhile, Noboa Trading, a company belonging to the family of Ecuador’s current president, Daniel Noboa, has been linked to cocaine trafficking to Europe. According to Telesur, Ecuadorian police stated that Noboa Trading “may be involved in the export of more than half a ton of cocaine to several European countries since 2020.”

“In 2020, after cocaine was found in banana containers, José Luis Rivera Baquerizo, an employee of Noboa Trading, was arrested. However, he was released thanks to the defense of lawyer Edgar José Lama, who was an advisor to then-Assemblyman Daniel Noboa and who now holds the position of Minister of Health,” the website states.

Colombia and Peru

In 2018, The New York Times published an article by journalist Nicholas Casey titled: “US diplomatic cables suggest Álvaro Uribe’s ties to drug traffickers.” The article details the links Uribe Vélez forged in the 1990s with various drug trafficking networks, particularly the Medellín Cartel and its leader, Pablo Escobar Gaviria.

Among the cables cited, it is mentioned that Senators Guillermo Vélez Trujillo and Alejandro González, from the same party as Uribe Vélez, pointed out to American diplomats the links that he had with the Ochoa Clan, members of the Medellín Cartel and founders of paramilitary groups.

Meanwhile, in Peru in 2016, the public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation against far-right leader Keiko Fujimori for money laundering. According to journalist Carlos Noriega, in an article published in the newspaper Página/12 titled “The Ghost of a Narco-State,” Fujimori allegedly received campaign contributions for 2011 from various offshore entities (a structure often used to conceal the true origin of funds), from Luis Calle Quirós, “included by Peruvian and U.S. authorities on drug traffickers’ lists,” and from Joaquín Ramírez, who was under investigation by the DEA for laundering money derived from drug trafficking.

Uruguay and Argentina 

Former Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou became embroiled in the scandal surrounding the escape of drug trafficker Sebastián Marset, who evaded an Interpol arrest warrant by obtaining a Uruguayan passport. Adding to the intrigue, Alejandro Astesiano, the head of presidential security, was implicated in a network that supplied counterfeit passports.

In Argentina, one of the main allies of the ruling party (La Libertad Avanza), José Luis Espert, had to decline his candidacy for national deputy for the province of Buenos Aires when a scandal broke out over his links with the drug trafficker Federico “Fred” Machado.

According to leaked US documents, Espert (a close confidant of President Javier Milei) received at least $200,000 and made several trips on Machado’s private jet. Machado is wanted by US authorities for extradition to face charges of drug trafficking and money laundering.

The shoemaker’s children go barefoot

Washington’s bellicose rhetoric, which uses the fight against drug trafficking as a pretext to threaten Venezuela, Colombia, and the entire region, has Secretary of State Marco Rubio among its leading proponents. However, little is said about the allegations against Rubio himself for his supposed links to drug trafficking.

Orlando Cicilia, Marco Rubio’s brother-in-law, was sentenced in 1990 to 25 years in prison for drug trafficking. Cicilia, who was married to Barbara Rubio, was part of the drug trafficking organization headed by Mario Trabaue, which had turned Miami into the main port of entry for cocaine into the United States. An investigation by The Observer indicates that in 2009, during his campaign for the U.S. Senate, Rubio allegedly received thousands of dollars in contributions from lobbyist Joel Steinger, who was accused of laundering money for various drug cartels.
A Recurring Pattern

Back in 1989, Democratic Senator John Kerry presented a report (known as the Kerry Report) to the United States Congress revealing how the Nicaraguan Contras, who attacked the Sandinista government, committed massacres, and sowed terror in Nicaragua, were financed with drug money with the complicity of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the United States State Department itself.One of the report’s findings states that: “drug links to the Contras included… payments to drug traffickers by the U.S. State Department using funds authorized by Congress for humanitarian assistance (…)”.

