#Julie Ismael

[a-shade-of-blue]

New Gaza fundraiser asks I've received (12 September)

Mohammed & Diana (@melhindips): They have 12 members in their immediate family. Diana is currently pregnant with their third child, and their daughter suffers from a neck injury. They are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/4e1d146f) (vetted by PaliLiberation and is documented as Family #132. (FYI PaliLiberation is an Instagram and Tiktok based initiative, and they only document campaigns who have passed their verification process))

Ali Jundia (@ali-manar2024-family, @ali2024-family): Ali is from a family of 9. His son Yazan has been injured in the foot by a sharpnel. Ali is raising funds to evacuate his family and provide treatment for Yazan. (https://gofund.me/c76c2983) (vetted by association. Ali Jundia is a friend of @samerpal (#196 on the verified fundraiser list vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi)) (kr959 SEK raised of kr550,000 goal)

Mohammed Ayman (@mohammed-gaza): Mohammed is 19 years old. He is trying to evacuate himself and 7 family members including 5 children. Their house has been destroyed and they are now living in a displaced people camp in Mawasi Khan Younis. (https://gofund.me/a0fe2508) (vetted by association. Mohammed is a friend of @maram-gaza (#196 on the  Bees and Watermelons verified fundraiser list. Also vetted by association. Maram is a friend of @yousefjehad3 (#255 on the verified fundraiser sheet vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi))) (€40 raised of €70,000 goal)

Alaa (@alaa-syam): Alaa has 3 children: Raghad (15), Ahmed (10) and Ismael (14). Ahmed suffers from a serious eye condition but has not been able to receive medical treatment. Alaa is fundrasing to provide for basic necessities and medical treatment for Ahmed. (https://gofund.me/0a8f5756) (vetted by association. Alaa is a sister of @yousefjehad3 (132 on the Bees and Watermelons verified fundraiser list, shared by 90-ghost and listed as #255 on the verified fundraiser sheet vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi)) ($206 CAD raised of $30,000 goal)

Noha Ayyad (@nohaayyad19): Nour lost her only child (two-and-a-half-year old) and her husband in the 2014 war. Her home has been destroyed. Her mother suffers from arthritis and back pain, and her brother Darwish suffers from paralysis in his right leg and needs regular treatment. She seeks to evacuate her 17 family members out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/00cf57d2) (#78 on the Operation Olive Branch verified fundraiser list) 

Anas Al-Sharfa (@anasalshrofa): Anas dreams of being a doctor but his uni has been destroyed. Their younger siblings are at risk since they haven’t received their vaccinations and there is an outbreak of polio. His brother suffered from jaundice and there is no treatment. (https://gofund.me/589a25a1) (#913 on the Butterfly Effect Project vetted fundraiser list) (€1,961 raised of €50,000 goal)

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 13 - 25 July.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 26 -29 July.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 30 July - 1 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 2 - 5 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 6 - 10 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 11 - 14 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 15 - 18 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundrasiers from 19 - 21 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundrasiers from 22 - 24 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 25 - 28 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 29 August - 1 September

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 2 - 5 September.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 6-10 September.

How does vetting and verification work? See post here. (also read comments regarding 90-ghost and why we trust the campaigns he has shared)

Click here for my Google Doc with my complete masterlist of all the Palestinian gfm asks I've received, updated daily (along with other verified ways to send aid to Gaza).

See post here for other verified ways to send aid to Gaza.

Don't forget your Daily Clicks on Arab.org, it's free!!! and Every click made is registered in their system and generates donation from sponsors/advertisers.)

[opencommunion]

"In the on-going Nakba, Israeli government policymakers and forces continue to destroy homes and even entire villages. During the period 2013–20, some 13,265 structures were demolished in Naqab Palestinian communities. The rate of destruction has increased over the years, including in the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020, during which 2,568 structures were demolished. This represents an increase in annual demolitions of 268 per cent since 2013. In addition, the Israeli governmental and non-governmental forces (e.g., the Jewish National Fund [JNF]), continue to oppose Naqab Palestinians’ making the desert bloom. The NGO, Negev Coexistence Foundation documented the destruction of approximately 14,500 dunams of crops planted by Naqab Palestinians in 2021. The government has also restarted its pre- and early-state practice of demolishing entire Palestinian villages. One such village, Al-Araqib, represents a particular threat because it is a story of displaced Naqab Palestinians moving back to their ancestral lands and re-establishing their village. This village, established in the early 1900s, was depopulated by the Israeli military government in 1953, when all inhabitants were evacuated, ostensibly for six months in order to use the land for military training. The Israeli authorities, however, never allowed the Al-Araqib villagers to return, and eventually they resettled in Rahat, while continuing to register claims for their land, to use it for grazing and agriculture (though crops were repeatedly destroyed by the authorities), and bury their dead in the village cemetery. In 1998, around fifty Bedouin families decided to return to al-Araqib to live on their land, when an operation by the JNF to plant trees on their land was initiated. Like other unrecognized villages, Al-Araqib has no modern services or infrastructure, and has been repeatedly subjected to demolitions, threats and arrests by Israeli authorities. On 27 July 2010, the entire village was demolished by the state, including olive trees and livestock. When the UN Human Rights Council questioned the Israeli government about the demolition of this village in 2011, it maintained a staunchly settler-colonial denial of indigenous land rights, stating that ‘the so-called El-Arkib village was simply an act of squatting on state owned land. The individuals never had ownership over this land.’ The people of Al-Araqib rebuilt their village and have staunchly refused to leave. Since then, as of 25 January 2022, the village has been demolished another 197 times, often with the Israeli forces also destroying, burying or confiscating the wood and tin building materials to try to prevent the residents from using them to rebuild Al-Araqib again. These serial demolitions have also resulted in many injuries and arrests, and state authorities have sued the families for over a million shekels (~US $330,000) to cover the costs of the demolitions."

Ismael Abu-Saad, “Al-Naqab: The Unfinished Zionist Settler-colonial Conquest of its Elusive ‘Last Frontier,’ and Indigenous Palestinian Bedouin Arab Resistance,” in Decolonizing the Study of Palestine: Indigenous Perspectives and Settler Colonialism (2023)

[divinum-pacis]

March 2023: Nuns inspect damaged parts of Deir Mar Mikhael.

