Podcast appearances and mentions of Caspian Sea

Want to know what is weird? The Caspian Sea. I mean, seriously, who knows anything about it? Turns out it is very old and very weird. Enjoy this episode on it!Did you know that supporters of the show at our Sasquatch Photographer Tier and above (yes, that is its actual name) can listen to entire episodes early and ad free? That's right! And that's not all: Patrons at every level gain access to our patron-exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, with bonus stories, Q+A, and more.https://hauntedcosmos.supercast.com/Want to keep nefarious fairy Bigfoots away and also avoid icky seed oils, preservatives, artificial colorants, and other nasties in your daily shower routine? Then check out the vast array of homemade soaps from our friends at Indigo Sundries Soap Co.! Go to http://indigosundriessoap.com to learn more—and as our gift to you, use code HAUNTEDCOSMOS for 10% off your whole order!This episode is sponsored by New Dominion Design Co. Visit their website here and learn more!http://newdominiondesignco.com/This episode is also sponsored by Stonecrop Wealth Advisors! Go to this link to check out their special offers to Haunted Cosmos listeners today.https://stonecropadvisors.com/hauntedcosmosThis episode is sponsored by Squirrelly Joe's Coffee! Visit their website here to get your first bag free!  Share Coffee. Serve Humbly. Live faithfully.https://www.squirrellyjoes.com/hauntedcosmosDesignButter offers mobile, web, and product design for a fixed monthly fee. Check out their services here:https://www.designbutter.com/Finally, this episode is sponsored by Gray Toad Tallow. Visit their website here and use COSMOS15 at checkout for 15% off your order.https://graytoadtallow.com/Support the show

What does it take to rise from nothing in Iran to a world series poker champion on the global stage? Melika Razavi's life story reads like an epic novel, filled with challenges that would have broken many, but which instead forged an unstoppable force of nature.Born near the Caspian Sea in Iran, Melika's rebellious spirit emerged early as she defied societal restrictions on women. Riding bicycles when it was forbidden, practicing Kung Fu, attending theater against her family's wishes – these small acts of defiance laid the foundation for a woman who would refuse to accept limitations throughout her life.At 15, facing the prospect of an arranged marriage, Melika escaped to South Africa with her mother who had been separated from her children for six years. Their reunion and subsequent struggles, including arriving to find her mother's husband had sold everything they owned, created the crucible that shaped Melika's extraordinary resilience. Standing on a rainy beach with nothing to their name, her mother spoke words that would become Melika's north star: "Remember this day well, because one day you'll look back and see how far you've gone."The podcast takes us through Melika's remarkable journey: working in retail at 16, juggling education with night shifts at clubs, opening her own sports massage clinic, and her eventual discovery of poker. Her path to becoming a World Series of Poker bracelet winner in 2020 wasn't just about skill, but about approaching the game with the same philosophy she applies to life: "Sometimes you get a bad beat, but you keep going until you win." Even when facing discrimination in the poker world due to her Iranian heritage, Melika refused to be deterred.With over 2 million Instagram followers today, Melika uses her platform to advocate for freedom in Iran while continuing to build businesses and pursue new dreams. Her story isn't just inspiring – it's a masterclass in creating your own destiny regardless of where you begin. As she puts it, "I believe our life is like a book that you write. So write it good, because when you look back, you're going to say, 'Wow, I've done an amazing job.'"Listen now and let Melika's journey challenge you to break free of them.