Alcira Argumedo, a prominent Argentine intellectual, once asserted:

“Don’t be fooled, the DEA doesn’t fight drug trafficking, it fights to monopolize it.” If the United States truly wants to combat drug trafficking, it should confront the American banks that launder money for drug cartels, the American companies that supply weapons to these groups, and their regional partners, who coordinate these trafficking networks with the complicity of the CIA and the DEA.

“The fight against drug trafficking” and “the narcoterrorist enemy” are merely rhetorical constructs (as were, at one time, the supposed “weapons of mass destruction” that Saddam Hussein was believed to possess) used to develop its geopolitical strategy and advance its threats and interference against the countries of the region.”

{…]

Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/12/08/the-real-united-states-drug-trafficking-partners/

Israel conducts ‘widespread surveillance’ of US troops in Gaza coordination base

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(Photo credit: AAP / ABIR SULTAN/EPA)

The Cradle

Israeli officials are blocking US efforts to increase desperately needed aid from entering Gaza

Israeli intelligence is conducting widespread surveillance of US forces and allies stationed at a new US base in southern Israel tasked with overseeing aid distribution to Gaza, The Guardian reported on 8 December, citing sources briefed on the matter.

According to the sources, Israel has been recording meetings between US military officials and humanitarian aid groups at the Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC), located in the industrial zone of Kiryat Gat, 12 kilometers from the border with Gaza.

The spying prompted the US commander of the base, Lieutenant General Patrick Frank, to summon his Israeli counterpart and demand that “recording has to stop here.”

“Staff and visitors from other countries have also raised concerns about Israel recording inside the CMCC,” The Guardian wrote. “Some have been told to avoid sharing sensitive information because of the risk it could be collected and exploited.”

In response, the Israeli military claimed the allegations were “absurd.”

The CMCC was set up in October to monitor the 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza proposed by US President Donald Trump.

Staffed by US and Israeli military officials, the CMCC was tasked to coordinate aid deliveries to the strip, which Israel had largely halted in previous months, causing famine to take hold in parts of the strip.

However, Israel has continued to regularly restrict or prevent shipments of food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods into Gaza despite the CMCC’s establishment.

US military logistics experts were assigned to the CMCC to ensure aid would flow. However, they soon discovered that “Israeli controls on goods entering Gaza were a bigger obstacle than engineering challenges. Within weeks, several dozen had left,” The Guardian reported.

Israel has banned the entry of essential items on the grounds that they are “dual-use” and could be utilized by Hamas for military purposes. They include basics such as tent poles and chemicals needed for water purification, as well as pencils and paper required to restart schools.

While the CMCC brings together military planners from the US, Israel, and other allied countries, including the UK and the UAE, Palestinians are comprehensively excluded.

“There are no representatives of Palestinian civilian or humanitarian organisations, or the Palestinian Authority, stationed there invited to join discussions,” The Guardian noted.

The British newspaper added that Israeli officials cut off video calls with Palestinians when US military officials sought to include them in discussions, while CMCC planning documents omit the words Palestine or Palestinian, instead referring to the residents of the territory as “Gazans.”

Israel launched its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in 2023 after Hamas’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood – in which Israeli settlements and military bases were stormed and attacked by the resistance – helping enforce a blockade on the strip.

Israeli officials have said they wish to wipe out Palestinians’ existence in Gaza, comparing them to the Biblical people known as Amalek, who were exterminated by the ancient Israelites.

Israeli officials have also expressed their desire to replace Palestinians in Gaza with Jewish settlers once the strip is rebuilt as a high-tech smart city, which Trump has dubbed the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/israel-conducts-widespread-surveillance-of-us-troops-in-gaza-coordination-base-report

Israeli forces raid UNRWA headquarters in Jerusalem after UN extends mandate

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Signs displayed at the gate of the UNRWA headquarters in occupied Jerusalem, December 8, 2025. (Photo by Reuters)

Press TV

Israeli forces stormed the sealed headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in occupied East Jerusalem, raiding the long-standing compound in Sheikh Jarrah just days after the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly renewed the agency’s mandate.