"The area where the monastery sits was known to the Mosulites as 'Hawi al-Kanisa' in reference to it [having been] a church, hundreds of years ago," Archbishop Najib Mikhael Moussa said.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the residents of Mosul have lived in insecurity. In June 2014, the city was taken by the ISIL armed group till July 2017. But even after, Mosulites suffered scattered attacks that added to the feeling of being unsafe. [Ismael Adnan/Al Jazeera]

[beardedmrbean]

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Local police in the cartel-dominated city of Culiacan, Mexico have been pulled off the streets after the army seized their guns, officials announced Monday.

The move came just one day after about 1,500 residents of Culiacan, the capital of the northern state of Sinaloa, held a march Sunday though the city's downtown to demand peace after weeks in which cartel gunfights have killed dozens of people in and around the city.

But rather than announcing a stepped-up police presence, Ruben Rocha, the state’s governor, said Monday the entire 1,000-member municipal police force would not return to duty until they get their weapons back. Soldiers, state police and National Guard will take over patrolling until then.

Rocha said the seizure of the weapons for inspection of their permits and serial numbers was not a routine check, but rather was “exceptional,” and said “we hope it will end soon.”

Historically, the Mexican army has seized the weapons of local police forces they distrust, either because they suspect some local cops are working for drug gangs or because they suspect they are carrying unregistered, private sidearms that would make abuses harder to trace.

In 2018, the army seized the weapons from the municipal police in another state capital, Cuernavaca, to conduct a similar inspection. It said at the time the measure was aimed at ensuring “trustworthy security forces.”

Hundreds of army troops have been flown into Culiacan since fighting broke out between factions of the Sinaloa cartel after drug lords Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López were apprehended in the United States after they flew there in a small plane on July 25.

Zambada later claimed he was kidnapped and forced aboard the plane by Guzmán López, causing a violent battle between Zambada's faction and the “Chapitos” group lead by the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Sunday's protest was the first such march residents have dared to hold since factional fighting broke out following the events of July 25. Gunbattles have broken out even in downtown areas and upscale neighborhoods of Culiacan, and parents have been loathe to send their children to school since early September.

Schools in Culiacan have largely turned to holding classes online to avoid the near-daily shootings. On Monday, gunmen shot to death the leader of the local cattle rancher's union, Faustino Hernández, in broad daylight on a downtown street.

The civic group “Culiacan Valiente,” or Brave Culiacan, organized residents to dress in white Sunday as they carried banners reading “Take back our streets!”

“We want a return to in-class learning, but only if the safety of the schoolchildren is guaranteed,” the march organizers wrote in statement.

Rocha acknowledged the battle is between two cartel factions — he called them the “Chapitos” and the “Mayitos" — and pledged to fight both equally.

“There are two groups that are confronting each other here,” Rocha said of his state. “The authorities are here to face them down equally, both of them without exceptions.”

The two groups have taken to leaving strange factional markers on the dead bodies of their rivals: The “Chapitos” leave pizzas (derived from their group's collective moniker in Spanish, “La ChaPIZA”), while Zambada's supporters leave their trademark cowboy hats on dead bodies. The cowboy hats reflect the belief that Zambada's faction is more old-school than the young Guzmáns.

But the situation has gotten so out of control that cartel gunmen have taken to hijacking buses and trucks and burning them to block highways leading in and out of Culiacan.

Rocha acknowledged that he himself got caught for hours in traffic Friday after one such cartel blockade, after he went to the nearby resort city of Mazatlan to meet with outgoing President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Rochas said he had to drive past the burning remains of one vehicle that had been torched.

On Monday, the governor promised to set up five “anti-blockade” squads with state police and soldiers on highways near Culiacan. But in acknowledgement that the squads wouldn't be able to stop the hijackings, he said they would at least be equipped with tanker trucks to puts out the flames and tow away the wreckage.

Even the local army commander, Gen. Francisco Leana Ojeda, acknowledged recently that “We want this to be over as soon as possible, but it doesn’t depend on us, it’s up to the warring groups to stop confronting each other.”

[stele3]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/blast-turkish-aviation-company-tusas-hq-gunfire-heard-media-2024-10-23/

[mariacallous]

The trajectory of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka—widely known as the Tamil Tigers—is often cited by proponents of Israel’s stated war aim of entirely eliminating Hamas from Gaza. The Tamil Tigers were one of the most effective and brutal terrorist formations in the world, responsible for the murder of a sitting Sri Lankan president, a former Indian prime minister on Indian soil, and an unending array of prominent Sri Lankans. Eventually, a decimating war waged by the Sri Lankan state between 2006 and 2009—known as the Eelam IV war—resulted in the LTTE’s comprehensive defeat.

But the Tamil precedent is much more ambivalent than the most common references suggest. The precedent indicates that the survival of Hamas will largely be determined by two factors that are themselves still undetermined, and which may operate in tension with one another.

The first factor is whether Hamas, as an organization, has been designed to survive a widespread loss of leadership. In the wake of the killing of Yahya Sinwar as well as the earlier assassination of a string of other Hamas leaders, including Ismael Haniyeh (as well as several prominent leaders of the Iran-backed Hezbollah, including its chief, Hassan Nasrallah), many commentators have argued that so-called decapitation is not sufficient to result in the collapse of an insurgent group. The Tamil precedent suggests this analysis is too simplistic.

In the Sri Lankan case, the LTTE leadership was almost completely wiped out. The fatalities included Velupillai Prabhakaran—the group’s founding leader—and any imagined successor. The only exceptions were those in the diaspora, including designated successor Kumaran Pathmanathan, who coordinated fundraising, weapon acquisitions, and smuggling operations from Malaysia and Thailand.

There were also a handful of others, such as a militant known as Colonel Karuna Amman, who switched sides and turned against the LTTE in 2004, and Daya Master, the group’s most prominent spokesman, who surrendered just days before its comprehensive defeat. But all these individuals lacked the support and commitment to revive the movement.

Accordingly, since 2010, Sri Lanka has recorded just two LTTE-linked incidents of killing: a shootout in April 2014, in which three members of an LTTE cadre and one security force trooper were killed, and the death in July 2020 of an LTTE “intelligence agent” as the result of burns sustained in an accidental explosion during a botched attempt to assemble a bomb.