Sibeal Pays A Visit.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.It is selfish to believe that your family will always love you. At some point you will be asked to earn it{Right where we left off}It was H-hour plus four. A Thai soldier fired another burst from his T A R 21. The other four soldiers around him did the same. They were using an overturned car as cover. He saw movement at a building across the street to his right. He fired off another few rounds. The figure fell to the ground. By hard-earned experience, he realized the enemy soldier had probably dived for cover, not been hit."Time to fall back. One block back," he hoped he didn't sound too shrill. "You two go first," he indicated the two townsfolk. His battalion major had drafted them minutes after the attack began. Any organized supply depot had been an open invitation for an artillery strike, so he had called for civilians to help carry the ammunition loads instead. These two had been attached to his platoon. Now they were with him.They nodded, hefted up the crate of 5.56mm and sprinted toward the rear while his men gave them cover fire. They made it. He named off two of his other men. It was their turn to go. After their sprint to safety, it was time for him and the last two to go. They ran past some terribly close flanking fire, but all made it.This Thai soldier wasn't the squad leader, or even the squad's second in command. He was a lowly Phon Thahan (Private, not 1st Class). Those two men were already dead. No, he was a common soldier who found other men listening to his orders so, by default, he was in command. His initial squad of ten had shrunk down to three. The fourth man had been part of the regimental staff, a driver, sent into the firefight to replace losses. He still could point and shoot, which was all that mattered at the moment.At the next block he found the two civilians. His men dumped their empty clips on them, then positioned themselves for the next enemy rush. The leader of this ad hoc force took the driver over to the far corner of the building they sheltered behind. Too often, going inside buildings was a death trap. The enemy would corner you then call in their artillery."Guard this corner," he told the driver. "I'll be checking up on you." The frightened soldier nodded, then took up his post. Now he had a few seconds to consider his position. He was running out of town to retreat through. Behind him lay open fields. Just then he saw the tale-tell site of a Dragon Anti-Tank missile firing from the next raised roadway to his rear-right.He couldn't see if it hit anything. There was no huge explosion. Still, it indicated that other elements of his battalion were in the fight. From what little briefing he had been given when the attack started, the major had placed his heavy machine guns and recoilless rifles on each flank to stop the enemy's mobile forces from getting around his command and surrounding them.Little did the soldier understand he was involved in a textbook defense by foot-bound infantry versus armored opponents. His two townsmen were busy shoving bullets into the thirty round magazines. His men had already engaged the enemy to the front. Gone were the cries of 'got him'. No one gave a damn anymore. They were too exhausted to care. Now they counted the comrades they had left, not the possible number of enemy out there.Six minutes later he heard the sound of death coming his way."Everyone down," he screamed a second before an artillery round flattened their shelter. For a few moments all he could do was gaze up at the heavens. His body hurt, his ears were ringing and the belief that he could stop now, he had given it his best shot and his part in this battle were over.He pulled himself and examined what he had left. He wasn't hurt if you didn't count the blood coming out his ears. He couldn't say the same for his companions. One of the townsmen had the top of his head torn off, his soulless eyes gazing up to the forever. One of his men had a smoking chunk of meat where his spine should have been. A second one was nursing a bad leg wound.The third soldier? He was already up and firing. The second townsmen was a bit dazed, yet looked like he could carry on. The soldier crouch-ran to check on the driver. He was laying on his belly. For a second he mourned for that fellow then the man got off a burst, then scooted back. He had been 'playing possum' in order to draw some enemy out. He was alive and fighting."We have got to get out of here," he told the man. "Get to the elevated road across the field then provide cover fire for the rest of us." The driver acknowledged the command, fired off one more burst then bolted for the field. The Thai made his way back to his other survivors. He gave them the same order, the civilian first.The wounded man? He couldn't make it with that leg wound and if any of the others carried him they would most likely die too."Cover us as long as you can," he ordered. The wounded shoulder crawled to the corner to relieve the only standing soldier."Go," he ordered that man. Off he sprinted. The leader placed two spare clips next to the wounded man, wished him luck, then it was his turn to sprint to safety. Close to the end, a few bullets hurried him along. He found the others had made it unwounded as well. The townsman was already shoving more bullets into the empty magazines.To his right was the remnants of the squad with the recoilless rifle and a light machine gun. To his left was a group of six Thahan Phran, paramilitary border guards. He rejoined the firing line. The enemy had overrun the buildings closest to them and were faced with the same quandary he had just overcome, the open field. When a man tapped his shoulder he nearly jumped out of his skin.It was his company commander."You've been doing well. I'm placing you in command of this section. We have a Carl Gustav (another version of a recoilless rifle) in the trees over there," the Captain pointed to the right. Hold this position as long as you can. Help is on the way."Before this fight, the soldier had dreaded this officer. He had been so pompous, so spit-and-polished and arrogant. Now he saw different qualities in the man. He was cool under fire, had his mind on the bigger picture of the fight and the discipline he had instilled in his men was paying dividends the private soldier hadn't appreciated at that time."You are Sip Tho (corporal) now," the officer told him. With that declaration, the common foot soldier had inherited 13 more men, the squad of seven to his right and the six Thahan Phran to his left. Combined with his two that made something more like a combat command. The Captain made his way back up the line. The Thai didn't have long to appreciate his promotion. Smoke shells began detonating between his position and the town, obscuring the place."Remember," he shouted. "Short, controlled bursts and only shoot at something that you know is out there!" With that, he had established his command of the situation. Several explosions detonated in the wooded position. Half a minute later, a tank appeared and pumped another H E into the position. In doing so, it exposed its side to Thai's section.The two men manning his Dragon launcher looked his way. It was a shot at a 45 degree angle and any heavy weapons fire would bring about all kinds of hate."Fire," he ordered. The man aiming the device took a few seconds then let loose. The rocket didn't penetrate the side, but it did knock a track out."Now we are going to get it," the Thai mumbled.A few heartbeats later, a larger TOW missile slammed into it from a position to his command's rear. This time the tank blew up. Of equal importance to the soldier's mind, there were men behind him and that could only mean, the second regiment had finally arrived. He was sure he wouldn't be falling back any further, giving the invaders one more inch of sacred Thai soil. It also meant his men would most likely live to see the end of the day. That mattered too.  It was H-hour plus six. Two hour earlier, elements of the Vietnamese People's Army's 314th Mechanized regiment and 206th Tank Regiment with the Mobile battalion of the Laotian 1st Division and the Khanate's Laos Force Command slammed into Khon Kaen. By that time, the small city had already seen its share of hell. Khanate forces had stormed the regional airport with an aerial assault at 4:10 AM that morning.There were no dedicated combat troops in Khon Kaen. It was the HQ for both the Royal Thai 3rd Division and its component 1st regiment. That had resulted in a see-saw battle until the relief force arrived from the north. After that, resistance had collapsed. Over three hundred men surrendered. A hundred miles to the north forces in the town of Udon Thani, battalions of the 1st and 2nd regiments of the 3rd Division were still in combat with Laotian and Vietnamese forces. The final outcome of that battle had yet to be decided.What did matter was that the entire command structure of northeast of Thailand had been neutered. There were five more battalions out there that had no idea what to do next. They suffered from sporadic air attacks, but nothing serious was coming their way.What none of them were aware of was that a Far North Force out of the Laotian highlands had broken a battalion of the Royal Thai's 6th Infantry Division, taken Roi Et and severed the communications between the two formations. At Roi Et, the Khanate armored spearhead had left elements of the 2nd Regiment of Lao's 4th Division to hold the airport and was blazing a trail westward along Highway 23, to the south/rear of those five battalions.South of Roi Et, two other Thai battalions were grudgingly giving ground to a regiment of Vietnam's 305th Division plus the 270th Combat Engineers and 16th Artillery Brigade. What mattered was that those forces were drawing off the efforts of the 6th Divisions to counteract the invasion.The 6th Division had its own litany of woes. It was the subject of a dozen pinpricks. The division's commander had lost contact with the other two divisions under the 2nd Army's command. He had enemy forces to his north around Amnat Charoen, he'd lost contact with this 1st regiment HQ at Roi Et.His second regiment, at Ubon Ratchathani, was heavily engaged with the Alliance's North Force. His 3rd regiment, spread out along the southern approaches to his life line, Highway 24, had discovered small teams of Special Forces at every bridge and crossing, making every attempt at creating a unified front costly and ultimately futile.The 2nd Army's HQ and supply hub were at Nakhon Ratchasima. They were under attack, the airport had fallen and the sole mechanized regiment (minus one battalion) was having a terrible time retaking it. They were presently incapable of coming to his defense, since their third battalion had already been called to the capital to put down unrest/enemy forces.He finally made his decision. The remnants of the 1st regiment were to retire westward over the back roads towards the division headquarters at the Si Sa Ket Railway Station. The second regiment was to hold in place until sunset. Using all of the division's remaining assets, he was going to secure Highway 24 so that his command could retire using that path before they were cut off and defeated one regiment at the time.  It was H-hour plus seven. For one of the drivers in a Khanate Heavy Mountain Supply Zuun, there wasn't much to love about this mission. He was a truck driver with a weapon, not a true foot soldier. He was content with his role in logistics, which was why his current mission scared the crap out of him. He wasn't in an armored vehicle and was accompanied by only one Fast Zuun ~ by its very nature a lightly armored unit. Now he was driving deep into enemy territory with a truckload of Karin freedom fighters, who also were lightly equipped.He had already reached the first goal, the town of San Buri, 270 kilometers behind enemy lines and only 60 kilometers from downtown Bangkok. There was a fear that his own air force would mistake then for an enemy supply column and shoot them up. Then there was the fear that some rear echelon troops would find the convoy suspicious and fill his unarmed vehicle with holes. His luck held, the enemy were looking to the north and east, not at a group of trucks heading south.Soldiers from the rebel faction of the Thai Royal Army were stationed in each vehicle to cover any conversation with the local constabulary that might come up. The cover story was that the unit was driving with a purpose ~ the capital was under attack and they were reinforcements using back roads to avoid airstrikes ~ the phone network was a mess and the fact that the plan was so audacious, the normal police officers didn't feel the need to slow the military trucks down.The last phase was pure madness. They rolled down Road 304 at 80 kph. Every time they approached a checkpoint, the unit's commander called in a hopefully faux airstrike, on both them and the Thai soldiers. That made it plausible for the convoy to race forward as the troops around them were too busy diving for cover to stop them. If anything, the defenders thought those truck drivers were the bravest men they'd ever seen.At the end of the journey, they rolled across the Road 304 Bridge over the Chao Praya River, then dispersed. Each truck disgorged 16 Karin fighters, for a total of 560. To that was added the 100 members of the Fast Zuun and 35 drivers, three Tigr's and 59 combat troops. Miracles of miracles, they found the capital to be in total chaos.  It was H-hour plus 6 and a half. The Turkish Khanate commander of 100 looked south in the direction of In Buri. He was already in the 'spread chaos' phase of his operation. The central part of In Buri was the junction of Highways 11 and 32. Somewhere to the far north, friendly units were fighting their way to him. Forces retreating south, or reinforcements from Bangkok would have to pass through his position. He commandeered some passing civilian vehicles and created barricades on all three sides of the T-cloverleaf.Before long, the ground elements of an Airmobile Zuun had joined him. That allowed him to deploy several two-man observer teams over the surrounding countryside. He left two AFV's on the bridge and camouflaged the others in the best ambush points he could think of. Then, he waited.  It was H-hour plus eight. For Julia Atwood, this was the culmination of twenty-five years working in Asia, covering a host of military conflicts and both natural and man-made humanitarian disasters. She'd gotten a tip two days earlier that Bangkok Thailand was going to be the place to be. Since she wasn't a known anti-government reporter, her entry into the country had been easy enough.She had spent the previous day picking a city guide, luckily finding one she knew well, and looking around for sources of information about 'trouble'. What she found was a quiet city on the edge of an explosion. The police, paramilitary forces and the military had everything battened down tight. At the same time, the population was extremely anxious over the upcoming loyalist offensive against the rebel northwest.The military had clamped down on all information coming out of the prospective war zones while exhorting on all forms of mass media the sacred traditions of Thai national identity and the need for law and order. That made the hairs on the back of Julia's neck tingle. It spoke of an upcoming shit storm. Still, Day One had been a bust. Few people wanted to talk about what was going on; all known opposition leaders were in prison or in exile.She had awakened early in the morning to the sound of heavy weapons fire. She had been in enough war zones to know the difference between grenades exploding, or pistol, assault rifle, machine gun, and tank fire. She was hearing tank fire, which made no sense. The Thai army didn't need to use their tank's big guns to fire at anything the opposition could bring to bear.She slipped out the back of her hotel to avoid any possible police minder, gathered up her guide and went hunting for the story. Twice she barely avoided roving army patrols. What immediately occurred to her was these soldiers didn't seem to know what was going on. They were jumpy (not good) and nervous (great for a story).Her trained ears and years of instinct led her to one of the eyes of the storm. Julia's jaw nearly dropped open. There were Central Asian men riding around in Russian equipment surrounded by throngs of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Thai 'Red Shirt' protestors marching on a police barricade. Several leaders of the movement had bullhorns and were communicating with the police. It was a tense situation.Julia forced her way to the BMP-3M, then shouted up at the commander standing in the copula. She tried Uzbek. The man looked her way."No. I'm Kazak. My Uzbek isn't very good," he replied. Julia's Kazak wasn't the best in the world, but she endeavored to make it work."What are you doing here?""I could ask you the same thing," the man smiled. "We are part of the Alliance effort to bring about democratic change in this country." Julia knew he was spouting the party line."What are you really doing here?" she pressed."I have no idea," he chortled. "I don't speak this language, don't know who these people are and only found out where Thailand was two days ago.""Are there a lot of you here?""Not really.""How did you get here?""We landed at the airport. We are a portion of an airmobile Zuun."Just then one of the protestors tried to get the unit leader's attention. He kept repeating something."He wants you to advance on the police line and look menacing," she translated."Okay," the Khanate officer shrugged. "That I can do."He spoke rapid fire Kazak, which Julia couldn't quite follow. Her ride lurched forward, the crowd parted and she could see the blood drain out of the police commander's face. Without looking her way, the Kazak spoke to Julia."Tell them they have thirty seconds to put down their arms or I'm going to shred the lot of them."Julia thought about it for a second. She was recording this exchange on her camcorder. She knew this was straying dangerously close to becoming a participant, not a reporter. She translated to the Thai young man. He sprinted toward the police and relayed the message. She had no idea what a 100mm fragmentation shell would do, had an idea how bloody a 30mm auto-cannon could get and had great familiarity with the effectiveness of 12.7 & 7.62mm machine guns.The lead protestor had a rapid discussion with the lead policeman, bowing and begging for this situation to be resolved peacefully. The countdown reached eight when the officer indicated his acquiescence. The mob didn't surge forward victoriously. Julia slapped the turret to get the Kazak's attention."You don't need to fire.""I understand that," the man acknowledged. It wasn't over though. Another protestor, a woman, waved for the Kazak's attention. Since she wasn't alone in doing so, the man hadn't noticed her. What she was saying did get Julia's attention."She is saying that tanks are on the way!" she shouted at the man in the copula."Which direction?" he inquired. Julia confirmed the information relayed by the girl, who double checked with the person on the other end of her phone, worked out the terrain in her head, then drew a quick map on her palm."They are coming up the road one block up. They are heading north toward us.""Clear out the crowd," he responded evenly. He once more ordered his unit to action. One of the Tigr's raced forward and disgorged its men close to the next corner then the vehicle withdrew."What do you plan to do?" she asked."Do what I came here to do, kill the enemy.""But they have tanks.""Fortunately I have things that kill tanks," he grinned."Do you mind if I stick around?""It is your life," he shrugged. The BMP moved forward to the point where, with its barrel turned sideways, the vehicle was just short of exposing itself. He was busy talking to someone else.Seconds later, one of the Khanate soldiers at the corner launched a grenade up the street, then two others opened fire with their assault rifles. They ducked back around the corner right as a larger caliber machine gun chewed up the wall as well as the street in front of her. Two other soldiers fired off flares into the sky."You might want to get down," the Kazak advised her. Julia nodded, jumped off and ran to the corner to join the other troopers. She edged around the corner, leading with her camcorder. Sure enough, up the street was an honest-to-God tank, with others behind it. One of the foot-bound Kazaks was busy shouting at the others. Once more, a soldier fired a grenade at the tank, to no visible effect. This time he apparently got the response the Kazaks wanted.The tank's big gun fired. One of the troopers, mindful of Julia, grabbed her as they propelled themselves to the ground. The world exploded. Julia was doing a quick check of her well-being when she heard the BMP race forward, barrel turned perpendicular down the street and then it fired. Julia barely caught it all on her camera. The IFV had fired an anti-tank missile out of its main gun. The oncoming tank was a Ukrainian made T-84 Oplot.It exploded; the turret flying away in a curtain of flame. This time it was the blast that blew Julia to the ground. A Kazak soldier hefted her up and pulled her to safety. He was truly pissed when she dodged back into the danger zone to retrieve her camcorder. She sighed happily when she found it undamaged. The BMP rolled back behind cover."Get down," the Kazak ground pounder growled. "It is about to get a whole lot worse.""How?" she looked at him."Well, now that we have stopped the column from moving," he grinned like a maniac. That wasn't much of an answer. Then she noted all the Kazaks clutching at the concrete sidewalks. She did likewise. Seconds later, she heard the jets. 'Oh God', she gulped. She'd seen more than her fair share of airstrikes. She had never been this close to one.Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the Thai crowd moving closer."Get down," she screamed in Thai. "Get Down!"Others repeated her warning and the crowed went down to their knees. Then came the thunder. Julia could barely make out the whoosh of missiles before the detonating rockets and missiles shook her world.A stubby-winged jet raced past her vision. The pilot had gotten so damn close to the building tops she could make out every feature of his aircraft. This level of caution where civilians were concerned was surprisingly unlike the Khanate. She tried to stand, but the soldier next to her had wrapped an arm around her."They come in twos," he cautioned her.Sure enough another series of explosions rocked her surroundings. No sooner had she gotten to her feet, the Kazak commander shouted,"They are coming around for another pass, then we go!"A series of passes followed with the jets using auto-cannons on whomever was left out there.Julia pushed away from her guardian and rushed up to the BMP officer."Wait," she called to him. Stunningly, he waited, looking at her. "Let the crowd save the survivors. This is their struggle too.""If the soldiers fire on them there will be little I can do," he responded."Give them a chance."Against all her expectations, he did. The crowd moved to discover the carnage visited on their oppressors, and fellow countrymen.  It was H-hour plus eight. The Thai tank commander was close to the end of his rope. He'd been fighting since sunrise. Defend, attack, withdraw to a defensive position then wait for the order to counterattack. His platoon had dwindled down to his sole surviving tank. His company no longer acted as a separate entity. Now his battalion, barely a company in strength, operated as a fire brigade, shoring up his beleaguered battle group.The last attack, backed by air power, had shattered his unit. He fell back, literally backing into a second story building to avoid the ever-present Alliance attack helicopters. From his vantage point he could see a column of armored vehicles rolling down Highway 11. He was debating which one he would fire on first when he noticed a jeep coming his way. Onboard were three Thai soldiers, rebels.The jeep rolled right up to his hiding spot. The man in the back dismounted and he walked right up to the tank."Can we talk?" the man inquired. The tank commander kept him covered with this machine gun."What do you have to say, traitor?" he barked."I come to request,""We will not surrender," he growled."We are not asking you to surrender," the man corrected him. "We are asking you to let the war pass you by.""Why should I?""If you fight, you will be destroyed. The Thai army will need to rebuild when this is over and we must be strong. If you throw your life away, we will all be weaker."The tank commander had to think that over. If he began firing on that armored column he would be striking a mighty blow for his country. He would also be sentencing him and his men to death."There will be no surrender?""No sir," the man insisted.The rebel soldier made some sense. The Thai military would have to rebuild when this catastrophe was over. He and his men had done their part."We will stay here for a while," the tank commander informed the rebel."Very well," the soldier bowed. He remounted his jeep and drove away."We are going to stay here a while," he addressed his crewmen. "Get a bite to eat and a drink of water."His men hesitated for a moment."Now, while we have the chance."The men hopped to. They had their orders. They would worry about the morality of their actions later.  It was H-hour plus nine. The men in the Royal Thai Army's high command were finally getting ahold of the big picture. The good news was the Third Army's offensive was grinding to a halt along a line stretching along Highway 1 from Tham Pet Tham Tong Forest in the east to Chai Nat on the Chao Praya River in the west. It was accepted as fact that the 3rd Cavalry and 11th Infantry divisions could hold the line.West of the Chao Praya was a chaotic mess of small garrisons involved in raids and counter-raids. It was deemed unlikely the Alliance forces could push forward any further in that direction either. It also meant that they couldn't pull units from that region to reinforce any of their other trouble points and they had a few.That was most of the good news.Another piece of good news was the1st Army's 2nd Infantry Division had stopped the invasion force they were facing only a few kilometers over the frontier in the area of Watthana Nakhon District. As soon as they had gathered the majority of the division together, they would be mounting a counter-offensive with the intention of overwhelming that force and destroying it.After that, it only got worse.In the area of the 2nd Army, the 3rd Infantry Division and the 2nd Cavalry Division had virtually ceased to exist as cohesive forces. Two battalions of the 3rd Division were retreating south into the 6th Division's area. The 2nd Cavalry division had been reduced pre-battle to one mechanized regiment. That regiment was gone and with it, the supply routes for the 2nd Royal Thai Army.Inside that zone, the 6th Infantry Division still existed, but it was in a world of trouble. They had lost control of Highway 24, their primary supply/evacuation route, and were relentlessly being driven out of Ubon Ratchathani. Even with the slowly arriving battalions of the 3rd Division, the 6th could barely muster two combat-effective regiments and those were running short of fuel and ammunition. The 6th had become a static force, too large to be overwhelmed, too immobile to press the enemy out, or save themselves from a slow strangulation. Had they their assigned tank battalion, but they didn't.The 1st Army's 9th Division was in the worst shape. They had gathered into one elliptical shaped perimeter centered on Chanthaburi and were down to four battalions and two tanks. Technically, they had another battalion, except the 1st Army command had ordered that into Bangkok to aid in suppressing the rebel movement. The 9th Division was surrounded, under attack from the land, sea (the Indian Navy had joined the fight) and air. Their commanding general expected to be wiped out before sunset.And Bangkok?It was turning into a typhoon scale disaster. They had finally determined that there were eight small Khanate platoons roaming the city, seemingly at will. The 1st Division had finally located and destroyed one of those, along with a dozen protestors who chose to fight by their side. The others were still at large and causing trouble.That wasn't the worst of it though. The plan had been to pacify outlying neighborhoods and work their way in to the worst areas. That had started out effectively, then suddenly they had lost the northwestern and southeastern sectors. In the northwest, there were Karin fighters killing, or capturing police and paramilitary strongpoints.In the southeast, it was much worse. Unknown armored troops from the 9th Division's rear area had come seeping in along the riverfront. They seemed to be everywhere at once, surprising roadblocks and checkpoints then ambushing the forces sent to restore order. They were a cancer pushing into a city already short on reserves.There were public displays of defiance going out over the international news, surgical air strikes and a growing sense among the rank and file 'Guardians of the Public Order' that they were on the losing side. There were reports of police turning their backs on the unrest, directing traffic and arresting petty criminals instead.The Royal Thai Army in Bangkok still had over 50,000 men under its command. They were sure they were facing less than a thousand hardcore militants, yet they were losing control of the streets. Part of that was caused by the military being tied down to certain strategic areas they had to hold. They had to protect over a dozen buildings and, as they had painfully learned, a platoon wouldn't do.The Government House had been temporarily overrun and Parliament had been shelled. Channel 3 had been hijacked and the forces sent to take it back had been subject to intense helicopter attacks and driven back. They'd killed two such craft, but that only seemed to make the Alliance troops angrier. This was what a death by a thousand cuts felt like. This was worse than bad, because it looked bad on media going out all over the world.  It was H-hour plus twelve. The commander of the MARCOS had finally taken the time to eat. He was in the Maleenont Towers section of Khlong Toei, Bangkok. It had been his masterstroke, seizing the Channel 3 station. He wasn't sure who the eight shady characters who showed up with the VIPs were and he didn't really care. What did matter was while the VIP's fought like wildcats in private they were putting on a unified front while on TV.One of the VIPs was the former civilian Prime Minister of Thailand. The other guys seemed to hate her guts, but were willing to work with her to overthrow the generals. What he did care about was the nearly five hundred men under his command plus a dozen helicopters and jets somewhere above, waiting to swoop in and help when the next government attack materialized.He had to give them this much, the police forces had guts, not a lot of brains, but plenty of guts. Their counter-terrorism unit had known their stuff, but they didn't have any effective anti-tank weapons and he had a half dozen tanks. Whenever the army got feisty, he called up 'Shiva's Fist' ~ his men's joking reference to the Khanate air support. Those bastards not only killed you, they came back around and killed your corpse too.He got a call from the perimeter. Some of those Karin fighters had crossed half the city to join them. The Indian officer had thought that part of the Khanate plan was utter madness, yet here they were, shooting up the place in a manner only highly experienced insurgents could. Those guys didn't even want to hang around. They were asking for more ammo. The locals were giving them all the food and water they needed.At nine, once it was truly dark, the Khanate was promising to drop off a few tons of whatever they need plus some more medivac units. He was down nine men dead and twenty-seven wounded badly enough they need to be removed. The Khanate had lost four times as many. All in all, the overthrow of a military regime was turning out to not be as difficult as he thought it would be. He was waiting to be surprised.  It was H-hour plus fifteen. The fighting had died down and now the main activity was the Thai civic authorities fighting the fires burning in Saraburi. The Khanate Commander of 1000 looked over his shoulder at the burning city. It hadn't been much of a fight, mainly a few rear echelon forces from the Royal Thai 2nd Army and some paramilitaries.He wasn't in the town. The majority of his troopers had already rolled down to the junction of Highways 1 and 33. He had communication with other elements farther west on Highway 32 at Ang Thong and to the northwest at the junction of Highways 1 and 32. The offensive operations was essentially over for his command. That was just as well. He was running low on petrol. He still had plenty of ammunition though.They were sitting on the lifeline for the 1st Army's 3rd Cavalry and 11th Division to the north and the 2nd Division to the east. The 6th Division was too far in his rear to matter and the 9th Division was facing annihilation along the coast. It was very dark now, but the air force was still active. Some pilots were flying their sixteenth mission of the day.For most of the day, the Khanate Air Force had concentrated on his axis of advance and the battle in Bangkok. The Vietnamese Air Force had concentrated on the hapless 9th Division. In reality, the Alliance was almost at the end of its tether.His combined Laos and Far North Task Forces were spent. The North and Cambodian Task Forces had the 6th Division pinned down. The South Task Force had done the same with the 9th. Only the Central Task Force facing the 2nd Division appeared to be in serious trouble.None of those formations were actually near defeat, though many of them wouldn't realize that until morning. Only the 3rd Army's two task force had consisted of more than 5,000 hastily gathered troops and most of those were Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese. To that the Khanate had added 50 mobile Zuuns spread over ten task forces and another 50 airmobile, parachute and airlifted units ~ less than ten thousand men and women spread over all fronts.The cold, hard reality for him was that not a single loyalist Thai unit had been destroyed. The 3rd and 9th infantry divisions has been battered, that was true. The majority of their mobile forces, the 2nd and 3rd cavalry divisions, still existed as a potent force. The 11th and 2nd infantry divisions were also out there, but they were all cut off from the capital. And in this elegant global play, the one theater that mattered was Bangkok.In the morning, if they came for him, the loyalist Thai's were going to discover that offense was a lot more painful that defense. Only the 2nd Division bothered him. The forces to the north were too heavily engaged with the rebel Thai 3rd Army to dispatch more than a battalion his way and he would gobble up a battalion.It would be too much to ask the battered Alliance Center Task Force to keep the 2nd Division occupied. From what he had heard, they were on the verge of disintegration after a powerful Loyalist counterattack. He did have patrols on the 304 and 359 Roads in case their commander got creative. What those few men lacked in vehicles, they would compensate for with air power.The Khanate Air Force was a 24/7, all-weather operation. They had lost 40 aircraft to enemy action and a further forty to mechanical malfunction. Losses in helicopters was also high. But there were still enough of both to get the job done. Now all he had to do was wait for the Americans to arrive.  It was H-hour plus seventeen.There were only three major acts left in this macabre play before the eyes of the world. A squadron of 12 Tu-22M bombers found two of the 2nd Division's regiments sneaking to the west. The Thais had done this with as much secrecy as they could. Unfortunately, their move was one of only two option left to the Loyalist Royal Thai Army.Option One, the most likely one, had the 2nd Division attacking the Khanate troops south of Saraburi. It would not only give the 2nd Division freedom of movement, it would establish supply lines to the divisions currently holding the rebel Thai Third Army at bay. It was the predictable choice.The Khanate U A V were out there, scouting for them and when they spotted the three columns using the backroads to approach their attack positions, they relayed that information to a not-so-distant A-50E/I. The squadron of waiting bombers had incredible endurance and had been circling the suspected target area for three hours. They broke up into groups of six then into groups of two. The first two lined up on their targets then unleashed their lethal cargo.Each plane dropped sixty-nine 250 kg bombs. That was138 bombs with a combined explosive power of 75,900 lbs. spread out over three-quarters of a mile. The A-50 assessed the damage for 7 minutes before sending the second set of two in. Another 138 bombs. Another 75,900 lbs. of death. The third group wouldn't be needed. In ten minutes the fighting power of the 2nd Royal Thai Infantry Division had evaporated.Option Two? That called for the 1st Infantry Division, with her added units, to sally forth from Bangkok and rescue the trapped elements of their other divisions. That would have entailed abandoning large areas of the capital to the protestors and the tiny groups of invaders that were helping them. No one thought they would do that and they were right. Had they been wrong, there was another squadron of bombers waiting for them.  It was H-hour plus nineteen. The Thai Phon Thahan-turned-Sip Tho looked out into the darkness. Four hours ago he was anticipating crossing the Cambodian border and burning down their town for a change. Now, now it was wait-and-see. The majority of the division had withdrawn for a long night march to the west. From what he had gathered, the 2nd Army had been pummeled and it was once again the time for the 2nd Division to save the day.He spotted movement in front of him. He glanced over to his 'sniper', a Thahan Phran who was the best shot in his unit and had a taste for the task. The man had the target in his sights."I come to parlay," the voice in the darkness shouted in less than perfect Thai. The Thai soldier had to think what that meant. His instinct was to shoot the man. His training taught him to not make choices above his pay grade."Advance. Don't do anything stupid," he called out. To the man next to him he whispered, "Go get the Captain." The man slunk away. No one alive in the unit stood up to do anything. You even pissed crouched down. The man coming toward him was a Cambodian. It was evident in both his gear and accent. "What do you want?""We want a truce," the man replied. He remained very erect, his hands in the air and only made slow, careful movements."I should shoot you," he growled."That would be unfortunate for both of us. I would, of course, be dead, and my allies would open up with our artillery."The conversation was truncated by the captain's arrival. They went through much of the same routine, absent the 'I should kill you part' and the counter-threat. The captain turned to the Thai soldier."Blindfold and bind this man's hands then take him to the Phan Ek (Colonel). Let him figure this out."Without the soldier saying anything the Captain added, "This could be a ruse. I must stay here. Hurry."He nodded, took a shirt from one of the civilian volunteers, cut it into strips then blindfolded and bound the man."If you so much as sneeze, I'll put a bullet in your head," he warned the man."I understand," the Cambodian replied. The soldier took the Cambodian one block behind the lines, spun the man around several times, then led him toward the command bunker. He spun him around twice more before making his final approach. A wounded junior officer met him at the entrance."Come on," he took custody of the man. Having nothing else to do and not having been ordered to release the prisoner, the soldier followed along.The Regimental Commander had the man un-blindfolded. His hands remained bound."What do your masters want?" the Major snapped."They want a truce," the Cambodian blinked in the sudden bright light."You invaded us without a declaration of war. That makes you criminals, not combatants.""We attacked at the request of the legitimate authority in Thailand, the Commanding General of the Royal Thai Third Army.""Those men are rebels and you will not refer to them as anything but," the Phan Ek insisted."Very well. My Commander wishes to let you know that our mobile hospital has arrived. We wish to exchange prisoners and place our facilities at your disposal as well.""The Royal Thai army will be there soon enough," the Major glowered."Unlikely. Our Khanate allies have informed us that most of your division was destroyed on the road. You have one battered regiment and a handful of tanks. You are not going anywhere."The soldier wanted to slap the smug smile off the man's face."I do not have the authority to hand over prisoners until their status as POWs or criminals has been established," the senior officer countered."If you consider our men criminals, we will treat your men like traitors.""Are you threatening me?""Yes. A fact you should be aware of is that the Khanate has been flying in reinforcements since noon and we have five more armored, mechanized and artillery Zuuns to attack with. Come sunrise, we will be coming at you again unless we have a truce.""Now you are threatening us again," the Phan Ek pointed out."I am explaining the realities of your situation, nothing more," the Cambodian countered. "Our task force commander believes that further violence will be futile. You have done your job and we have done ours.""And your job was to keep us occupied so you could rape and pillage other parts of our country?""No sir. The Alliance forces have been operating under very strict guidelines. The Thai people are our allies and we are a liberating force," the Cambodian replied."You consider this town 'liberated'? You've destroyed it," the Phan Ek noted."It was unfortunate that you chose to fight us here."The Colonel studied the man silently for thirty seconds."I will agree to a two hour truce. That should allow me to contact my superiors for further clarification on my mission. We will hand over any critically injured 'invaders'. You will return any POW's you are holding in exchange.""Agreed," the Cambodian immediately responded."Just like that? It is really within your authority to make such a deal?""As I said earlier Phan Ek, we believe the fighting is over. We don't need your captured men. We would like to see as many as our comrades live as possible. No matter what your commanders say, the fact remains that if you come out of these ruins, you will be slaughtered. You know that. I know that. Peace is the only avenue that leads to any level of success. Today, today, both our forces did what our commanders told us to do. The dying should stop.""Go. The truce will take effect in, fifteen minutes ~ 12:12 am. We will transfer prisoners and wounded at your point of entry. We will both give a warning whistle fifteen, ten, five and one minute before the truce ends at 2:12 am. Do you understand?"The Cambodian repeated the terms of the truce. He was bound up then sent back with the Sip Tho."Do you really think this is the end of the fighting," he asked his blind captive."On the lives of my children I hope so," the man sighed. "I led 88 men into battle this morning and now I'm down to 46 effectives. I have lost too many already for a battle that wasn't in my nation's best interest. I am tired of the killing.""Me too," the Thai said a moment later. After he delivered him to the Captain on the front lines, the man was unbound."Good luck," he found himself saying."Good luck for both of us," the Cambodian gave a weary smile. "May we not meet again.""If I see you again, I will kill you.""I feel the same way," the man chuckled. "We are both soldiers doing what more powerful men have commanded us to do. I don't know about you, but I have had enough." Several Thai soldiers nodded. They had driven the enemy off Thai soil. Continuing the fight didn't seem to have much of a point.  

