#Indian Border Security Forces

[paulpingminho]

[kimskashmir]

Govt moves two BSF battalions from Odisha to militancy-hit Jammu

NEW DELHI — The government has ordered the extraction of two BSF battalions, comprising more than 2,000 personnel, from Odisha to beef up security in the militancy-hit Jammu region along the India-Pakistan border, official sources said on Saturday. The decision to “immediately” move the two units from the anti-Naxal operations grid to Jammu was taken in the wake of the recent spate of militant…

[collapsedsquid]

Just found someone referring to a new “wolf’s fang“ mace that China is now developing, seems like we’ve got a full on arms race going on where they can��t use firearms

[marxism-transgenderism]

In 1792 and 1793, there remained a substantial number of Indian villages in the Ohio River valley that favored peace with the United States. Perhaps the more militant villages could have been won over had the U.S. agreed to maintain the Ohio River as the permanent border with Indian Country. The U.S. could have ensured the continuance of this Indian village world with an army strong enough to interrupt the raids from Kentucky and to maintain peace in the river valley. Despite its move toward pacification, the United States was readying itself for war by building a military force capable of defeating the Indians, removing them from their homelands, and opening Ohio lands for American settlement. Alexander Hamilton had tied the sale of public lands to reduction of the national debt, and the profits of land companies and speculators were linked to securing Indian lands. On March 5, before the summer conferences at Vincennes and the Glaize, Congress had appropriated one million dollars for an enlarged standing army with 291 officers and 4,272 men. Washington and Knox replaced the regimental structure with a more flexible fighting force divided into four 1,280–man sublegions led by brigadier generals. This new army shifted the burden of frontier warfare from volunteer militia forces to a professional military. The Army of the Empire became Washington’s hammer of Indian destruction rather than the means of protecting Indian lands and ensuring them a place in U.S. society. Before Rufus Putnam brokered peace with the Indians and Aupaumut advocated for peaceful ties to the new nation, Congress provided President Washington with sufficient funds to destroy Indian Country. It was then the president’s task to transform a disorganized volunteer force into a standing army, large and disciplined enough to overwhelm Indian forces.

— Susan Sleeper-smith, Indigenous Prosperity and American Conquest: Indian women of the Ohio River Valley, 1690–1792

[girlactionfigure]

*ISRAEL REALTIME* - "Connecting the World to Israel in Realtime"

▪️CORRECTION & UPDATE - MEITAR not MITAR, previous report on school vandalized was in Meitar, near Be’er Sheva, not Mitar, near Netanya.  Two women from Hora who work at the school are suspected and were arrested by police. 

▪️HOSTAGE BABY KFIR TURNS ONE.. where is he?  Is he alive?  Why are we delivering aid and medicines with no proof of life or return?

▪️JORDAN ATTACKS INTO SYRIA.. The Jordanian Air Force attacked targets identified with drug dealers and border smugglers again tonight in southern Syria.  According to reports from Syrian opposition sources, there are about 10 dead as a result of the Jordanian attacks in Syria. Most of them are women and children.

▪️IRAN TRAINED GAZA SNIPERS.. A Shabak investigation of a terrorist showed that Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists from Gaza were trained on Iranian soil to be snipers.

▪️HAMAS CONDEMNS U.S… The senior member Hamas, Abu Zohri, condemned the classification of the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a terrorist organization by the Biden administration.

🚨 RED SEA-Houthis Front 

 ▪️HOUTHIS CLAIM.. The military spokesman of the Houthis:  As part of the response to the American-British attack against us, we launched several missiles at the American ship Genco Picardy in the Gulf of Aden. Target hits were achieved.  An Indian Navy ship in the Gulf of Aden responded to a distress call from a ship flying the flag of the Marshall Islands that was attacked by a drone.​​​​ The ship that was attacked in the Gulf of Aden is the MV Ginko Picardi and it flies the flag of the Marshall Islands.