The decapitation of a terrorist group is effective when the pace of the leadership’s elimination outstrips its natural replacement rate. Top leaders of any militant movement are not easily replaced; ideological coherence, strategic and tactical competence, and an element of charisma take years, if not decades, to develop. If leaders are replaced at a rate that outstrips the development of these attributes, command passes into the hands of inexperienced, inept, or ineffectual leaders who steer the group into error and failure.

The two most significant attributes of a militant group’s leadership that need to be preserved—or, from the state’s perspective, targeted—are the top ideological and military leaderships of the group, with military leaders in the theater of conflict the most critical. Ideologues and strategists may survive in the diaspora, but if the field leadership collapses, then so does the movement.

The received wisdom, of course, is that an idea can never be defeated by violence; that unless root causes are addressed, no conflict can be resolved. These have become, for some thinkers, articles of faith. But history shows that protracted wars are not sustained by any set of “root causes,” but rather by a leadership that effectively weaves specific grievances—real and imagined—into a violent ideology.

Far from being the case that an ideology cannot be defeated without addressing root causes, the reality is that an armed ideology grows with violent successes and is delegitimized by defeat. The outcome in the Gaza Strip will depend on the thoroughness with which the Hamas leadership is decimated and the completeness of the military defeat inflicted on the group.

The second factor that will determine the survival of Hamas is whether the widespread civilian casualties committed by Israel in Gaza end up undermining its legitimacy, thus strengthening the legitimacy of Hamas in turn.

This seems likely to have been the exact strategy that Hamas was pursuing with its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The purpose of the carnage was not simply to kill Israelis; the essence of such extremism is that the victim is not the target. The target was the state of Israel, and the objective was to provoke precisely the overreaction that has, in fact, followed. The use of human shields, compounded by aggressive propaganda and information campaigns, has been deployed to counter the military and technological advantages of the dominant power.

In the Tamil case, widespread civilian casualties inflicted by the Sri Lankan government undoubtedly served to strengthen LTTE’s hand. Through the final stages of Eelam IV, civilian casualties became a major issue, with Scandinavian interlocutors—led by Norway, which had brokered the lopsided cease-fire agreement of 2002-08—mounting a strident international campaign against Sri Lanka Armed Forces (SLF) and their alleged human rights violations, even as the LTTE’s excesses were substantially underplayed or ignored.

Those excesses included the herding of roughly 300,000 civilians into shrinking areas of the LTTE’s territorial control as well as the placement of the group’s military assets, including artillery, in these civilian concentrations. Shifting and diminishing “no-fire zones” declared by the SLF were similarly infiltrated by LTTE fighters and firepower, leaving the former the choice to sue for peace or to continue to target the rebels—with the moral burden of collateral civilian casualties.

Thousands escaped the LTTE’s enclosures, but hundreds were demonstratively tortured and executed after failed attempts to escape, even as the international campaign by the so-called peacemakers to halt the advances of the SLF escalated.

Some humanitarian groups accused Sri Lankan political and military leadership during the war of genocide and warned that they would be hauled up before the war crimes tribunal at the International Criminal Court—a threat that is reiterated periodically by Western leaders even now. These threats, as well as a strong domestic argument based on the costs of the war and Sri Lanka’s weakening economy, exerted potentially crippling pressure on the country’s leadership.

The eventual response, however, also demonstrated the central role of political will in the outcome of war, as Sri Lanka’s leadership refused doggedly to succumb to these pressures or restore a negotiation process with the LTTE unless it laid down arms.

In the current case of Hamas, the international media has spent months projecting harrowing images of the estimated 42,000 fatalities in Gaza, particularly those of women and children. The reporting rarely acknowledges that in most Israeli attacks, though not all, Hamas fighters and weapons caches are also successfully targeted. With few exceptions, the civilian casualties predominate in media attention over Israeli successes.

None of this is intended to assert that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been innocent of all excess. But civilian fatalities were largely unavoidable given the subterranean networks constructed by Hamas that lie beneath Gaza’s civilian population. Hamas continues to locate its operational networks and hideouts—such as locations where hostages are held—in dense civilian population centers, including schools and hospitals. Hamas forces and leadership have also moved with the civilian populations into the changing so-called “safe zones” announced by the IDF.

And yet, much of the popular imagery seeks to shift the entire moral burden to the IDF, while the burden of culpability on Hamas is underplayed, even as Israel is pressured to practice restraint. Indeed, the higher the civilian toll, the more that the Hamas strategy would be seen as succeeding in underlining what the group argues is the illegitimacy of Israel’s very existence.

History is the construction of narratives, and it remains to be seen which narrative will prevail at the end of the present conflict, whatever its outcome. Even in the event of a thorough Hamas defeat, there may be attempts to yoke the group’s so-called sacrifices and martyrdom to efforts for revival by survivors within Hamas, or by successor groups—and this is the outcome that the Hamas leadership would hope for.

[newstfionline]

Thursday, October 24, 2024

America’s flooding problem (NYT) America has a flooding problem. When Hurricane Milton hit Florida, the images of inundation seemed shocking—but also weirdly normal: For what felt like the umpteenth time this year, entire communities were underwater. Since the 1990s, the cost of flood damage has roughly doubled each decade, according to one estimate. The federal government issued two disaster declarations for floods in 2000. So far this year, it has issued 66. The reasons are no mystery. Global warming is making storms more severe because warmer air holds more water. At the same time, more Americans are moving to the coast and other flood-prone areas.

In battleground Georgia, poor people see no reason to vote (AP) Sabrina Friday scanned the room at Mother’s Nest, an organization in Macon that provides baby supplies, training, food and housing to mothers in need, and she asked how many planned to vote. Of the 30, mostly women, six raised their hands. Friday, the group’s executive director, said she tries to stress civic duty, an often difficult proposition given the circumstances of her clients. “When a mom is in a hotel room and there’s six or seven people in two beds and her kids are hungry and she just lost the car, she doesn’t want to hear too much about elections,” Friday said. “She wants to hear how you can help.” Linda Solomon, 58, said she and her daughter aren’t voting “because nothing changes” no matter who sits in the White House. “Why you gonna vote and ain’t nobody doing nothing?”