In a statement on Monday, the Jerusalem Governorate, affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA), said Israeli police entered the compound, detained its security guards, and confiscated their phones.

“Israeli police cut off communication, making it impossible to know what is happening inside the compound,” the statement said.

Officials added that the raid was carried out “alongside a complete closure of the surrounding area and extensive searches across all facilities of the building.”

The compound, used as an UNRWA office since 1951, had been vacated earlier this year following a decision by Israel.

The raid came two days after the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution renewing UNRWA’s mandate for three more years, with 151 countries voting in favor, 10 opposed, and 14 abstaining.

“This raid represents a direct challenge to the UN General Assembly’s overwhelming vote days ago to renew UNRWA’s mandate,” the governorate said, calling for urgent international action to hold Israel accountable “for violating international law” and to prosecute Israeli authorities “for crimes and abuses committed against the Palestinian people and their national and international institutions.”

Meanwhile, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini condemned the Israeli raid on the agency compound as a “dangerous precedent.”

“This latest action represents a blatant disregard of Israel’s obligation as a United Nations Member State to protect & respect the inviolability of UN premises,” Lazzarini wrote on X.

“To allow this represents a new challenge to international law, one that creates a dangerous precedent anywhere else the UN is present across the world,” he added.

Israel has banned UNRWA from operating in the occupied territories after accusing some of its staff of being involved in the al-Aqsa storm operation in October 2023.

Despite repeated requests from UNRWA for the Israeli regime to provide evidence supporting its allegations, the agency has received no response.

The UN agency has faced deepening financial turmoil since Israel launched a defamation campaign against it.

Following Israel’s accusations, several major donor states, including the United States, suspended or froze funding, triggering one of the most severe financial crises in UNRWA’s history.

In October, International Court of Justice (ICJ) President Yuji Iwasawa underscored in a ruling that Israel must “agree to and facilitate relief schemes provided by the United Nations and its entities,” including UNRWA.

As part of its findings, the ICJ noted that Israel had failed to present evidence showing that UNRWA was working with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, as the regime had claimed.

UNRWA was established by the UNGA more than 70 years ago to assist Palestinians forcibly displaced from their land due to the creation of the Israeli occupation.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/12/08/760269/Palestine-UN-UNRWA–al-Quds–

 

CDC vaccine panel votes to stop recommending birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns

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What to know about hepatitis B shot for infants ahead of CDC vaccine ...

 

By Kerry Breen
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel voted Friday to change the recommendation for when children should get their first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. Instead of a first dose within 24 hours of birth — as the CDC has advised for more than 30 years — the panel voted to recommend delaying it until a child is 2 months old for children born to mothers who test negative for the virus.The panel voted, in a 8-3 decision, to recommend individual decision-making in consultation with a health care provider to determine when or if to give the hepatitis B birth dose to a child whose mother tested negative for the virus.

Many medical experts and organizations including the American Academy of Pediatrics opposed such a change, saying it will leave young children at risk of an infection that can cause lifelong illness. They point to decades of research confirming the vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.

The decision came on the second day of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ December meeting, after confusion on Thursday led to the vote being delayed.

The panel — whose members were all appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — began the day  with a reading of the proposed voting language, followed by discussion from the panel members and other experts. Restef Levi, an ACIP member and mathematician who has no medical training, strongly argued against the universal birth dose, falsely claiming that experts had “never tested (the vaccines) appropriately.” Levi said he believed the committee should not recommend any timeline for the vaccine.

Dr. Cody Meissner, a pediatrics professor who previously served as a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccines panel and an ACIP board member, and committee member Dr. Joseph Hibbeln continued to criticize the efforts to change the recommendations. Hibbeln said this was the fourth version of the language presented in 96 hours, and that “no rational science has been presented” to support changing the recommendations. Meisner emphasized that leaving the recommendation as-is would still allow parents to make their own choices about the vaccines their child receives.

“We’ve heard ‘do no harm’ as a moral imperative. We are doing harm by changing this wording,” Meissner said as he voted to oppose the change.