 ▪️US / UK ATTACK HOUTHIS.. fourth attack by the Americans and the British against the Houthis in Yemen, targets were attacked early in the morning in Sana'a, Tez, Bicha'a, Hudaydah, Damar and Zada.

🚨 REGIONAL War 

▪️PAKISTAN ATTACKS IRAN.. the Pakistani army attacked 7 targets, some of them near the bases of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, in the Sawaran region of southeastern Iran.   According to its statement, Pakistan attacked "terrorist bases" of “terrorist organizations” in the Sistan region of Balochistan.  Pakistan: “We fully respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran.”

(( Noting that Pakistan has a very large military, is at constant conflict with India, has nuclear weapons, and buys and is trained on American weaponry including F-16’s. ))

▪️CONFLICTING REPORTS OF US EVACUATING OR REINFORCING SYRIA BASES.. one report states US moved an additional 1,500 troops to Syrian ‘anti-ISIS’ bases.  Another report (Arab media) says “US forces have evacuated the Hemo base in Syria, which is west of the city of Qamishli in Al-Hasakah countryside, after it came under multiple attacks by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.  The forces have reportedly moved to the Tal Baydar base West of Al-Hasakah.  It is considered one of the US occupation forces' most vital bases, as it is close to Qamishli airport and contains a training camp for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).”  

🔶 GAZA-HAMAS Front 

▪️Air and artillery strikes by our forces in the area of ​​Jabalia and Sheikh Radwan in the Gaza Strip.  The IDF left these areas, the residents began to return, and the terrorists along with them.

🔶 JUDEA-SAMARIA Front 

▪️NOOR-SHAMS, firefight, security forces are demolishing terrorist houses in the El Manashia neighborhood, for the 2nd day.  During the activity, terrorists throwing IED’s at the troops and using IED’s on vehicles.

[mariacallous]

In the waters of the South China Sea, Chinese coast guard vessels have clashed with Philippine ships. In the air above the Taiwan Strait, Chinese warplanes have challenged Taiwanese jet fighters. And in the valleys of the Himalayas, Chinese troops have fought Indian soldiers.

Across several frontiers, China has been using its armed forces to dispute territory not internationally recognized as part of China but nevertheless claimed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In August 2023, Beijing laid out its current territorial claims for the world to see. The new edition of the standard map of China includes lands that are today a part of India and Russia, along with island territories such as Taiwan and comprehensive stretches of the East and South China Seas that are also claimed by Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam.

China often invokes historical narratives to justify these claims. Beijing, for example, has said that the Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands, which it claims under the name of the Diaoyu Islands, “have been an inherent territory of China since ancient times.” Chinese officials have used the same words to back China’s right to parts of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The Chinese government also claims that its sovereignty over the South China Sea is based on its own historic maritime maps.

However, in certain periods since ancient times China has also held sway over other states in the region—Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Vietnam. Yet Beijing is currently not laying claim to any of these.

Instead, Beijing has embraced a selective irredentism, wielding specific chapters of China’s historical record when they suit existing aims and leaving former Chinese territories be when they don’t. Over time, as Beijing’s interests and power relations have shifted, some of these claims have faded from importance, while new ones have taken their place. Yet for Taiwan, Chinese claims remain unchanged, as the fate of the island state is tied to the very legitimacy of the CCP as well as the vitality of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political vision.

Many of the CCP’s territorial claims have roots in the 19th and 20th centuries during the late rule of the Qing Dynasty. Following diplomatic pressure and repeated military defeats, the Qing Dynasty was forced to cede territory to several Western colonial powers, as well as the Russian and Japanese empires. These concessions are part of what are known in China as the “unequal treaties,” while the 100 years in which the treaties were signed and enforced are known as the “century of humiliation.” These territorial losses eventually passed from the dynasty to the Republic of China and then, following the Chinese Civil War, to the CCP. As a result, upon the CCP’s establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the new Chinese state inherited outstanding territorial disputes with most of its neighbors.