Mexican schools have 6 months to ban junk food sales or face heavy fines (AP) Schools in Mexico have six months to implement a government-sponsored ban on junk food or face heavy fines, officials said Monday, as authorities confront what they call the worst childhood obesity problem in the world. The rules target products that have become staples for two or three generations of Mexican school kids: sugary fruit drinks, chips, artificial pork rinds and soy-encased, salty peanuts with chili. School administrators who violate the order will face fines equivalent to between $545 and $5,450, which could double for a second offense. That could amount to nearly a year’s wages for some. Mexico’s children have the highest consumption of junk food in Latin America and many get 40% of their total caloric intake from it, according to the U.N. children’s agency, which has called child obesity there an emergency.

19 suspected members of Sinaloa cartel killed in shootout with troops in Mexico (CBS News) Mexican troops shot dead 19 suspected members of the Sinaloa cartel after they came under attack in the northwestern state, the ministry of defense said Tuesday. Military personnel were attacked on Monday by more than 30 people near the state capital Culiacan, and the ensuing firefight left 19 cartel members dead. Sinaloa has seen a surge in violence since the July arrest of the cartel’s co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada in the United States. Zambada’s arrest triggered a war between his relatives and the sons of drug trafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who co-founded the cartel. The ministry of defense said the cartel members killed on Monday were presumed to be linked to Zambada’s faction.

Ukraine’s population has shrunk by millions since Russia first invaded (CBS News) Ukraine’s population has declined by around eight million since Russia invaded in February 2022, sparking an exodus and sending birth rates plunging, the United Nations said Tuesday. “Overall, Ukraine’s population has declined by an estimated 10 million since 2014 and by an estimated eight million since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022,” UNFPA’s regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia Florence Bauer said in comments sent to journalists. Ukraine’s population stood at around 45 million in 2014, when Russia first invaded, occupying and annexing Crimea, the agency said, citing data from the national statistics office. By February 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the population had dwindled to 43 million, and it has plummeted to just 35 million today, it said, citing a combination of government and UNFPA data. Bauer said the dramatic decline was due to “a combination of factors.” Already before the war, Ukraine had one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, and like many countries in Eastern Europe, it had seen many young people leave in search of more opportunities abroad. But in the two and a half years since the full-scale invasion, some 6.7 million people have fled the country as refugees while the birth rate has fallen to just around one child per woman, she said.

Four Years in Jail Without Trial: The Price of Dissent in Modi’s India (NYT) The family gathers around the laptop in New Delhi once a week. Sometimes, relatives dial in from north India, or even the United States. They wait for Umar Khalid, 37, an Indian political activist, to appear on the screen from jail. In early 2020, Mr. Khalid became one of the most prominent figures of India’s biggest and most energized protests in a generation, a three-month outpouring of opposition to government proposals widely seen as anti-Muslim. He was arrested later that year, and he has now languished in jail for four years without a trial, making him a symbol of the wide-ranging suppression of dissent under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It continues unabated even with Mr. Modi’s reduced mandate after elections in the spring. To silence opponents like Mr. Khalid, Mr. Modi’s government has increasingly turned to a draconian state security law that in the past was used only to quell violent insurgencies. Activists and other dissenters targeted under the law can be held in pretrial detention almost indefinitely. Some have died while awaiting bail. Even if they do move toward trial, defendants are often bogged down in years of legal battles.

South Korea warns it can send arms to Ukraine after reports of North’s troops in Russia (AP) South Korea warned Tuesday it could consider supplying weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea allegedly dispatching troops to Russia, as both North Korea and Russia denied the movements. NATO’s secretary general said that would mark a “significant escalation.” South Korea’s statement was apparently meant to pressure Russia against bringing in North Korean troops for its war against Ukraine. South Korean officials worry that Russia may reward North Korea by giving it sophisticated weapons technologies that can boost the North’s nuclear and missile programs that target South Korea.

Floods in Philippines kill at least 9 and trap others on roofs as storm approaches (AP) Torrential rain set off by an approaching tropical storm swamped the eastern Philippines with widespread flooding that killed at least nine people, trapped others on their roofs and sparked frantic appeals for help, officials said Wednesday. The government shut down public schools and government offices—except those urgently needed for disaster response—on the entire main island of Luzon to protect millions of people as Tropical Storm Trami blew closer from the Pacific. At least nine people died in five northeastern provinces and in the hard-hit city of Naga before the storm’s expected landfall on the northeastern Philippine coast. Most of the deaths were caused by drowning and landslides, police and local officials said, adding that about seven were missing.

Israeli strikes pound Lebanese coastal city after residents evacuate (AP) Israeli jets struck multiple buildings in Lebanon’s southern coastal city of Tyre on Wednesday, sending up large clouds of black smoke, while Hezbollah confirmed that a top official widely expected to be the militant group’s next leader had been killed in an Israeli strike. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli strike on the nearby town of Maarakeh killed three people. There were no reports of casualties in Tyre, where the Israeli military had issued evacuation warnings prior to the strikes. Hezbollah meanwhile fired more rockets into Israel, including two that set off air raid sirens in Tel Aviv before being intercepted. A cloud of smoke could be seen in the sky from the hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was staying on his latest visit to the region to try to renew cease-fire talks.

Hamas’s Guerrilla Tactics in North Gaza Make It Hard to Defeat (NYT) The top commanders of Hamas are mostly dead. The group’s rank and file has been decimated. Many of its hide-outs and stockpiles have been captured and destroyed. But Hamas’s killing of an Israeli colonel in northern Gaza on Sunday underscored how the group’s military wing, though unable to operate as a conventional army, is still a potent guerrilla force with enough fighters and munitions to enmesh the Israeli military in a slow, grinding and unwinnable war. Hamas’s fighters are hiding from view in ruined buildings and the group’s vast underground tunnel network, much of which remains intact despite Israel’s efforts to destroy it, according to military analysts and Israeli soldiers. The fighters emerge briefly in small units to booby trap buildings, set roadside bombs, attach mines to Israeli armored vehicles or fire rocket-propelled grenades at Israeli forces before attempting to return underground. While Hamas cannot defeat Israel in a frontal battle, its small-scale, hit-and-run approach has allowed it to continue to inflict harm on Israel and avoid defeat, even if, according to Israel’s unverified count, Hamas has lost more than 17,000 fighters since the start of the war.