Hepatitis B is an incurable viral infection that can lead to liver disease, cancer and early death. The hepatitis B vaccine has been universally recommended for newborns in the U.S. since 1991. Over that time, research shows hepatitis B infections among infants and children have dropped 99%.

Recommendations from the advisory committee, known as ACIP, go to the CDC director for approval. Ultimately, decisions are left to the states, which tend to base their policies off the CDC’s guidelines but can choose to set their own. ACIP’s recommendations also carry weight with insurance companies: Most private insurers are required to cover the recommended vaccines. If the recommendation changes, what’s covered by insurance may also change.

The birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine has become a target of vaccine critics, including Kennedy, who falsely claimed on a podcast in June that it was a “likely culprit” in autism.

The birth dose of the vaccine has a long track record, and multiple studies show the shot is not associated with any increased risk of infant death, fever or sepsis, multiple sclerosis or autoimmune conditions. Severe reactions to the vaccine are rare. Research also shows there is no evidence of any safety benefit in waiting until a child is older.

The panel also voted Friday in a 6-4 decision, with one abstention, to recommend parents consult with their doctors about whether to have their children tested to see if the first vaccine dose gave them a certain level of protection against hepatitis B. Typically, the vaccine is given as part of a three-dose series. Some panelists criticized the lack of data showing one dose was as effective as three doses and called the language of the recommendation confusing.

[…]

Via https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-acip-vaccine-panel-hepatitis-b-birth-dose/

Zelensky allies flee to Israeli-occupied territories as $100-million graft scandal erupts

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

Press TV

A damning investigation has revealed that the Ukrainian government under President Volodymyr Zelensky “systematically sabotaged” anti-corruption oversight across key state-owned companies, clearing the way for graft to proliferate during conflict with Russia.

The findings were collected as part of an investigation by The New York Times, which the paper published on Friday.

The results emerged just as two of Zelensky’s closest associates abruptly fled to the occupied territories amid accusations of a $100-million embezzlement scheme inside Energoatom, Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear power company.

According to the report, Zelensky’s administration repeatedly undermined the independent supervisory boards responsible for monitoring state spending and vetting major contracts.

The investigation showed that officials in Kiev “stacked boards with loyalists, left seats empty, or stalled them from being set up at all,” even rewriting corporate charters to limit external oversight.

These moves, the paper wrote, allowed hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent without scrutiny from experts.

The same pattern was documented across Energoatom, the electricity transmission operator Ukrenergo, and the Defense Procurement Agency, which oversees military acquisitions.

The NYT report landed amid a fast-moving scandal in which members of Zelensky’s inner circle were accused by anti-corruption prosecutors of stealing $100 million from Energoatom.

Rather than acknowledging responsibility for weakening oversight, the government shifted blame onto the very supervisory boards it had sidelined.

The scandal triggered the resignation of Zelensky’s controversial chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, late last month.

Hours before police raided his home, Yermak quietly departed for the occupied territories, where he holds “citizenship,” according to the Ukrainska Pravda outlet.

Yermak has long been regarded as Zelensky’s most influential advisor, shaping domestic politics, security decisions, and foreign policy.

A second key figure, businessman Timur Mindich, co-founder of Zelensky’s entertainment company Kvartal 95, was identified by investigators as the alleged main figure leading the embezzlement scheme.

Mindich also escaped to the occupied territories before authorities raided his luxury apartment, Ukrainian media reported.

A former Ukrainian government official told Fox News that Mindich maintained “an apartment with golden toilets in the same building as Zelensky.”

European officials acknowledged they were aware of the persistent corruption risks, but continued providing billions in aid.

“We do care about good governance, but we have to accept that risk,” said Christian Syse, Norway’s special envoy to Ukraine, “because it’s in our own interest.”