But despite the humiliation the Qing Dynasty’s losses had caused, the CCP proved willing to compromise and reduce its territorial aims during times of high internal unrest. Following the Tibetan uprising in 1959, for instance, the CCP negotiated territorial settlements with countries bordering the Tibet region, including Myanmar, Nepal, and India. Similarly, when unrest rocked the Uyghur region in the 1960s and ‘90s, Beijing pursued territorial compromises with several bordering countries such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s and the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, the CCP also pursued territorial settlements with Mongolia, Laos, and Vietnam in the hopes of securing China’s borders during times of domestic instability. Instead of pursuing diversionary wars, the CCP relied on diplomacy to settle border and territory disputes.

But China has changed quite a lot since then. In recent years, the CCP has avoided the inflammatory domestic political chaos of previous decades, and its once-tentative hold over border regions, such as Tibet and the Uyghur region, has been replaced by an iron grip. With this upper hand, the CCP has little incentive to pursue peaceful resolutions to remaining territorial disputes.

“China’s national power has increased significantly, reducing the benefits of compromise and enabling China to drive a much harder bargain,” said M. Taylor Fravel, a political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In this context, the CCP has expanded its irredentist ambitions. After the discovery of potential oil reserves around the Senkaku Islands, and the United States’ return of the islands to Japan in the 1970s, Beijing drew on its historical record to lay claim to the islands, even though it had previously referred to them as part of the Japanese Ryukyu Islands. Similarly, though Beijing and Moscow settled a dispute over Heixiazi Island, located along China’s northeastern border, in 2004, the 2023 map of China depicted the entire island (ceded, along with vast Pacific territories, by the Qing Dynasty to the Russian Empire in 1860) as part of its domain, much to the ire of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Collin Koh Swee Lean, a senior fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, argues that the Chinese mapping of Heixiazi Island shows that Beijing holds on to certain core interests and simply waits for the opportune time to assert them.

“Given the current context of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s increased dependence on China, it might have appeared to Beijing that it has the chips in its pockets because, after all, Moscow needs Beijing more than the other way around,” Koh said on the German Marshall Fund’s China Global podcast.

This raises the question of whether territorial disputes that were settled during times of CCP weakness can be revisited and become subject to irredentist ambitions should power balances shift in China’s favor.

According to Steve Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, there is currently a limit to how far the CCP will push territorial claims against Russia, since President Xi will need Russian support to sustain his grand ambitions for Chinese leadership on the global stage.

Although it would be a long shot, even Russia may not be safe from these ambitions indefinitely. Given that large swaths of Russia’s Pacific territories were part of China until 1860, “China could claim back the Russian Far East when it deems the time is right,” Tsang said. Such control would grant Beijing unrestricted access to the region’s abundance of coal, timber, tin, and gold while moving it geographically closer to its ambition of becoming an Arctic power.

While there is plenty of historical evidence pointing to former Chinese control over the southeastern portion of the Russian Far East, the historical record is less unequivocal about Chinese control over Taiwan. Anything resembling mainland Chinese control over Taiwan was not established until after 1684 by the Qing Dynasty, and even then central authority remained weak. In 1895, the Qing Dynasty ceded Taiwan to the Empire of Japan following the First Sino-Japanese War, and by the time Chinese authority was restored in 1945, Taiwan had undergone several decades of Japanization.

These details have not prevented the CCP from claiming that Taiwan has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times. Yet more than any other irredentist claim, Xi has made unification with Taiwan a major component of his vision to rejuvenate the Chinese nation.

Unification, however, has little to do with ancient history and more to do with the challenge that Taiwan presently poses to Xi’s aims, according to Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor who teaches about Chinese foreign policy at the National University of Singapore.