It could take 350 years for Gaza to rebuild if it remains under a blockade, UN report says (AP) United Nations agencies have long warned that it could take decades to rebuild Gaza after Israel’s offensive against Hamas, one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns since World War II. Now, more than a year into the war, a new report speaks in terms of centuries. The U.N. Conference on Trade and Development said in a report released Monday that if the war ends tomorrow and Gaza returns to the status quo before Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, it could take 350 years for its battered economy to return to its precarious prewar level. The current war has caused staggering destruction across the territory, with entire neighborhoods obliterated and roads and critical infrastructure in ruins. Mountains of rubble laced with decomposing bodies and unexploded ordnance would have to be cleared before rebuilding could begin.

Top CNN reporter: I was captured by gun-toting militia in Darfur (Politico) One of CNN’s most prominent foreign correspondents on Wednesday recounted how she and her camera crew were detained by a Sudanese warlord for 48 hours during her reporting in the war-torn Darfur region earlier this month. Clarissa Ward, the network’s chief international correspondent, said that her crew was headed to the town of Tawila, a northern Darfur settlement under the control of members of the Sudan Liberation Movement, where they hoped to report on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the region. But when they arrived at an agreed-upon meeting spot in a neighboring town, Ward and her crew were confronted by members of a rival militia who fired rounds in the air, took their driver to the local jail and interrogated the journalist and the others in her party. They would be held for nearly two days by the militia in an open area before the group let them go, convinced they weren’t spies. They left Sudan shortly thereafter. “We had come to Darfur to report on the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, never intending to become part of the story,” the British-American journalist wrote.

Cameroon’s separatist conflict forces hundreds of thousands of students out of education (AP) Ndamei’s dream of becoming a medical doctor almost cost her life five years ago. The 20-year-old student from Cameroon’s restive southwestern region was taking her Grade 12 exam when she suddenly heard gunshots. Shortly after, armed men rushed into the school, forcing Ndamei and her peers to flee the examination hall. “It was the sound of death and I really thought I wouldn’t make it. I prayed silently for a miracle,” she recalled. Ndamei, 15 at the time, was one among 2.8 million children in West and Central Africa whose education was put on hold by violent conflict in recent years, according to the United Nations. More than 14,000 schools were closed due to violence and insecurity across 24 countries in West and Central Africa as of June.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 26, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Jul 27, 2024

Yesterday, U.S. officials arrested Ismael Zambada García, or “El Mayo,” cofounder of the violent and powerful drug trafficking organization the Sinaloa Cartel, and Joaquín Guzmán López, a son of its other cofounder. That other cofounder, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, or “El Chapo,” is already incarcerated in the U.S., as are another of El Chapo’s sons, alleged cartel leader Ovidio Guzmán López, and the cartel’s alleged lead hitman, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, or “El Nini.” 

In a statement, Attorney General Merrick Garland said: “Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable.” El Mayo has been charged with drug trafficking and money laundering.

U.S. officials exploited rifts in the cartel to get Guzmán López to bring El Mayo in. The successful and peaceful capture of the two Sinaloa Cartel leaders contrasts with Trump’s insistence that the U.S. must bomb or invade Mexico to damage the cartels, a position echoed by Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance and increasingly popular in the Republican Party. Mexico, which is America’s biggest trade partner, staunchly opposes such an intervention. Opponents note that such military action would do nothing to decrease demand for illegal drugs in the U.S. and would increase the numbers of asylum-seekers at the border as their land became a battleground. 

Trump seems to think that governance is about dominance, but that approach often runs afoul of the law. Today the Justice Department reached a $2 million settlement with former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, who became the butt of Trump’s attacks after their work on the FBI investigation into the ties between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. Trump’s Department of Justice released text messages between the two to journalists. Today’s settlement appears to reflect that the release likely violated the Privacy Act, which bars the government from disclosing personal information. 

Tonight, speaking to Christians at the Turning Point Action Believers’ Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, Trump made his plans to become a strongman clear: “Get out and vote. Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what: it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians…. Get out, you’ve got to get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again, we’ll have it fixed so good you’re not going to have to vote.”

This chilling statement comes after Trump praised autocratic Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán in his speech at the Republican National Convention last week and then publicly praised China’s president Xi Jinping for being “brilliant” because he “controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.” It should also be read against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s decision in Donald J. Trump v. United States that a president cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed as part of his “official duties.” 

The Harris campaign reacted to Trump’s dark statements by ridiculing them, and him: “Tonight, Donald Trump couldn’t pronounce words [he mispronounced “landslide” as “land slade], insulted the faith of Jewish and Catholic Americans, lied about the election (again), lied about other stuff, bragged about repealing Roe, proposed cutting billions in education funding, announced he would appoint more extremist judges, revealed he planned to fill a second Trump term with more criminals like himself, attacked lawful voting, went on and on and on, and generally sounded like someone you wouldn’t want to sit near at a restaurant—let alone be President of the United States.

“America can do better than the bitter, bizarre, and backward looking delusions of criminal Donald Trump. Vice President Kamala Harris offers a vision for America's future focused on freedom, opportunity, and security.”

Harris continually refers to Trump as a criminal in her speeches, but her campaign has taken the approach of referring to him and J.D. Vance as weirdos. On Tuesday, Minnesota governor Tim Walz said, “These guys are just weird.” Senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Brian Schatz of Hawaii recorded a video together about Vance’s “super weird,” “bananas,” and “offensive” idea that people with children should be assigned additional votes for each child, making their wishes count more than people without children. 

As J.D. Vance continues to step on rakes, the “weird” label seems correctly to label the MAGAs as outside the mainstream of American thought. Today, Vance doubled down on his denigration of women who have not given birth as “childless cat ladies” but assured voters he has nothing against cats. In addition, a video surfaced of Vance calling for the federal government to stop women in Republican-dominated states from crossing state lines to obtain abortions.

Mychael Schnell of The Hill reported today that while MAGA Republican lawmakers like Vance, a number of House Republicans are bashing his selection as the vice presidential candidate. “He was the worst choice of all the options,” one said. “It was so bad I didn’t even think it was possible.”

“The prevailing sentiment is if Trump loses, [it’s] because of this pick,” another said, a sentiment that suggests Vance will be a scapegoat if Trump loses. Considering what happened to Trump’s last vice president after Trump blamed him for an election loss, Vance might have reason to be concerned.