The Caspian Sea is home to many unique marine species and other wildlife. The Caspian Sea Basin is also rich in oil and natural gas. The development of these lucrative hydrocarbon resources is having an adverse effect on the indigenous plant life, and some species are at risk of extinction. At the same time, water levels in the Caspian Sea are dropping, and it is particularly noticeable in the shallow northern section where Kazakhstan's Caspian ports are located. To look at the ecological challenges and efforts to find an acceptable biological and business balance in the Caspian Sea, host Bruce Pannier is joined by two guests from Kazakhstan: Vadim Ni, a lawyer, environmental activist, and founder of the Save the Caspian Sea movement; and Tatyana Sedova, an expert in extractive industries governance, civic participation and capacity building, who has worked with organizations such as the World Bank and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.

In this episode of the A is for Architecture Podcast, Shayan Adham - architect, scholar and founder of Layers Studio, a design practice based in Iran, discusses his work and thinking. This is a detour from the podcast's normal mode, but a happy one. Shayan presents work which I read as both deeply cultural and cosmopolitan, rooted in a critical engagement with the space he operates from, and the global context of architectural knowledge and practice. From the shores of the Caspian Sea, Shayan's reflections on architectural theory and education, perspectives on the evolution of architectural forms and thoughts on the intersection of memory and space, seems to me to be a distinct thing, an alternative reading of what it means to be a contemporary architect.It's kinda rare and lovely, and a bit different. Shayan can be found on Instagram.