“The CCP pursues a Chinese nationalism that emphasizes unity and homogeneity centered around the CCP leadership while they also often claim that their single-party rule is acceptable to Chinese people,” Chong said.

In contrast, Taiwan holds free elections in which multiple political parties compete for the favor of a people that have increasingly developed an identity distinct from mainland China.

“The Taiwanese experience is a clear affront to the CCP narrative,” Chong said.

Control over Taiwan is also attractive to Beijing because it is key to unlocking the Chinese leadership’s broader ambition of maritime hegemony in waters where almost half of the world’s container fleet passed through in 2022.

As with the case of Taiwan, the CCP’s historical arguments regarding its claims on island groups and islets in the East and South China Seas are likewise much weaker than many of its land-based claims.

Instead, Chinese territorial intransigence in the maritime arena is more about a strategic shift in the value of the seas around China, Fravel said.

Today, it has been estimated that more than 21 percent of global trade passes through the South China Sea. And beneath these waters are not only subsea cables that carry sensitive internet data but also vast estimated reserves of oil and natural gas.

Although it may say otherwise, Beijing’s unwillingness to let up on its tenuous territorial maritime claims suggests that China is pursuing long-held ambitions and global aspirations rather than attempting to reverse past losses. So long as the CCP wields its historical record selectively and changeably to serve its aims—and is willing to back its claims up with military action—China’s neighbors will remain at risk.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[Dawn is Private Pakistani Media]

Indian forces opened fire on Pakistani posts along the Working Boundary near Sialkot, military sources said on Thursday. While there was no official word from Inter-Services Public Relations — the military’s media wing — or local law enforcement, reports shared by locals on social media suggested that heavy and artillery fire was heard at several points along the border with India in the Zafarwal sector. According to military sources, the firing began after a drone attempted to intrude into Pakistani territory, which was shot down by Pakistani forces. But Indian forces — ostensibly in a bid to cover up the failed attempt at an incursion — opened indiscriminate fire on Pak­istani posts along the Working Boundary.

Sources said that Pakistani forces gave a “befitting response” to the Indian aggression.

[Tribune India is Private Indian Media]

Pakistan violated ceasefire in Arnia sector along the International Border in Jammu division late on Thursday, the day when the erstwhile state was celebrating its 76th Accession Day.

Mortars fired by the Pakistani side exploded inside Arnia town near homes, locals said. There was no report of injuries till the filing of this report.

Unprovoked firing and mortar shells were launched on the Border Security Force (BSF) posts and residential areas forcing locals to move out of their homes to safer places. The details about any loss could not be verified, but the Indian side retaliated with machine guns and other weapons.

An official spokesperson of the BSF said, “Around 8 pm unprovoked firing was started by Pakistan Rangers on BSF posts in the Arnia area which was retaliated by BSF troops. The firing is still on.”

As per reports, Pakistan was using HMG and mortars.

27 Oct 23

[captain-price-unofficially]

Indian Border Security Forces patrolling the Indo-Pakistani border in the Thar Desert.

[thevividgreenmoss]

The ease with which the spigot of temporary labor can be adjusted has allowed states to fine-tune the flow of labor in, carefully calibrating the supply to ensure workers never gain too much power. In the mid-2000s, for example, the Emirati government’s concerns about the growing strength of economic and political claims by Indian workers—who by then had come to represent an overwhelming majority of the migrant workforce in the country, particularly in construction—resulted in new rules requiring employers to source their workforces from no fewer than three different countries. Not only has this allowed the UAE to play remittance-seeking, labor-sending countries off each other and diminish their efforts to protect their citizens’ rights abroad; it has also allowed employers to sow ethnonational divisions between migrant workers through differential wage rates and other tactics, preventing any single group of migrant workers with common cause from becoming a significant political bloc in the country.