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/12/07/760165/Ukraine-officials-flee-Israel-corruption

Trump to announce Gaza government, Board of Peace by Christmas

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Man holds up board with paper on it

Trump at the Gaza peace conference in Egypt in October. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty

IAEA issues new Chernobyl safety warning

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IAEA issues new Chernobyl safety warning
FILE PHOTO © Getty Images / Patrick Ahlborn/DeFodi Images News

RT

The agency has found the protective structure over the 1986 reactor critically damaged after a drone strike

The protective shelter over the reactor at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant can no longer guarantee radiation containment, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said. The agency added that urgent major repairs are now required.

The warning follows an inspection prompted by a drone strike in February, which marked the first major attack on the shelter. Moscow said the strike was a provocation orchestrated by Kiev, while the Ukrainian government blamed Russia.

The strike had pierced the outer shell of the massive steel arch known as the New Safe Confinement (NSC) and triggered a fire. While the initial damage did not cause a radiation leak, the new assessment shows the structural breach has degraded the shelter’s ability to contain nuclear material.

The IAEA confirmed on Friday that the NSC, a 36,000-tonne steel structure built over the destroyed Unit 4 reactor at Chernobyl, “had lost its primary safety functions, including the confinement capability.”

Completed in 2019 at a cost of around €1.5billion (about $1.6 billion), the NSC was designed to contain radioactive material and seal the original concrete “sarcophagus” installed after the 1986 disaster.

IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that although the shelter’s loadbearing framework and monitoring systems remain intact, “limited temporary repairs have been carried out … comprehensive restoration is urgently required.” IAEA inspectors have now dispatched additional nuclear safety experts to the site to assess the full extent of the damage.

Russia has accused Ukraine of repeatedly targeting the Zaporozhye (ZNPP) and Kursk nuclear power plants, describing the attacks as acts of “nuclear terrorism.”

A Ukrainian drone struck an auxiliary building at the Kursk NPP in late September, during a visit to Moscow by IAEA chief Rafael Grossi.

Just days earlier, power lines supplying the ZNPP were reportedly damaged by Ukrainian artillery, forcing the plant to switch to backup generators. Russia took control of the ZNPP in March 2022, and the region later held a referendum to join the country. Kiev denies involvement in the Kursk incident and has accused Moscow of attacking the ZNPP.

Speaking in October, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was “playing a dangerous game” by attacking nuclear sites.

[…]

Via https://www.rt.com/russia/629129-iaea-chernobyl-safety-warning/

Yemen opens trial for 13 people charged with spying for CIA, Israel

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Yemeni security member stand guard outside a court in the Yemeni capital Sana’a. (AFP)

RT

A court in Yemen has commenced the trial of 13 individuals on charges of operating a spy network for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Israel’s Mossad spy agency. 

The defendants were formally presented with the indictment during Saturday’s session of Yemen’s Specialized Criminal Court in the capital, Sana’a.

According to the indictment, the case involves “a spy network affiliated with the US Central Intelligence Agency.” The group operated from 1987 to 2024, coordinating with US and Israeli intelligence agencies, according to the prosecutors.

They are charged with gathering military, political, security, economic, and social information under the guise of development and humanitarian projects.

The indictment also says that the group recruited officials for foreign agencies and submitted proposals that benefited “the enemy.”

Prosecutors said that the individuals engaged in activities that undermined Yemen’s independence, unity, and defense capabilities.

During the hearing, the defendants responded to the charges and requested access to case files. The court postponed further review of the evidence to the next session.

This trial follows a ruling last month in which Yemeni judges sentenced 17 people to death for spying for Israel and its Western allies. Two others received 10-year prison terms, while one defendant was acquitted, bringing the total number tried in that case to 20.

Yemeni prosecutors said that those defendants were charged with “espionage for foreign countries hostile to Yemen,” including the United States, Israel, and the United Kingdom.

In early November, Yemen’s Interior Ministry announced that security forces had dismantled a spy network jointly operated by the CIA, Mossad, and Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence Presidency.

Authorities reported that the network functioned through small, autonomous cells that gathered sensitive information on critical infrastructure, military sites, weapons production facilities, and locations used for ballistic missile and drone launches by Yemeni armed forces.