Back Home, One week later.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.There is something worse than waking up and not knowing where you are: you could wake up and not know who you are.Note: World Events Stuff ~ aka Why things are happening in Cáel's lifeThe phone was from Iskender. His boss, Oyuun Tömörbaatar (OT), the former UN ambassador from Kazakhstan and now the informal and unrecognized UN representative and chief diplomat of the Khanate to the same august body, wanted to talk with me, immediately. OT wasn't being diplomatic at the moment, that would come later.{Now this is going to get convoluted}Any inquiries to the Khanate that didn't also include immediate official recognition of the Khanate currently were being steered my (and Hana's) way. For all the behind closed doors crap, he had me, his loyal ass-monkey mutton-head. I held faint hope that this latest meeting would work out to my benefit. For the meeting, I traveled light, only Naomi (the Amazon) and Chaz (British SRR) watched over me.Now fathers who know me, hide their daughters. I'd earned my 'scoundrel' reputation. T. Sarangerel, OT's daughter, was in the room when Iskender ushered me in. She gave me an uncertain look, I shrugged and she smiled. It took me 3 nano seconds to figure that out, OT was scoping me out as a potential son-in-law. I was in Temujin's Inner Circle and a man who he trusted (a rarity). Any union with me would strengthen OT's clan's standing in the new regime.The genetic footprint Temujin, and his immediate family collectively, had put down in the 13th and 14th centuries CE today was vast. He needed that to make his plans for the internal reorganization of the Khanate work. The old republics would go away, to be replaced by a system akin to the Byzantine 'themes, the re-organization of regions based on the recruitment of the Tumens.The Khanate was aiming for an 'Autocratic Republic' ~ a term invented in the 19th century. My use of this terminology was based on my gut instinct, Alal's host of memories involving every form of governance, and my experience with human nature. That clued me in to what Temujin was up to, his Greater Plan. He wasn't going to form a false-front government. He was going to retain the decision-making powers and do so openly, thus 'Autocratic'.He also planned to have a bicameral legislative branch. The Upper House would be based in Tumens and bureaucratic leadership, intellectual standing, religious sects, and tribal entities. This body would be based on merit, not primogeniture. The Lower, main chamber, would be a democratically-elected assembly (aka a democratic republic) that advised him on policy matters, thus 'Republic'.All the power would remain in the Great Khan's hands and would be exercised by his genetic descendants (which some geneticists estimated as being as high as 25% of the Central Asian population.) Marrying into that extended family would be easy, the 'family' itself would have a vested interesting in supporting a state that benefited them.Men and women could exercise power in the government through marriage alliances, identical to the manner Hana was working through me. Being surrounded by very populous countries in various states of belligerence, empowering women wouldn't be an issue since every willing mind and pair of hands mattered. Outsiders who shone through could be offered a spouse and brought into the ruling elite since polygamy was permissible.In the Khanate there would be universal compulsive suffrage (everyone 18+ was legally required to vote) to decide on the representatives in the new legislative body. Everyone was expected to fight, so everyone voted. It would be modeled on the Duma of early 20th century Imperial Russia. Unlike the ill-fated Tsar Nicholas II, Temujin would be much more attentive to the voice of the people, in the Information Age, he had to.Or so I hoped. I spewed forth my ideas to OT who didn't agree, or disagree with my vision. Perhaps Temujin and I did share a bond that went beyond obligation. OT then pulled a 'Pamela'."He told me he knew immediately you were his brother when you and I shared that vision," he commented out of nowhere."His words: You (Earth and Sky) are the old. He (meaning me) is the new. He (me again) will show us the way." My, that was nice, obtuse and not at all helpful. What did OT want? My good buddy, the Great Khan, wanted to cash in on Hana's and my sudden popularity. His most pressing need remained 'time'. He needed to have a cease-fire in the wings when his offensive resumed the next day.The Earth and Sky had moved, well, the Heaven and Earth to get the Tumens and their accompanying national armies up and running after only a two day respite. Thanks to me, Manchuria was a mess. The Russians had carried out my 'Operation: Funhouse' with mixed, mostly positive results.Dozens of smaller Chinese military police units along the border went, 'inactive' was the term most often used in the media. They didn't disarm, yet they didn't fight the Russians either. They sat back and let events unfold. The issue wasn't the Chinese's willingness to fight and die for their country. It was the schizophrenic government in Beijing.The PRC didn't want to wage a war with the Russian Federation at that moment. The Khanate was the priority. There were two fundamentally incompatible courses of action favored for dealing with the Russians:One large group advocated a passive Option A: let the Russians step in and shield the three remaining provinces making up Manchuria that were still in Chinese possession. Later, China would use military, economic and political means to edge the Russians out, once the Khanate was dealt with.A sizable faction favored a more aggressive Option B: play a game of chicken with Vladimir Putin. Tell the Bear not to come across the border while threatening him with a bloody and pointless (for him) guerilla war if he did intervene. Events on the ground were not providing a lot of support for that school of thought,However, this split at the highest levels of leadership left the local and regional commanders to try and muddle through as best they could. To the local commanders defending the Amur River side of the Chinese-Russian border, common sense dictated that they not oppose the Russian crossings, because the Russian 35th Army would kill them.All their military units had gone west to the Nen River line. With no heavy weapons and little air support, the People's Armed Police (PAP) (paramilitary) and the Public Security Bureau (regular police) units would be wiped out for little gain.Russia's GRU (Military Intelligence) sweetened the pot by allowing the police units to remain armed and in formation. It could be argued that they weren't even committing treason. At any time, they could throw themselves into the battle, or form the core of a resistance movement. 'Conserving your strength' had been a hallmark of the Communist Chinese struggle against the Imperial Japanese and Nationalists forces from the 1920's until 1945 and it had served them well.For the party officials, civil authorities and the People's Liberation Army (PLA), Army Air Force (PLAAF), and Army Navy (PLAN) who had gone with Option B, things weren't working out. In the north of Heilongjiang province at Morin Dawa/the Nen River line, the regional commander of the ad hoc forces facing the Khanate decided to duke it out with the Russian 36th Army as well. He was boned from the get-go.The PLAAF's overall command and control had been badly disrupted in the first few hours of The Unification War and had never fully recovered. Of the 22 air regiments that the PLAAF had started the war with in the Shenyang Military District (NE China), only 5 remained as effective formations flying, on average, a meager 20% of their original complement of advanced Shenyang J-16's, J-11's, Chengdu J-10's and Xian JH-7's aircraft.Replacing their aircraft losses meant sending up aged Shenyang J-8's (rolled out in 1980) and Nanchang Q-5's (in 1970) to fly and die in droves fighting their technologically superior Khanate foes. To add insult to injury, China's fleet of 97 Su-30MKK/MK2's (built in Russia) had suffered numerous suspicious mechanical and electronic failures, rendering them either flying coffins, or space holders in bomb-proof shelters.Furthermore, of the forces arrayed in the far north, only two of the five air regiments were responding. Two of the other three had begun displacing south into the Beijing Military District and preparing to defend the capital city. The fifth formation had another problem, North Korea (, more on that later.)In opposition to those two Chinese air regiments (roughly 60 aircraft of mixed types) stood seven complete and fresh Russian air regiments (over 400 front-line aircraft) and that didn't include the regiment and elements of the Far East Naval Aviation which was ALSO watching North Korea (, again more on that later.) The latter was of small comfort to the forces trying to hold the already compromised Nen River line.Behind those valiant troops, along the much more defensible Amur River line, the commander of the key city of Heihe sided with the Option A group and let the Russian 35th Army cross the river unopposed. By the time the PLA commanding general of the 'Nen Force' (the 69th Motorized Division and the subordinate 7th Reserve Division) figured that out, he was already in a shooting war with the Russians. So his supply lines weren't in danger, they were lost.The final indignity took place at Zalantun. The commander of the 3rd Reserve Div. had died during the attempt to recapture Zalantun. His replacement died when his helicopter was shot down as he was coming to assume command. In the absence of these officers, the divisional chief of staff told his men, including two hastily hustled forward mechanized brigades, to put down their arms. That meant 'Nen Force' was completely cut-off and surrounded.One battalion of the 36th Russian Motorized Brigade (yes, too many 36's running around) disarmed the Chinese troops while the rest, plus the 74th Independent Motorized Brigade raced for the prize, the city of Qiqihar. The last major mechanized formation of the 36th Rus. Army, the 39th MB was following them. However, instead of manning Qiqihar's defenses, the Chinese garrison in that city was waging war on its own populace.It wasn't only in Qiqihar; chaos reigned throughout Heilongjiang province. The Provincial Head of the Communist Party, Wang Xiankui, supported Option A. The Provincial Governor, Lu Hao, went with Option B. Both figures were rising stars in the PRC. Wang had ordered the still forming Reserve Divisions and the PAP units to disperse, thus avoiding any untimely confrontations with the Russians.Lu, without consulting Wang, ordered the same forces to launch a violent crackdown on all dissident forces, specifically all racial minorities. (It turned out that Lu was also a member of the Seven Pillars and his witch-hunt was aimed at getting the Earth and Sky organization operating in Heilongjiang).For the men and women on the other end of those phone conversations, there was no 'right' answer. Lest we forget, their organizations were already degraded by the Anthrax outbreak. Both men were powerful and represented China's future leadership, so if the person in charge at the ground level obeyed the wrong one, they could be assured of being roasted by the other.Some did try to do both, repress and disband at the same time. That meant that in the process of making mass arrests among an already war-fearful and plague-fearful populace, the law enforcement infrastructure began disintegrating.The problem with Lu's/7P's plan was that there was no 'revolutionary' organization to round up. That wasn't how the Earth and Sky operated in North-East China. They remained in tiny sabotage and reconnaissance cells. While they were scurrying for cover from the police crackdown, an opportunity presented itself.The afflicted minorities were getting furious with their treatment. These minorities saw themselves as loyal Chinese, yet they were being dragged out into the streets, put in detentions centers and (in a few cases) summarily executed. Being less than 10% of the overall population, resistance had never crossed their minds. It seemed all that those defenseless people could do was pray for Russian intervention forces to arrive.Within that mix of fear, betrayal and rage, the E and S discovered a way to start the dominos falling. The small, well-armed and well-trained E and S cells began ambushing police detachments. Weapons from those dead men and women were turned over to the pissed off locals before the cell went off to stalk the next police unit.Wash, rinse and repeat. It became a perverse and bloody case of wish fulfillment. Lu and the 7P's had been looking for an insurrection and they started one. Even though a miniscule portion of the population was involved, from the outside looking in, it reinforced the Putin Public Affairs initiative that portrayed Putin (and his army) as coming in to restore order to a collapsing civil system, which he was helping disrupt.From Moscow, the PRC's indecisiveness looked like Manna from Heaven. For the massive numbers of Russian soldiers riding through the Manchurian countryside, it felt like they were rolling into Arkham Asylum. Unlike the NATO countries' professional armies, Russia remained a largely conscript force whose normal term of service was only one year. These unseasoned troops could never tell if the local military, military police and police would attack until they rolled up on the Chinese units.At the start of that Day One of Operation: Funhouse, the Russian ROE (Rules of Engagement) was 'Ask and Verify'. It was tactically advantageous for the belligerent Chinese forces to lie about their intentions, then begin shooting at the Russians when they got close enough to hurt them. By Day Two, the standard front-line Russian soldier had adjusted that ROE to 'if they look at us wrong, light their asses up'. By Day Three, the officers had stopped trying to enforce Moscow's ROE orders.That was fine for the combat and rear echelon support troops because both the Chinese and Russian governments had another series of problems and they all centered around Pyongyang and Kim Jong-un's declaration that North Korea would intervene as well, without letting anyone know who he was 'intervening' against. To keep everyone guessing, the North Korean' People's Army was massing on all three borders, facing off with the PRC, Russia and South Korea. To prove his diplomatic intentions, Kim pledged to only mobilize half of his reserves, merely 4,250,000 extra men and women to go with his 950,000 strong standing army.It didn't take a military, or economic genius to realize the North Korean's chronically 'near death' economy was stampeding off a cliff. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) was in the middle of an oil crisis and Kim was increasing their fuel consumption by 400% while decreasing his workforce by 10%. To put it in perspective, the US unemployment was around 6%. Now imagine that in one week's time it would become 26%. One week, no severance packages. Would the population become unsettled?But wait, it gets better. The Secret War was colliding with the Real World in more places than Manchuria. Setting aside the assassination attempt (Grrr) of Hana Sulkanen, my fiancée, six Nipponese elders (two women and four men) appeared in the personal quarters of the Japanese Prime Minister on the first full night of 'Funhouse' and relayed their urgent requests.Those six were the Head of the Six (formerly Seven) Ninja Families and they were there at, my urging. Cause I'm an idiot and requiring the deaths of Romanians in my personal crusade obviously wasn't enough. Now I was asking the Japanese Defense Forces (JDF) to pony up as well. So take a deep breath and put on the hip-waders.You might be wondering why I would want the JDF, see, there was part of Operation: Funhouse that was hitting a predictable snag, namely the Korea People's Navy Force (KPNF) and the uncertain determination of the PLAN:The KPNF's vessels were rather old, small and crappy. They also had a love affair with anything that could launch a torpedo and they listed over 700 of these floating deathtraps (only 13 of which could be classified as surface warships) and the fanatical crews to take them into battle.The PLAN's numbers were far more realistic and the fleet generally more modern. Only their North (18 surface warships) and East Fleets (22 plus 5 'elsewhere') could play any role in an upcoming FUBAR, and both fleets were heading out to sea, mainly to avoid the sporadic, but increasingly effective Khanate air strikes.The FU to be BAR'ed was the Russian Far East Fleet (RFEF) (6 warships strong, ) that had seized on this crazy idea (per my suggestion) to sail south, around the Korean peninsula so they could land elements of the 55th Guards Red Banner Marine Brigade (the 165th Marine Regiment and the 180th Marine Tank Battalion).Theoretically they were going to be the 'Southern Shielding Force' that would interpose itself between the Khanate and Beijing. It should surprise no one that the RFEF's flotilla was unequal to the task of taking their destination, the port of Qinhuangdao, by amphibious assault. Fortunately for the Gods of War (which did not include me), there were five other navies involved.Meanwhile, South Korea was having kittens because their always crazy northern kin were slathering on the insanity. (In how many Buddhist countries do people flock to the temples and pray that their neighbor attacks someone, anyone else, but them? That wasn't a religious conundrum I wanted to deal with.) N.Korea mobilizing meant S.Korea had to mobilize, which sucked down on their GNP as well.Besides, N.Korean dams and coal-powered plants kept the lights on in Seoul. Erring on the side of caution, the S. Korea (aka Republic of Korea, ROK) Army suggested calling up only one million of their three million person reserve force in order to assure Cousin Kim that this was a purely defensive gesture. It didn't work. Kim Jong-un castigated the ROK for antagonizing him, despite his declaration that he 'might' feel like invading the South in the immediate future.Into the emerging crisis, the ROK Navy could sortie nineteen small surface ships. Japan's Navy wasn't up to its old imperial standards, but could still deploy 45 surface warships. The 800 lb. gorilla in the room was the core of the 7th Fleet stationed at Yokosuka, Japan, the USS carrier George Washington and her 14 escort vessels.If the George Washington was the gorilla, RIMPAC 2014 was King Kong. 22 nations, 50 ships, including the USS carrier Ronald Reagan were engaged in war games in the Central Pacific. With them were 5 vessels of the PLAN, had Kim Jong-un just kept his mouth shut, this wouldn't have been an issue. Hell, if the Khanate had not come into existence and launched its Unification War, but he had and they did,To show the US was taking this escalation seriously (without tipping their hand that they knew about Funhouse, Carrier Strike Group One (CSG 1) (the Carl Vinson +10) was rushing across the Pacific from San Diego. CSG 3 (the John C. Stennis +2) was being assembled hastily so that they could rendezvous with CSG 1 ASAP. So many brave souls running toward the danger, sometimes I hate myself.So now does it make sense that I found myself in a room with a US Senator tasked with riding herd on me?Anyway, there were the other three navies still unaccounted for, Taiwan / the Republic of China (ROC) (22 surface ships), Vietnam (7) and the Philippines (3). Taiwanese involvement was easy to explain, the PRC refused to acknowledge them as an independent country and probably never would.The Vietnam People's Navy was tiny in both numbers and tonnage. Five of the vessels were 1960's Soviet frigates. What Vietnam did have was a huge grudge against the PRC. The PLA invaded Vietnam in 1979 and devastated the northernmost provinces, killing as many as 100,000 civilians.The PLAN had walloped the VPN in 1974 (technically South Vietnam) and again in 1988. Out in the South China Sea were two island archipelagos; the Paracel (occupied by a small PLA garrison and claimed by the PRC, Vietnam and the ROC) and Spratlys Islands (disputed by Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, the PRC, the ROC, and Vietnam).The Philippines had a grand total of three frigates (all between 50 and 70 years old). 99% of the time, they faced a hopeless struggle enforcing Philippines' South China Sea claims, except they were now experiencing that 1% where the PRC found itself in a life and death struggle. Even then, the PLAN's South Sea Fleet was hands-down the biggest player with 26 surface warships centered on the Carrier Liaoning.Except (and there always seems to be an 'except') virtually all the PLAN's naval aviation had gone off to fight the Khanate and it wasn't coming back, ever. In the air, the Philippines was next to useless. What did they have of offer in the struggle for the South China Sea? Bases. The ROC and Vietnam had much more to bring to the table.The Vietnamese People's Liberation Air Force (VPLAR) had about 50 front-line aircraft and 175 nearly obsolete models ~ the same models the PLAAF was now piloting. The ROC Air Force could put up 325 almost-new fighters that were now superior to their opponents on the mainland. Why would I give a shit?Things cascade. The Khanate Air Force took a two-day long deep breath as Putin's 'Policeman that only looks like an invading army' started their intervention. Forty-eight hours later, the Khanate started the fourth stage (the first lunge, defeat the PLA's counter-attack then the second lunge) of the campaign.Their initial air power was still skating on thin ice where maintenance was concerned. They need more time to thoroughly rest their pilots and bring all their top-flight equipment to 100% working condition. Against them, in two days the PLAAF's assets increased by over 250 fighters.In turn, the Khanate had added their constituent state air forces plus nearly 80 new cutting edge air planes and 25 drones. Phase Four saw rolling airstrikes all along the forces massing in front of the northern and central Tumens. For a few hours, the PLA thought they knew what was going on.They were wrong and this was where my meeting with OT came in. Jab with the right, cut them down with the left. The left in my case was Tibet. Yeah, Tibet. Economic value = not nearly enough. From the very start of the war, a small number of seemingly inconsequential air strikes had seriously eroded the PLA and PLAAFs combat power in the Tibetan Plateau while leaving the roads, bridges and towns intact.Common military logic dictated that the Khanate had to punch their way further east into Qinghai (to the south) and Gansu (to the north) provinces. That was where the population and industry where. Farther east were even greater numbers of people and factories and the Khanate forces in the North hadn't been strong enough to threaten to cut off the Qinghai-Gansu front. Then the Russians showed up and the Khanate forces threatening that flank doubled overnight.The PLA hastily reinforced their northern flank, using troops from their strategic reserves. The move resulted in incredible attrition by airpower to the freshly equipped formations. The PLA was about to get flanked, but not from the north. Southwest of Qinghai was Tibet. A third of the Khanate's mobile forces now swept around in a huge left haymaker to the south.My job? I needed the 'Free Tibet' forces in the US and UK to provide public and moral support to the Khanate move. As Khanate Special Forces seized crucial bottlenecks in Tibet, they needed the locals to keep their 'liberators' informed of PLA presences and undermine any attempt to create a guerilla movement.The five Tumens dedicated to being the Schwerpunkt (point of maximum effort) of this flanking maneuver were going to be on a tight timetable if they were going to surround the PLA forces in Central China.My plan was to convince the Tibetans that the PRC's 55 years of occupation was coming to an end and the Great Khan wanted to sign a 'Treaty of Mutual Respect' (my invention). This would require both the Khanate and Tibet to recognize each other's right to exist the moment a cease-fire was reached. That was it. No 'armed presence', or 'mutual defense' agreements.The treaty would be formally signed in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, when the city was safe ~ as determined by the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile, CTA). Riki came up with an additional sweetener and proved she was quickly adjusting to our group's extra-governmental capabilities.