...There have been some talks about whether to tentatively allow some Palestinian workers to return, some of them led by Israeli security officials concerned about the potential threat produced by large-scale unemployment in the Occupied Territories. But they have been met with opposition. The goal, said Idan Roll of the centrist Yesh Atid Party, should instead be to “wean the Israeli economy off Palestinian workers.” For both sides of the debate, the problem is essentially a matter of colonial strategy: either work permits will pacify the Palestinian population, or they will be too risky. Israel’s stopgap solution, importing less politically volatile Indian workers as a rapid-response labor force, draws from the two-hundred-year-old colonial logic of British indenture.

The Modi government wagers that the fate of the construction workers headed to Israel in the midst of a brutal war is of as little concern to the wider public as that of the Palestinian workers they are replacing. But India and Israel’s collusion has not come without significant resistance, despite unprecedented levels of repression. As the February blockade shows, progressive unions in India have made solidarity with Palestinian freedom a central pillar of their actions. Others have directly compared Israel’s contracting of Indian labor to the history of indenture. Organizing across the often chasmic gaps of nationality, race, caste, language, or religion is difficult—but by no means impossible. If modern states have ensured the brutal subjugation of both populations living, and workers laboring, in their borders through colonial means, then the resistance to those tactics must be anticolonial in response.

[digitaldetoxworld]

Understanding the Impact of Indian Army Defense Result on National Security

 Indian Army Defense Result is  performs a critical position in safeguarding a nation's sovereignty, security, and balance. It encompasses diverse techniques, technology, and military forces that work collectively to protect a country from external threats, such as army aggression, terrorism, and cyber-assaults. The outcome of a nicely-coordinated defense approach no longer simplest ensures countrywide safety but also strengthens a country’s impact on the worldwide stage.

Military Defense

One of the important thing components of defense is the military. Armed forces, which include the military, military, air force, and once in a while specialised gadgets like area and cyber commands, are liable for protecting the u . S . In opposition to physical threats. The effectiveness of a kingdom's army depends on its stage of schooling, get right of entry to to trendy technology, and universal preparedness. Strong navy abilties act as a deterrent towards potential adversaries, decreasing the probability of conflict. In instances of warfare or disaster, a nicely-prepared military can quickly mobilize to shield country wide pastimes, stable borders, and protect citizens.

Technological and Cyber Defense

In today’s digital age, defense additionally closely is based on superior technology. Innovations which includes artificial intelligence (AI), unmanned aerial cars (UAVs), and missile protection structures have transformed modern warfare. A nation’s ability to broaden, collect, and combine those technologies into its protection apparatus can considerably effect its safety consequences. Cyber protection has emerged as an crucial element of countrywide safety as well. With increasing cyber threats from both country and non-kingdom actors, protecting essential infrastructure and touchy statistics is paramount. A a hit cyber defense strategy prevents espionage, hacking, and other cyberattacks that would disrupt authorities operations or damage important structures.

Diplomatic and Economic Defense

Beyond the battlefield, protection techniques additionally embody diplomacy and monetary safety. Building robust alliances through international relations enables in collective defense efforts, including NATO, in which member states pledge to shield each other. Economic electricity also contributes to country wide protection through making sure good enough investment for defense tasks and retaining resilience in opposition to sanctions or monetary battle.

Result of Effective Defense

Defense Result Army  is  powerful protection system not only protects a country’s borders however also complements its international status. A strong and adaptive protection infrastructure guarantees peace, deters capability threats, and permits a nation to task power responsibly on the worldwide stage.

[paulpingminho]

[themassespress]

Condemn Recurring Aerial Bombings and Fake Encounters in Bastar

By the Forum Against Militarization and Corporatization On 7th April 2024, the Indian state conducted yet another aerial bombing in Bastar region, an act which has occurred for the fifth time in the area since 2021. In the same time period, on 16th April 2024, 29 Maoists were reportedly slain by a joint team of District Reserve Guard (DRG) and Border Security Forces (BSF) in a supposed…

[readingsquotes]

" The empire not only circulated personnel but also forms of expression of colonial power in openly acknowledged ways. The Palestine Royal Commission,....identified the Palestinian uprising as mirroring other insurgencies: “As in Ireland,” wrote the commission, “in the worst days after the War [of Independence] or in Bengal, intimidation at the point of a revolver has become a not infrequent feature of Arab politics.” ....