Last night’s “Answer the Call” Zoom has now raised more than $8.5 million for Harris; the organizers thanked Win With Black Women “for showing us how it’s done.” Today the Future Forward PAC, which had threatened to hold back $90 million in spending if Biden stayed at the head of the ticket, began large advertising purchases in swing states for Harris. 

Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reported that a week ago, those on a phone call of more than 400 people from Bank of America’s Federal Government Relations Team believed that a Trump victory was a “foregone conclusion.” Now that conviction is gone. “[T]here’s been a palpable sentiment reversal.”

The Harris campaign announced that it will launch 2,600 more volunteers into its ground game in Florida, a state where abortion rights will be on the ballot this fall, likely turning out voters for the Democratic ticket. The volunteers will write postcards, make phone calls, and knock on doors. 

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris filled out the paperwork officially declaring her candidacy for president of the United States. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading; Sunday, July 7, 2024

june 24_july 7

THE NATIVITY OF THE HOLY FORERUNNER AND BAPTIST OF THE LORD, JOHN

The Nativity of the Holy Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, John: The Gospel (Luke. 1: 5) relates that the righteous parents of Saint John the Baptist, the Priest Zachariah and Elizabeth (September 5), lived in the ancient city of Hebron. They reached old age without having children, since Elizabeth was barren. Once, Saint Zachariah was serving in the Temple at Jerusalem and saw the Archangel Gabriel, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. He predicted that Saint Zachariah would father a son, who would announce the Savior, the Messiah, awaited by the Old Testament Church. Zachariah was troubled, and fear fell upon him. He had doubts that in old age it was possible to have a son, and he asked for a sign. It was given to him, and it was also a chastisement for his unbelief. Zachariah was struck speechless until the time of the fulfillment of the archangel’s words.

Saint Elizabeth came to be with child, and fearing derision at being pregnant so late in life, she kept it secret for five months. Then her relative, the Virgin Mary, came to share with her Her own joy. Elizabeth, “filled with the Holy Spirit,” was the first to greet the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God. Saint John leaped in his mother’s womb at the visit of the Most Holy Virgin Mary and the Son of God incarnate within Her.

Soon Saint Elizabeth gave birth to a son, and all the relatives and acquaintances rejoiced together with her. On the eighth day, in accordance with the Law of Moses, he was circumcised and was called John. Everyone was amazed, since no one in the family had this name. When they asked Saint Zachariah about this, he motioned for a tablet and wrote on it: “His name is John.” Immediately his tongue was loosed, and Saint Zachariah glorified God. He also prophesied about the Coming into the world of the Messiah, and of his own son John, the Forerunner of the Lord (Luke. 1: 68-79).

After the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ and the worship of the shepherds and the Magi, wicked king Herod gave orders to kill all male infants. Hearing about this, Saint Elizabeth fled into the wilderness and hid in a cave. Saint Zachariah was at Jerusalem and was doing his priestly service in the Temple. Herod sent soldiers to him to find out the abode of the infant John and his mother. Zachariah answered that their whereabouts were unknown to him, and he was killed right there in the Temple. Righteous Elizabeth continued to live in the wilderness with her son and she died there. The child John, protected by an angel, dwelt in the wilderness until the time when he came preaching repentance, and was accounted worthy to baptize the Lord.

THE HOLY MARTYRS MANUEL, SABEL AND ISMAEL OF PERSIA (362)

The Holy Martyrs Manuel, Sabel and Ismael, brothers by birth, were descended from an illustrious Persian family. Their father was a pagan, but their mother was a Christian, who baptized the children and raised them with a firm faith in Christ the Savior.

When they reached adulthood, the brothers entered military service. Representing the Persian King Alamundar, they were his emissaries in concluding a peace treaty with Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363). Julian received them with due honor and showed them his favor. However, when the brothers refused to take part in a pagan sacrifice, Julian became angry. He annulled the treaty and incarcerated the ambassadors of a foreign country like common criminals.

At the interrogation he told them that if they scorned the "gods" he worshipped, it would be impossible to reach any peace or accord between the two sides. The holy brothers answered that they were sent as emissaries of their King on matters of state, and not to argue about “gods.” Seeing their firmness of faith, the Emperor ordered the brothers to be tortured.

The hands and feet of the Holy Martyrs were nailed to trees. Later, they drove iron spikes into their heads, and wedged sharp splinters under their fingernails and toenails. During their torments, the Saints glorified God and prayed as though they did not feel the tortures.

Finally, the Holy Martyrs were beheaded, and Julian ordered their bodies to be burned. Suddenly, there was an earthquake. The ground opened up and the bodies of the Saints disappeared into the abyss. After Christians prayed fervently for two days, the earth gave up the bodies of the holy brothers, from which a sweet fragrance issued forth. Many of the pagans who had witnessed the miracle, came to believe in Christ and were baptized. This was in the year 362.

Christians reverently buried the bodies of the Holy Martyrs Manuel, Sabel and Ismael. Since that time the relics of the Holy Passion-Bearers have been glorified with miracles.

The following year, when he heard about the murder of his emissaries, and that Julian was marching against him with a vast army, the Persian King Alamundar mustered his army and started for the border of his domain. The Persians vanquished the Greeks in a great battle.

At this time, Saint Basil the Great (January 1) was praying before an icon of the Most Holy Theotokos, upon which Saint Merkourios (November 24)1 was depicted as a soldier holding a spear. He asked God not to allow Emperor Julian to return from his war against the Persians, and resume his oppression of Christians. Suddenly, the image of the Holy Great Martyr Merkourios on the icon, next to the image of the Most Holy Theotokos, became invisible. Later, the image of Saint Merkourios reappeared with a bloodied spear.

As it happened, Julian was wounded by the spear of an unknown soldier, who disappeared. As he lay dying, the mortally wounded Julian cried out, “Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!”

The solemn commemoration of these saints is very ancient. In 395, thirty-three years after their death, Emperor Theodosios the Great built a church in honor of the Holy Martyrs at Constantinople, and Hieromonk Germanos (May 12), who later became the Patriarch of Constantinople, composed a Canon in honor of the holy brothers.

HEBREWS 11:33-12:2

33 who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented- 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

1 Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

MATTHEW 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-3032

Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. 37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.