What do you learn after seven years on the road, traveling 20,000 miles on foot?In this episode, host Kim Anderson sits down with Angela Maxwell, an inspirational speaker and global adventurer, who spent nearly seven years walking solo across four continents. Covering 20,000 miles and traveling through 16 countries, Angela shares the highs and lows of her journey—facing extreme weather, illness, and the challenges of sleeping in a tent wherever she could find shelter.You'll hear about:✅ What inspired her to take her first steps on this life-changing journey✅ The most difficult and rewarding moments of walking the world✅ How solo travel reshaped her perspective on strength, resilience, and connectionAngela's story has been featured in Lonely Planet, Outside, and BBC Travel, and her adventures continue—most recently, she became one of the first women to swim across the Caspian Sea in 2024!If you've ever dreamed of long-term travel, solo adventures, or pushing past your comfort zone, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration.RESOURCES: Connect with Angela at She Walks the Earth (Website)Want travel tips and a behind-the-scenes look at the podcast? SIGN UP for our weekly newsletter here! It's just the good stuff, I promise. No spam here. Support the showLet's CONNECT! FREE GUIDE: Travel Longer for Less

News items read by Laura Kennedy include: Possible burial of a female medieval warrior located in Hungary (details)(details) New DNA analysis method brings historic European migrations into focus (details)(details) Eighteenth-century Russian cargo unearthed from a Caspian Sea shipwreck in Iran (details) (details) Colonial-era angel murals unearthed at historic Boston church (details)

//The Wire//2300Z December 27, 2024////ROUTINE////BLUF: COMMERCIAL AIRLINER CRASHES IN KAZAKHSTAN AS A RESULT OF PROBABLE MISSILE STRIKE. MORE DETAILS EMERGE REGARDING USS GETTYSBURG FRIENDLY FIRE INCIDENTS.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Red Sea/HOA: Over the holiday, additional information has come to light regarding the recent shootdown of a U.S. Navy F/A-18 by the USS Gettysburg (CG-64). Follow on information from crewmembers indicates that the shootdown was not the only friendly fire incident that day. Another aircraft narrowly avoided being engaged and was forced to take actions to evade an incoming missile from the USS Gettysburg. The pilot in the second aircraft was able to successfully evade the missile shot at them, unlike the first. AC: So far, virtually nothing is confirmable via independent sources; all of the information pertaining to these two friendly-fire incidents is coming from word-of-mouth sources within the Strike Group itself.Continuing the trend of escalating tensions in the region, Houthi targeting has increased once again over the past week following Israeli strikes in Yemen. Houthi forces have retaliated in kind, carrying out ballistic missile strikes on targets in Israel.Northern Europe: Another undersea cable cutting incident allegedly occurred on Christmas Day. This time, an electrical power cable spanning the Baltic Sea between Estonia and Finland was disrupted under unclear circumstances. NATO has pledged to increase their military naval presence in the Baltic as a result of the suspected Russian and/or Chinese merchant vessels which are being investigated by NATO for being involved in anchor-dragging incidents. Kazakhstan: Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243 crashed in Aktau on Wednesday. The circumstances leading up to the disaster are as follows:The aircraft took off from Baku, and transited north along the western bank of the Caspian Sea to complete a routine flight to Grozny. Once in Russian airspace, the crew reported navigational issues likely due to Russian military jamming of GPS systems, as has been extremely common throughout the region for several years. While attempting to land in Grozny under extremely thick fog, and with the added complexities of navigational issues, the aircraft experienced a catastrophic event that involved some loss of control over the aircraft. Initial reports suggested that the aircraft experienced a bird strike, as this is what the pilots reported over the radio. However, it is possible that what was perceived as a bird strike, really was the result of a missile striking the aircraft over Grozny. AC: Russian missile defense forces in Grozny had reportedly engaged Ukrainian drones earlier that day, lending weight to this theory.Following the catastrophic incident (either the bird strike or a surface-to-air missile strike) the pilots made the decision to abort landing in Grozny due to the emergency situation and thick fog, making the judgement call that landing a compromised aircraft in Grozny was not a viable option as they had already unsuccessfully tried to do so with an undamaged aircraft.The details of what happened next remain more uncertain with regards to timing and the sequence of events. The pilots attempted to gain clearance to land in Dagestan, but was also unable to do so due to conflicting reports. Some claim the same weather problems experienced in Grozny were to blame, other claims have been made that Russia forbade the aircraft to land for some unexplained reason. Reports also differ as to when this request was made; some claim prior to the catastrophic incident, others claim afterward.At some point the pilots conducted a radical change of course, heading from west to east over the Caspian Sea toward an unidentified airport that possibly had better weather conditions. During the transit over the Caspian Sea, an emergency was declared a