Three chilling aspects of Tegart’s “reforms” in Palestine were borrowed from India and have managed to survive the test of time, as an apartheid state succeeded a colonial one. ...

First, Tegart proposed the construction of a security fence along the Palestinian border with Syria and Lebanon, and a series of 70fortified security posts all over Palestine.

... Second, Tegart institutionalized and normalized brutal interrogation tactics, having employed them “successfully” on Indian revolutionaries.

.... Finally, the use of collective punishment to “pacify” Indians was a fundamental technique of British repression in India.

.... When I look at the partition of Palestine in 1947 and 1967, the ghosts of India and Pakistan rise like smoke from charred buildings of Karachi and Kolkata. When U.S. police forces are trained in Tel Aviv, Black activists in Ferguson raise their fists for Gaza.

It is true that the sun never set on the British empire. This is why from Cape Town to Calcutta we are the children of those whom the Tegarts tortured. This is why we stand for the decolonization of Palestine.

[fatehbaz]

[I]n the period of eerie suspension before the explosion [...], those who registered the [...] uncanny [...] experience[d] a condition that [...] would become familiar to everyone living in a targeted city during the Cold War: the sense that the present survival and flourishing of the city were simultaneously underwritten and radically threatened by its identity as a nuclear target. [...] [I]nhabitants of Cold War cities [...] became accustomed to a more overt and permanent variant of the uncanny frisson [...]. Lobbing incendiaries and explosives through the roofs and windows […], the British gunners gutted portions of the Dublin city center; during the week of the Rising, 500 people died […]. The more frequent and extreme outbreaks of traumatic violence in everyday urban life […], in the early-twentieth-century imaginary, the city had begun to host new forms of sudden mass death and severe physical destruction.

Cities had, of course, been sites of mass death before 1916.

But the Easter Rising differed from nineteenth-century urban barricade fighting in the use, principally by British soldiers, of more precise and destructive weapons; fired from the ground, from rooftops, and from gunships in the Liffey, the new cannons, incendiaries, and machine guns rapidly reduced whole blocks of the city center to ruins. These emerging military technologies and strategies link the Rising to the Great War then raging in England and on the Continent, whose fields and cities had become proving grounds for new weaponry and modes of warfare. In Ireland and the Great War, [...] “Like the Western Front [the Easter Rising] became a war of attrition, and the lessons of the Western Front were taught again in the streets of Dublin.” […]

---

Though the shelling of Dublin in 1916 reminded observers of Ypres, Louvain, and other European cities ruined in the Great War, it might as credibly have called to mind a different list: Canton, Kagoshima, and Alexandria. During the second half of the nineteenth century, British naval bombardments made rubble of these coastal cities […].

The naval bombardment of undefended cities and civilians, particularly those in colonial territories, paved the way for the first airplane bombardments, in which the imperial powers of Europe dropped bombs on nonwhite, non-European adversaries and anticolonial forces.

Italy pioneered airplane bombardment in 1911 by bombing Arab oases outside Tripoli; British planes bombed Pathans in India in 1915, Egyptian revolutionaries and the Sultan of Farfur in 1916, a Mashud uprising on the Indian-Afghanistan border in 1917, and Somaliland and the Afghan cities of Dacca, Jalalabad, and Kabul in 1919.

---

Several years before the inhabitants of European cities experienced it, aerial bombardment had been established as a uniquely colonial nightmare. [...] [T]he initial use of airplane bombs against colonies was foreseen and even fed by a racist fantasy pervading early-twentieth-century European science fiction, a fantasy of bombing subject races either into submission or out of existence. The willingness of several signatory nations to ignore Article 25 when bombing nonwhite soldiers and civilians made colonial towns and cities the first civilian spaces secured by the implied threat of bombardment from above.