27 Then Peter answered and said to Him, "See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?" 28 So Jesus said to them, "Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. 29 And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. 30 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.

[ladynox]

I posted 8,185 times in 2022

47 posts created (1%)

8,138 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@tasyfa

@spcecowboyyy

@beautifulcheat

@maeglinthebold

@infp-obsessing-over-everything

I tagged 6,752 of my posts in 2022

Only 18% of my posts had no tags

#rnm - 1,387 posts

#star trek - 457 posts

#ofmd - 388 posts

#rnm spoilers - 309 posts

#art - 219 posts

#lol - 175 posts

#wwdits - 152 posts

#cats - 146 posts

#lotr - 115 posts

#black sails - 111 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#that poor guy who was accused of cheating on his girl just because he didn't react how a bunch of sofa psychologists thought he should come

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

i'm still annoyed about max's story. Grossly mishandled when the writers can't pod/kill/kidnap him out of the story, but mostly ignored. and now this finale.... it is utterly ridiculous that max assumed he was gonna go through the stargate alone and was mostly correct. like i'm glad that dallas went with him but it's unbelievable that michael and izzy weren't there to at least see him off. Or, you know, go with him. It's not like isobel doesn't share a psychic connection with max. not like both izzy and michael haven't endured max's chronic martyr syndrome and don't recognize the signs.

one of those signs being max giving his typewriter to michael like he's never coming back. it's just all ooc behavior for everyone. b/c by god the writers want open endings with tearful goodbye proposals, and trucks driving off into the sunset and fireside snuggles, and they are gonna get it.

36 notes - Posted September 7, 2022

#4

Mimi made food for Alex often enough that he had a favorite dish of hers 😭😭😭 Alex learning from Mimi how to make his favorite dish!! 😭😭😭😭 Alex watching Maria mourn Mimi and being unable to comfort her. Being unable to grieve together 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

36 notes - Posted July 25, 2022

#3

See the full post

40 notes - Posted October 8, 2022

#2

As a fantasy and scifi loving latina, I grew up immersed in genres that did not represent me. I don't expect to love every latinx character (i just need them to be well written). But I love to see them there. Piloting starships or killing orcs or developing nonsensical science at the 11th hour.

I can't say where I'm going with this. It's 2am and I'm in my cups and I'm mad about all the hatred Ismael Cardova is getting. All for playing a damn elf in a universe where a flaming eyeball sits on top of tower looking for some lost bling. I'm tired of people getting pissed off because they're so narrow minded they can't see latinx people as anything more than sad stories or dangerous ones. We're people. We envisions worlds of magic and wonder. We're warriors and adventurers and scientists and brujos and magicians and everything you can imagine. And we're not going anywhere.

40 notes - Posted September 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Pike and Erica continue to have the strongest father and child energy. OMG. I love it.

54 notes - Posted June 16, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[nbatrades]

Denver Nuggets Acquire Ismael Kamagate in 2022 Draft

On July 6th, 2022, the Denver Nuggets traded a future 2024 second round draft pick (Tyler Kolek) to the Portland Trail Blazers for the draft rights to Ismael Kamagate.

The Denver Nuggets had one of the elite centers in NBA history in Nikola Jokic. During Jokic's time with the club, it seems like Denver has perpetually been trying to find the right backups.

One choice the Nuggets made came in the 2022 draft when the club made a deal to acquire 6-11 center Ismael Kamagate with the 46th pick in the draft. On that day, the Detroit Pistons originally held the pick and sent it to the Portland Trail Blazers in a trade involving Jerami Grant.

Portland subsequently moved the pick to Denver for a 2024 second round pick. The pick the Nuggets sent to Portland was the more favorable of Minnesota and Charlotte’s 2024 second-round selections.

At 21 years old, Kamagate was a developmental piece. Born in Paris, France, the center was playing for Paris Basketball of LNB Pro A. Kamagate had a 7-3 wingspan and finished well around the rim. The hope was that the big man could be a backup center in the future for the Nuggets.

After the trade, Kamagate joined Denver's 2022 Summer League team in Las Vegas. The big man appeared in five games (four starts) and was solid with 5.4 PPG on 80% from the field, 5.0 RPG and 1.2 BPG in 19.3 MPG. Kamagate returned to play for Paris Basketball for the 2022-23 season.

Kamagate played once again for the Nuggets in Summer League in the summer of 2023. The 6-11 center averaged 6.8 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 1.0 APG and 1.5 BPG across four contests and 18.2 MPG.

During the summer of 2023, Kamagate signed with Olimpia Milano, a Milan, Italy-based team in Lega Basket A. Nuggets assistant general manager Tommy Balcetis said the team wanted Kamagate to gain more playing experience overseas so he could step into a backup role years later, ready to play.

The Nuggets later dealt Kamagate's rights to the Los Angeles Clippers for cash considerations at the 2024 trade deadline.

The second round pick that Portland acquired was a 2024 second rounder. Since the Hornets finished tied for the third-worst record, the pick was 34th in the 2024 NBA Draft and the Blazers selected Marquette University point guard Tyler Kolek with the pick.

Portland subsequently dealt the pick on draft day to the New York Knicks for the draft rights to Dani Diez and three second round picks in 2027, 2029 and 2030.

Ismael Kamagate on being drafted by the Nuggets via trade along with other draft picks Christian Braun and Peyton Watson (via Nuggets.com):

"[It's] a dream come true. I think we're all proud to be here and we can't wait to work."

Image via Getty Images/Bart Young

[recentlyheardcom]

Research shows Botox can be used for more than just cosmetic reasons.

Author Ismael Labrador Published July 8, 2015 Word count 409 Botox is known as the number one most famous cosmetic treatment used on women and men worldwide. This could be because of its immediate results, its effectiveness, how long it lasts or even because of how simple the treatment really is. However, correcting wrinkles and tightening facial muscles is not the only thing that Botox is…

[beardedmrbean]

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Police, prosecutors and forensic examiners in the northern Mexico state of Sinaloa all conspired to cover up the killing of an opponent of the ruling-party state governor, using a blood-stained truck found at the crime scene, federal prosecutors said Sunday.

The bombshell statement by federal prosecutors backs up the version of imprisoned drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. Zambada claims he was forced aboard an airplane on July 25 by another drug capo who flew them both to the United States and turned them in to U.S. authorities.