Azerbaijan Plane Crash Not Natural, Russian Pantsir-S Air Device Suspectedhttps://osazuwaakonedo.news/azerbaijan-plane-crash-not-natural-russian-pantsir-s-air-device-suspected/26/12/2024/#Breaking News #Aktau #Azal #Azerbaijan #Baku #Grozny #Kazakhstan #Makhachkala #Rosaviatsiya #Russia ©December 26th, 2024 ®December 26, 2024 6:56 pm There are speculations that the Azerbaijan plane that crashed on Christmas day near Aktau Airport in Kazakhstan, killing 38 persons with 29 survivors may have been shot down by a missile fired apparently from Russian Pantsir-S Air Defence System, with the speculation having some material base that the nearest airport on the Azal plane flight path was Makhachkala but the plane veered off hundreds of miles across the Caspian Sea to try to negotiate emergency landing at Aktau. #OsazuwaAkonedo

In the ninth century, the Vikings earned a fearsome reputation along the coasts of western Europe. But they also travelled eastwards and reached Constantinople, the Caspian Sea and even Baghdad, the bustling heart of the mighty Islamic Abbasid Empire. Matt Lewis is joined by Dr. Cat Jarman to explore why Viking raiders traded the frozen hinterlands of Northern Europe for the heat and hubbub of the Near East. Echoes of History is a Ubisoft podcast, brought to you by History Hit. Hosted by: Matt LewisEdited by: Joseph Knight, Robin McConnellProduced by: Matt Lewis, Robin McConnell, Peta StamperSenior Producer: Anne-Marie LuffProduction Coordinator: Beth DonaldsonExecutive Producers: Etienne Bouvier, Julien Fabre, Steve Lanham, Jen BennettMusic:Mirage Theme (Menu Version) by Brendan AngelidesDaughter Of No One by Brendan AngelidesIf you liked this podcast please subscribe, share, rate & review. You can take part in our listener survey here: https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/6FFT7MKTell us your favourite episode or Assassin's Creed game at echoes-of-history@historyhit.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The noise of the Caspian Sea on the coast of the oldest city in Russia. Recorded by Pavel Lopatin.

"Hearing the sounds of the Caspian Sea in Derbent the most southerly Russian City made me think of the wider global south. A world of uneven development, war, other people, migrants taking to the sea seeking a safe place to live. Then also a place where babies can be held close in their mother's arms and sung to. The sea connects all on the planet and is vital to our futures. It can be hostile, sustaining, and soothing as its rhythm wraps its arms around us.  "I used the sound of the Caspian Sea in the form I was sent it to start and sustain the piece. I extended it to include other rhythms other melodies, other sounds and other voices. Voices of people from around the world saying the word lullaby in their language.  "These words were then reversed to echo the waves swash and backwash. It concludes with the sound of another sea many miles away from Derbent sounding the same but different. The Familiar and Strange Sea." Stuart Wilding lap harp, percussion Gary Cove flute Thanks to Akira, Antonio Arca, Bilal Shad, Kamila Wisniewska, Mario Guarnieri, Michael Groom, Sarah B for lending their voices Caspian Sea at Derbent reimagined by Stuart Wilding. 

It's Friday, November 29th, A.D. 2024. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 125 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus 12 Iranian Christian converts face prosecution On November 26th, 12 Christian Iranian converts from Islam were summoned to appear at the 1st Branch of the Revolutionary Court of Nowshahr, a port city on the Caspian Sea coast, reports Church in Chains. In the Iranian indictment, Prosecutor Mohammad Reza-Ebrahimi wrote, “They have identified themselves as Christian during their defense, and this is supported by the messages exchanged in their phones” and by “Gospels and other Christian literature found in their possession.” He concluded that they had “set up groups to teach the Christian religion” and were therefore guilty of a crime. In Matthew 5:10-12, Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in Heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” Australia bans socials for minors younger than 16 A social media ban for children under 16 passed the Australian Senate on Thursday and will soon become a world-first law, reports The Associated Press. The law will make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X, and Instagram liable for fines of up to $33 million for systemic failures to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts. The platforms will have one year to work out how they could implement the ban before penalties are enforced. Online safety activist Sonya Ryan, whose 15-year-old daughter Carly was murdered by a 50-year-old pedophile who pretended to be a teenager online, described the Senate vote as a “monumental moment in protecting our children from horrendous harms online.” French TV channel fined for stating abortion is world's leading cause of death France's Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority has fined a TV channel for accurately reporting that abortion is the leading cause of death worldwide, reports LifeSiteNews.com.   On November 13, the French media regulatory authority fined CNEWS 100,000 Euros after journalist Aymeric Pourbaix accurately listed abortion as the world's highest cause of death during the channel's Catholic program called “In Search of Spirit.” In defense of their misguided conclusion, the French TV authority claimed, “Abortion cannot be presented as a cause of death. [The report] equates abortion with a cause of death and, by implication, the embryo or fetus that could not be born alive because of an abortion with a deceased person, even though in law they are not considered as persons,” the  Jean Marie Le Méné, head of the pro-life Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, said, “In order for abortion to be practiced with a clear conscience, it is forbidden to say that abortion takes life. Otherwise the keystone of the system collapses. But who believes this fiction? … Abortion, the leading cause of death in the world, is unfortunately a fact, not an opinion.” In Psalm 139:13-14, King David told God, "For You formed my inward parts; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well.” Trump's cabinet nominees targeted with threats Several people who have been nominated for Cabinet positions in President-elect Donald Trump's upcoming administration have reportedly been targeted in “violent, unamerican” threats to their lives and those of their family members, reports NewsNationNow.com. A Trump transition team spokesman said the threats were made Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. The attacks ranged from bomb threats to “swatting” which is the criminal harassment act of deceiving an emergency service into sending a police or emergency service response team to another person's address under a fraudulent premise. Karoline Leavitt, the future White House press secretary, said, “President Trump and the Transition (team) are focused on doing the work of uniting our nation by ensuring a safe and prosperous future. With President Trump as our example, dangerous acts of intimidation and violence will not deter us.” Trump's Border Czar set to use 1,400-acre border ranch for deportations Texas unveiled its newly acquired 1,402-acre border ranch purchased in October for nearly $4 million in Rio Grande City — offered as the site of detention facilities to help the Trump administration with proposed mass deportations, reports the Dallas Morning News. Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said Tuesday the state is looking to identify additional land to aid the federal effort. The General Land Office has more than 13 million acres of land under its jurisdiction. Appearing on The Angle with Laura Ingram on the Fox News Channel last week, Border Czar Tom Homan didn't pull any punches. Listen. HOMAN: “Trump's made it clear coming around the gate is public safety threats and national security threats, and we have plenty of them to find. Under Biden administration, removal criminal aliens has decreased 74%. So, we got a target rich environment. "For any governor or mayor who doesn't want public safety threats taken out of their communities, you should resign your office because your number one responsibility is to protect those communities. We have ways of finding people. I'm not going to explain it here on national TV because its law enforcement sensitive, but we will find many of these folks. They will be arrested, they'll be detained and they be removed.” Kamala's bizarre message to supporters In Vice President Kamala Harris's first real public statement since her concession speech on November 6th, she released this bizarre message on X. HARRIS: “So I just have to remind you: Don't you ever let anybody take your power from you. You have the same power that you did before November 5th, and you have the same purpose that you did, and you have the same ability to engage and inspire. So, don't ever let anybody or any circumstance take your power from you.” Hal Lindsey, author of The Late Great Planet Earth, died at 94 And finally, Hal Lindsey, a teacher of biblical prophecy who wrote the bestselling book The Late Great Planet Earth which sold 28 million copies, died on November 25th, two days after turning 95, reports The Christian Post. He wrote The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970 and famously suggested the climactic events of the tribulation would take place "within forty years or so" by 2010. He played a significant role in mainstreaming the premillennial view of the imminent return of Christ among Evangelicals during the 1970s and 1980s.  Close And that's The Worldview on this Friday, November 29th, in the year of our Lord 2024. Subscribe by Amazon Music or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

AP correspondent Karen Chammas reports on latest from the COP29 climate talks, being held near the Caspian Sea.

Tom Turcich: Old Fashioned (bitters, sugar, whiskey with cherry and orange rind garnish)Tom walked 28,000 miles around the world with his dog and a converted stroller filled with supplies, then wrote a book that records his adventures and reflections. In terrific travel-writing style he reveals his encounter with a pervert before he managed even to walk outside the USA, his strange difficulty at the border with Mexico (going south), his experience with COVID on the Caspian Sea, his favorite moment of the entire seven-year walk, and his surprising revelation about the desirability of travel for a good life. 

As COP29 begins, the ripple effects of the re-election of Donald Trump are reaching the shores of the Caspian Sea.  COP28 welcomed 85,000 delegates, within which a significant contingent of Oil lobbyists. COP29 is supposed to be the “Finance COP”, whatever that means, but all major head of states will not participate.What to expect from COP29?   Are COP still useful? Is it the correct format? Who is really committed and who is just paying lip service to fighting Climate Change?  Those questions and more with Lord Turner, chair of the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) a global coalition of companies committed to achieving a net zero global economy by 2050. Lord Turner is a leading British businessman and academic, former Chairman of the Financial Services Authority (2008-13). From 2008-2012 Lord Turner was the first chair of the UK's Climate Change Committee.

Day 988.Today, as Ukraine hits a Russian naval base on the Caspian Sea and North Korean troops enter combat for the first time, we examine the fallout from the US presidential election and ask: is Donald Trump the best thing that's ever happened to NATO?Contributors:Dominic Nicholls (Associate Editor of Defence). @DomNicholls on X.Francis Dearnley (Assistant Comment Editor). @FrancisDearnley on X.Adam Kinzinger (Former Republican Congressman, now senior political commentator at CNN) @AdamKinzinger on X.Dr Dalibor Rohac (American Enterprise Institute Fellow & Eastern Europe expert) @DaliborRohac on X.Subscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatestEmail: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.ukHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon, Lenora, Slane and Alex board a Russian freighter in the Caspian Sea looking for weapons. Gabby searches for an off site landing area for the Mercury to avoid detection by Zardoz. Janet meets with Barnes, Sam and Kelly to discuss her husband's new adventure. Kate and Ivan continue to follow the van with the suspicions cargo when Kate makes a startling discovery.