In the world war […] the brief tenure of aerial bombardment as an exclusively colonial technique ended when imperial powers launched the first bombing campaigns against the cities of other imperial powers, initiating a change that would later find its apogee in the nuclear condition: the reconfiguration of the major metropolis as target.

---

All text above by: Paul K. Saint-Amour. “Bombing and the Symptom: Traumatic Earliness and the Nuclear Uncanny.” Diacritics Volume 30, Number 4, Winter 2000, pp. 59-82. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism.]

[girlactionfigure]

SUMMARY Tuesday Israel Realtime

🔻no overnight rockets / drones

▪️HOSTAGE CEASEFIRE LEAKS.. “the head of the Mossad continued the meetings in Qatar during the night and plans to return to Israel today. The negotiations have officially started and “there is a solid basis for starting talks”.  High level of Mossad, Shin Bet and IDF work teams are deployed in Qatar.”

All reported demands are OUTRAGEOUS, EXTREME, war loss type of demands.

▪️BIDEN SAYS.. on his Twitter account: "Today I spoke again with Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding the latest developments in Israel and Gaza. I continued to confirm that Israel has the right to persecute Hamas, the terrorist group responsible for the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. 

I reiterated the need for an immediate ceasefire as part of a deal to release the hostages, which will last several weeks, so that we can return them home and help the citizens in Gaza. I asked the Prime Minister to send a team to Washington to discuss ways to fight Hamas without a major ground operation in Rafah"

🔸GAZA.. the new battle for al-Shifa hospital, which was re-taken by Hamas as a command and control site, shows the IDF has a humanitarian problem - Hamas is consistently hiding in maximum civilian casualty sites, and a control problem, it appears they are taking and smashing but not occupying. 

While the Prime Minister announced Israel WILL go into Rafah, we also hear “a few weeks of preparation” while at the same time the U.S. is demanding approval rights on the approach, to make sure Hamas’s human shields are kept safe while Israeli hostages continue to rot.

The US, via various unspoken and now spoken threats, is effectively stopping Israel in Gaza.

🔸LEBANON.. tit-for-tat attacks continue. The Lebanese now report 90,000 evacuated civilians, and around 400 dead, with about 4 of 5 being Hezbollah fighters - an incredible targeting success although perhaps too discriminate? 

Hezbollah continues a gradual use of bigger weapons, and the IDF continues large bomb attacks.  But in both cases staying on mostly military targets and within short range of the border.

 🔸YEMEN..  Houthis continue daily shipping attacks, most miss, some interceptions by US/UK ships. The Indian navy has helped several hit ships. The Houthis admitted the Iranian navy ship is feeding them targeting data, the Iranians deny. 

US / UK bombings are basically ineffective, with them reporting “11 attacks, we took out 3 missiles”.

Saudi bombed the Houthis, not related to shipping, and the UAE announced the formation of a foreign legion / mercenary force to fight the Houthis in Yemen.

🔸JERUSALEM.. with tens of thousands of nightly worshippers, the Temple Mount compound has been kept controlled so far through Ramadan. There were a few attempts at riling up the Arab public via propaganda, such as “they’re installing blocking gates!” which were actually replacing of rotted out police control fences.

🔸JUDEA-SAMARA (West Bank).. the IDF continues a high volume of nightly counter-terrorism raids and arrests. However, there are also several daily attacks on the roads, shootings into towns, stabbings at checkpoints.

🔸SYRIA.. Israel bombs regularly sites where Iran is stocking weapons headed towards Hezbollah. But Iran continues to ship in weapons AND fighters. 

US bases in Syria have NOT come under attack since the US asked Iran nicely to stop it (and released to them $10 billion).