Zambada said in a letter in August that Héctor Cuén, an opponent of ruling-party Gov. Ruben Rocha, was murdered on July 25 at the same time and the same ranch where Zambada was kidnapped. Federal prosecutors revealed Sunday that Cuén’s blood was indeed found at the ranch.

Gov. Rocha has not responded publicly to Sunday’s statement by prosecutors, but he has said in the past that Cuén was killed by gunmen in a random botched robbery at a gasoline station miles away later that day, and Sinaloa state prosecutors showed security camera footage of the alleged attack.

But federal prosecutors quickly noted something was wrong with that video: post-mortem records showed Cuén’s body had four gunshot wounds, while only one gunshot can be heard on the security camera footage, and gas station employees said they didn’t hear any.

Cuén's bullet-ridden body could not help solve the riddle, because Sinaloa officials violated all murder investigation rules by allowing the body to be cremated almost immediately.

The gasoline station footage was later proved to be a falsification, but something about the white pickup truck seen in the footage was real: it had the blood of one of Zambada's trusted bodyguards in the cargo bed.

That implied that Sinaloa state police, crime scene investigators and prosecutors either found the bodyguard's corpse in the truck and got rid of the body, or at very least took the blood-stained vehicle from a crime scene to fake a gunpoint robbery at the gas station.

“All of the above confirms the police and prosecution investigation that has confirmed the presumed administrative and criminal responsibilities of Sinaloa police, detectives, forensic examiners and state prosecutors who have been exhaustively investigated regarding their participation in the death of Héctor (Cuén)” the federal Attorney General's Office said in a statement Sunday.

The news appears to complicate further the position of Gov. Rocha, who belongs to President Claudia Sheinbaum’s ruling Morena Party. Sheinbaum has strongly backed Rocha so far. But Rocha has done little or nothing to quell the bloody fighting that broke out between the rival factions of the two Sinaloa drug cartel capos that broke out after July 25.

Instead, Rocha has sought to downplay the gunbattles, killings, kidnappings and cartel roadblocks that have sprung around the state capital, Culiacan. On Thursday, hours before gunmen opened fire on the offices of a local newspaper, Gov. Rocha said “there is nothing to worry about” and “everything is under control.”

Rocha — a close associate of former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who left office Sept. 30 — has been implicated in the events of July 25 from the start, though he denies it.

Zambada has said that Joaquín Guzmán López — a leader of a rival cartel faction who he nonetheless trusted — had invited him to the meeting to help iron out the fierce political rivalry between Gov. Rocha and Cuén, who were feuding.

Zambada was famous for eluding capture for decades because of his incredibly tight, loyal and sophisticated personal security apparatus. But he said that on July 25, he left most of his security team behind and entered with only two bodyguards because he expected both Cuén and Gov. Rocha to be present.

The two bodyguards have not been heard from since.

The fact that Zambada would knowingly leave all his security behind to meet with the politicians suggests he viewed such a meeting as credible and feasible. The same goes for the idea that Zambada, as the leader of the oldest wing of the Sinaloa cartel, could act as an arbiter in the state’s political disputes.

Rocha has denied he knew of or attended the meeting where Zambada was abducted, claiming he had borrowed a businessman's private jet to fly to California that day. But while a flight record of that plane exists, Rocha has never shown the immigration documents he would have filed to enter the United States, leading to doubts that he was aboard the plane.

The perceived betrayal of El Mayo has led to fierce fighting between his followers, known as “Mayitos,” and the followers of Guzmán López, who — as one of the sons of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Gúzman — was a co-leader of the faction known as the “Chapitos.”

[eddis-not-eeddis]

OH LOOK IT'S MY TIME TO SHINE! (Your girl Elsabet could count the English songs in her Spotify Wrapped playlist on her hands.)

These are not scientifically categorized or anything, I was just going through my playlists more or less randomly and that's sort of the order I put things in. There are songs from many genres, hopefully you'll find something you like.

(I tried to only include one song per artist, but I think there are a few that I accidentally added more than once because they make music in multiple languages. I did my best.)

I have so many more I want to share, but I spent two hours on this XD

Korean: I Will Forget You - Jeong Cha Sik

잊었니 - Sohyang

Tempest - Huckleberryfinn

Stop Talking - Day6

Japanese:

Lemon - Kenshi Yonezu

Peter Pan - Yuuri

北酒場 - Hiroshi Itsuki

Paper Cuts - EXO-CBX

Mongolian:

The Rising Sun - Hanggai

Yuve Yuve Yu - The Hu

Irish:

Ocum an Phriosuin - Liadan

Bo Na Leathadhairce - Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

Dulaman - Altan

Beidh Aonach Amarach - Gaelic Storm

Scottish:

An Toll Dubh - Runrig

Oran Na Cloiche - Kathleen McInnes

Oran An Roin - Julie Fowlis

Maili Dhonn - Skipinnish

Welsh:

Aderyn - Casi and the Blind Harper

Llwytha'r Gwn - Candelas

Lliwiau - 9bach

Aberdaron - Bwncath

Russian:

Почему - Simon Khorolskiy

Улетай на крыльях ветра - Evgeniya Sotnikova

Italian:

Sogno di Volare- Christopher Tin

L'Assenza - Alessandro Rinella, Chloe Agnew

Spanish:

Creo En Ti - Reik

El Pozo Amargo - Ana Alcaide

Corre - Jesse and Joy

Mi Problema - Ismael Serrano

Hindi:

Mere Naam Tu - Abhay Jodhpurkar

Dil Diyan Gallan - Raman Romana

Atrangi Yaari - Farhan Akhtar, Amitabh Bachchan

Punjabi:

O Heeriye - Ayushmann Khurrana

Norwegian:

Flamme - Ran

Sagnet Om Julerosen - Secret Garden

Dronning Ellisiv - Myrkur

Danish:

Elleskudt - Myrkur

Swedish:

Av Ianagtan till Dig - Susanna Andersson

Old Norse:

Grotti - SKALD

Maori:

Ru Ana Te Whenua - Alien Weaponry

Samoan:

Le Manu - Shepherd's Reign

Hey can u guys reply to this post with non-english songs that you think are bangers or are a vibe? Can be any language tho it'd help if you'd let me know what language it is in! :P

[erebusvincent]

Good. You can’t kill enough of them.