Yemen has stepped up its intelligence investigations since the US and Britain started conducting joint airstrikes against the country in support of the Israeli regime amid the genocidal war on Gaza.

Yemen’s armed forces launched a months-long campaign of missile attacks against the occupied territories and Israeli-affiliated shipping in the Red Sea weeks after the war began in October 2023.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/12/07/760189/Yemen-court-espy-network-Israel-US-

Darius I: Persian Empire’s Second Father

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Persian Empire Darius

Episode 5 Darius I: Persian Empire’s Second Father

The Persian Empire (2012)

Dr John W I Lee

Film Review

Cambyses II was succeeded by either his younger brother Bardya (or someone named Gaumata who assassinated Bardya and impersonated him),* who seized the throne while Cambyses was still in Egypt. Cambyses, died of wound infection while traveling through Syria, never returned to Persia.

The fourth Persian king Darius I (522-446 BC), a distant relative of Cyrus I, killed Bardya/Gaumata and the magi who supported him, asserting he was guided by the god Ahuramazda to restore the Achaemenid legacy.

It would be Darius’s role of consolidating the territories conquered by Cyrus and Cambyses. In addition he

  • fixed the boundaries of the empire’s provinces, appointing both military and civilian satraps to govern them.
  • fixed quotas for the tribute paid by each satrapy (issuing the first coins in the Middle East for this purpose).
  • regularized military garrisons and ordered yearly troop musters for each satrapy
  • recruited architects and artisans from across the empire to oversee ambitious building projects (mainly palace and tombs).
  • improved communication through ambitious road building and an extensive messenger service
  • built a strong navy and conquered new lands, included areas of India and Pakistan, Thrace, Samos and other Greek islands.
  • helped finance rebuilding of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem in 515 BC

*Plato asserts Cambyses killed Bardya himself at the start of the former’s reign. Herodutus asserts Bardya accompanied Cambyses to Egypt and was assassinated later after returning to Persia.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/15372393/15372434

Federal Vaccine Advisory Committee Votes to End Universal Hepatitis B Vaccine Recommendation for Babies

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father and mother with newborn baby

Dasha Halepova via Pexels

Hannah Knudsen

A federal advisory committee voted on Friday to end the universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation for newborn babies – a decision which will now go to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director for final approval.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the CDC’s vaccine advisers, determined in an 8-3 vote to narrow the recommendation. Instead of recommending the shot for all newborn babies, the advisory board is opting to recommend it only for newborns whose mothers test positive for the virus. “Women whose hepatitis B status is negative or unknown should talk with their doctors about vaccination, the recommendation says,” according to NPR.

“If you are a baby that was born to a mother that was tested negative for Hep B, you need to realize, as a parent, that your risk of infection throughout your early stage of life and probably throughout most of your childhood, is extremely low to the extent that it’s even hard to quantify how low. It is, it’s probably one in several millions [sic],” Professor Retsef Levi – a member of the ACIP – said in a clip shared by the CDC.

“And that means that, as a parent, we encourage you, in consultation with your physician, to think very carefully. Do you want to expose your child, your baby, to an intervention that could have some potential harms when the risk is so low?” he asked. “And mind you that we are talking about a very, very young baby in the first few months of their life, where they are not fully developed.”

This move comes as the Trump administration continues to focus on the Make America Healthy (MAHA) movement, challenging the status quo and long-held beliefs.

For instance, in September, the committee changed the guidance for the coronavirus shot, essentially leaving it up to the individual. Meanwhile, individual states are working to remove mandates as well. That same month, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced that the Florida Department of Health was working with the DeSantis administration to “end all vaccine mandates” in the Sunshine State.

“Who am I as a government or anyone else, or who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?” Ladapo asked at the time. “Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body? I don’t have that right.”

[…]

Via https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/12/05/federal-vaccine-advisory-committee-votes-end-universal-hepatitis-b-vaccine-recommendation-babies/