Turkey is now attacking northern Syria, where they have a Kurdish rebel cross border problem, and has committed to eliminating the problem and taking control of a security zone.

[ausetkmt]

Black Seminole tribal members of El Nacimiento de los Negros have celebrated their version of Juneteenth since the 1870s.

When Mexico outlawed slavery decades before the United States, thousands of Black Texans found a new route to freedom.

Their descendants meet in Coahuila, Mexico, every year for Juneteenth celebrations. 

Just over 100 miles from the Texas-Mexico border, a small mountain town in Coahuila, Mexico, is preparing for their annual Juneteenth celebrations.

El Nacimiento de los Negros, translating to "Birth of the Blacks," is home to a community of Afro-Indigenous families that trace their roots back to the United States. Known as "Mascogos," the group are descendants of Black Seminoles who found a home in Mexico after fleeing slavery and the threat of slave catchers in the US.

Black Seminoles were formerly enslaved people who escaped the plantations they worked on and aligned themselves with the Indigenous Seminoles of Florida. The joined forces with the Indigenous tribes to fight the US in the Seminole Wars.

In the 1800s, many Black Seminoles were forced to relocate from places like Georgia and Florida to areas designated Indian Territory in Oklahoma. During that time, Black Seminole chief John Horse, who had both Indigenous and Black ancestry, led a group of people to Mexico, where slavery had already been outlawed. A group settled in El Nacimiento in 1852.

The Southern Underground Railroad

When the General Congress of the United Mexican States completely outlawed slavery in 1837, enslaved people in Texas had a viable route to freedom by going southward. Notably, in the 1936-1938 federal Slave Narrative project, emancipated freeman and San Antonio-born Felix Hayward remarked: "There wasn't no reason to run up north… All we had to do was to walk, but walk south, and we'd be free as soon as we crossed the Rio Grande." By 1849, African Americans began to make the journey into Mexico. 

Experts estimate that up to 10,000 people crossed the border to Mexico to secure their freedom and escape slavery, creating what is known as the Southern Underground Railroad.

Contrary to the Union's agreement to return runaway slaves under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Mexican law provided freedom for escaped slaves once they touched Mexican soil. Many of those escaped enslaved people, alongside Indigenous groups of Mexico, helped defend the Northern Mexican border in exchange for acres of land in Coahuila.

Celebrating Juneteenth in Mexico

Juneteenth marks the official end of slavery on June 19th, 1865 when 250,000 Black people in Galveston, Texas were informed of their freedom by executive decree. Historians estimate that as some Black Seminoles traveled back and forth from El Nacimiento to Brackettville, Texas, Juneteenth celebrations spread to Mexico as early as the 1870s. 

For more than 100 years, Mascogos in El Nacimiento have celebrated what they call "Dia de los Negros," or "Day of the Blacks," on June 19th. Many Black Seminole descendants still embark on the pilgrimage from parts of Texas to El Nacimiento to celebrate the day. Traditional cuisine includes a sweet potato bread called tetapún and slow-cooked asado pork. The dishes combine Indigenous, Black, and Mexican cultural inspirations.

After generations in northern Mexico, many members of the Black Seminoles in El Nacimiento strictly speak Spanish. However, the hymns passed down from African American descendants are still sung in English on Dia de los Negros, including "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "This Little Light of Mine." 

As more Black Seminole descendants are leaving El Nacimiento to find work in Texas or other parts of Mexico, many Mascogos are worried their culture is waning.

To prioritize preservation, members have established the Museo Comunitario Tribu Negros Mascogos for local art, a hotel, a restaurant, and secured federal funding for community gardens. In 2017, the governor of Coahuila declared the Mascogo tribe as Indigenous people of the northern Mexican state.

As Juneteenth was officially recognized as a US federal holiday in 2021, tribal members are planning to promote cultural tourism as a source of support and revitalization for the enduring town, and prevailing traditions, of El Nacimiento de los Negros.