#BAKU: Site of COP 29 in the Caspian Sea Basin. Brenda Sha https://www.amazon.com/Operational-Energy-Howard/dp/3110796473 1910 Baku oilfields

Space Nuts: Mars' Ancient Lake, ISS Archaeology, and Science Fiction's Real Impact Join Andrew Dunkley and Professor Fred Watson in this captivating episode of Space Nuts, where they explore the latest discoveries and intriguing connections between science and science fiction.Episode Highlights:Mind-Blowing Mars Discovery: Dive into the latest findings on Mars, where scientists have identified what could be the largest ancient lake on the planet, Lake Eridania, which was three times bigger than Earth's Caspian Sea. Fred Watson Watson discusses the implications of this discovery and the potential for past microbial life.- ISS Archaeology: Archaeology isn't just about digging in the dirt. Discover how researchers are using archaeological methods to study the International Space Station, revealing fascinating insights into how astronauts adapt their environment over time.- Science Fiction and Real Science: Explore the symbiotic relationship between science fiction and real science. Learn how science fiction has inspired careers in science and how it educates the public about scientific possibilities and challenges.Don't forget to send us your questions for our Q&A episodes via our website... spacenuts.ioSupport Space Nuts and join us on this interstellar journey by visiting our website support page. Your contributions help us continue our mission to explore the wonders of the universe. Clear skies and boundless exploration await on Space Nuts, where we make the cosmos your backyard.Visit our websites:www.spacenuts.iowww.bitesz.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/space-nuts--2631155/support.

The Tree of Immortality: 5000 years of GillInterview with Shawn MaloneyIn this My Life Now episode, Dallas interviews Shawn Maloney, founder of The Priority of Retirement.About The Book: "The Tree of Immortality" by Sam Gill is an intricate blend of autobiography and memoir, tracing the compelling history of the Gill family through generations. Inspired by the discovery of his late father's box filled with photographs and documents, Gill embarks on a journey to uncover his family's roots. The book delves into the rich tapestry of the Gill lineage, spanning from the ancient lands near the Caspian Sea to the present-day Punjab, and ultimately to the UK, where the author resides. With a mix of historical facts and imaginative storytelling, Gill explores themes of migration, identity, and legacy, providing readers with a captivating account of his family's quest for a better life. This work not only preserves the Gill family history but also inspires readers to delve into their own ancestries, offering a profound reflection on the enduring significance of one's name and heritage.Thank you for listening to and supporting the My Life Now podcast show. We are excited to connect with each of our listeners on our various platforms. Below is the best way you can not only connect with us but also have an opportunity to be featured on our Podcasts.For Marketing and Publishing needs, Buscher's Social Media Marketing LLC (https://www.facebook.com/buscherssmm)

feeder sound premiere: Baban - It's Hard To Explain Darling EP (incl Minube, Kondo, Mhrrmv remixes) [Buta Records] Buta Records is a digital and vinyl label based in Baku, Azerbaijan, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Mhrrmv, Kondo, and Ruslan run it and focus on minimal and microhouse releases, characterised by their stripped-down, rhythmic sound and intricate use of repetition. Their latest release, 'It's Hard To Explain Darling', was produced by Burak Baban, a DJ and producer from Istanbul, Turkey, and is available starting July 26, 2024.  The EP contains three original tracks composed by Baban and two remixes by Minube and Kondo together with Mhrrmv. Read more: https://www.feeder.ro/2024/08/02/baban-minube-kondo-mhrrmv-remixes/

//The Wire//2030Z July 25, 2024////ROUTINE////BLUF: RUSSIAN, CHINESE BOMBERS INTERCEPTED IN ALASKA ADIZ. IRAN MAKES MAJOR PROGRESS WITH RAIL LOGISTICS NETWORKS. INDICATORS MOUNT REGARDING POTENTIAL ISRAELI INVASION OF LEBANON.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Western Asia: Iran celebrated the opening of the Rasht-Caspian Railway, a major rail project in Iran's northern Gilan province. High ranking Russian officials were present at the inauguration event in the Iranian city of Rasht. This project completes one of the major segments of the larger project, the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), which is intended to link the Caspian Sea with the Persian Gulf. This event takes place on the heels of another separate (but also significant) rail logistics network becoming operational in the eastern districts of Iran.Red Sea/HOA: Tensions between Italy and the Houthi-controlled government in Yemen have increased following Israeli airstrikes last week. The Italian Air Force provided aerial refueling for the Israeli aircraft that conducted the strikes in the Yemeni port city of Hudaydah. In response, the Houthis have threatened to target the Italian base in Djibouti if Italy continues to militarily support Israel.Middle East: Following PM Netanyahu's address to Congress, rhetoric has shifted to indicate an increasing likelihood of an Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Various Israeli officials overnight increased such rhetoric, along with military officials claiming that military preparations for such an invasion are complete. AC: In this war, rhetoric is nearly meaningless as all sides have frequently made false claims. Israeli politicians call for increasing military operations daily, and various IDF spokespersons have stated that preparations for an invasion are “complete” at least four times over the past few months. Nevertheless, the implications and sentiments expressed during PM Netanyahu's visit to Congress have led many to theorize that Netanyahu has (in effect) been given the “green light” for such an invasion. This idea will be impossible to confirm with any reliability, however even before Netanyahu's very specifically timed visit, the U.S. was unlikely to intervene when/if Israel decides to carry out a land-based advance in to Lebanon. On the other side of the wire, Hezbollah is not doing Lebanon any favors, with many missile and rocket strikes being carried out targeting Israeli cities. For the most part Hezbollah has mostly engaged in harassing attacks, with more substantial rocket attacks being triggered in response to particularly egregious Israeli actions in Gaza. However, as tensions remain perched on the knife edge between the conflict simmering down, and expanding greatly, it would not take much for a conflagration to occur in the region (even by accident) which allows Israel more leeway in the international arena to conduct operations in Lebanon.-HomeFront-New Jersey: Senator Bob Menendez has resigned from the US Senate (effective Aug. 20) following his bribery convictions. AC: As a reminder, Menendez was convicted of 16 felony counts of bribery for accepting cash and gold payments from Egyptian and Qatari agents, in exchange for services rendered in Congress that benefit the interests of these governments.Washington D.C. – Cleanup operations following yesterday's demonstrations/unrest have begun as many monuments, buildings, and other structures were defaced by demonstrators. Criticism of the handling of the unrest has been mounting as very few of the violent demonstrators (specifically those who defaced monuments) were arrested. This morning the US Park Police issued a statement explaining that only 29 officers were designated for crowd control, which prevented any sort of mass arrest operation from being feasible.California: This morning Governor Newsom signed Executive Order N-1-24, which mandates the

Shahpour Nejad was born and raised in Sari,Iran, a small town in Northern Iran near the Caspian Sea. He came to the United States at sixteen and moved to Cleveland, Ohio. He graduated high school and attended Cleveland State University where he earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He went to work at a pizza […]

Kate Adie introduces stories from Myanmar, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Mexico.In Myanmar, tens of thousands of people have been killed since the military seized power in a coup in 2021, halting the country's tentative transition to democracy - a further 2.5m people have been displaced. Quentin Sommerville has spent a month in the east of the country, living alongside resistance groups fighting the junta the jungles of Karenni state on the border with Thailand, and Shan state, which borders China.In a visit to Kyiv this week, Germany's foreign minister urged Western governments to supply more air defence weapons to protect Ukrainians from what she described as 'the rain of Russian missiles.' Jonathan Beale met with a Ukrainian military unit known as The Peaky Blinders, which is defending territory near Kharkiv with armed drones.The world's largest inland body of water, the Caspian Sea, is shrinking at an unprecedented rate. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent travelled to Mangystau, in western Kazakhstan, to find out why this is happening, and how it's affecting the people and the wildlife along its coastal communities.In the city of Tijuana. right on the Mexico-US border, 3,000 men are incarcerated in La Mesa Prison, living six to a cell, and sharing a tiny bathroom. It's a claustrophobic and monotonous regime, so any distraction is welcome - and that might come in the form of a visit from a group of mostly elderly nuns. Linda Pressly joined them on a mission to provide spiritual support – and some small comfort.Series Producer: Serena Tarling Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith Production Coordinator: Sophie Hill

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd   FULL TRANSCRIPT Wilmer Leon (00:00:00): As I'm sure most of you know by now, according to Iran State Media, Iran's President Ibrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister, Hussein Amir Abdulah, have died in a helicopter crash. There are a number of questions that this unfortunate turn of events presents. Was this simply an unfortunate accident as their helicopter traveled in dense fog along Iran's border with Azerbaijan, was the helicopter taken down? What's next for Iran? What's next for the region? Announcer (00:00:43): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:00:51): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. I'm Wilmer Leon. We have a tendency to view current events as though they occur in a vacuum, failing to understand the broader historical context in which most events take place. During each episode of this program, my guests and I have probing, provocative and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between the events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze these events that impact the global village in which we live. For insight into these issues, let's go to Beirut Lebanon. Let my guest, he's an award-winning broadcaster and independent journalist based in Beirut Lebanon. He's a policy consultant with the Community Media Advocacy Center, and you can find him and his work at Free Palestine dot video. He's Laith Marouf Laith. As always, welcome back. Laith Marouf (00:01:53): Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Wilmer Leon (00:01:56): So let me start with who was former president Ibrahim Raisi. The western media describes him in less than glowing terms as a religious hardliner. He's seen as a potential successor to Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Hamani. He was a former judge and allegedly a member of what the West calls the death commission, which forcibly disappeared and traditionally executed in secret thousands of political dissidents. Those are the allegations who was former President Ibrahim Raisi. Laith Marouf (00:02:41): Well, definitely he was part of the first generation that lived the Islamic Revolution and were on the front lines during the massacres that Iraq and the West commissioned in Iran, the use of chemical weapons against Iranians paid for by the Germans and the us. So he has that credential of living that revolution, and he was a judge and the accusations that are keep on being repeated there of thousands of prisoners being executed, we're talking about the terrorists that are part of the Mujah, the MEK terrorist organization that was housed in Iraq and funded by the West and is now housed in Albania that was responsible for the killing of almost 70,000 people in Iran through their terror campaign. That includes the killing of ministers and the government officials at the time. So the accusation against him is that he crushed the vessels, the terrorists that work for the CIA, that's his accusation against him and otherwise he was a judge and very respected within the country because of this background. Actually, whatever accusation that the west has against him as a discrediting thing, in reality, it is a positive thing for his reputation in Iran because of how he defended Iran against the terrorist. (00:04:31): The hype that we saw over the last month or so in the media about Rasi being going to be the next ayatollah after Hamina steps down, that there is no truth to that in terms of any speaking of that in Iranian society or Iranian media. In fact, we should take it as an indicator of that he was going to be assassinated. There's something that say it has the Sid Hasan Astra, the Secretary General of Hezbollah after the assassination of General Soleimani in 2020 by Trump. So Sid Hasan Asra a speech. He spoke about how when the media in the West suddenly gives attention to a leader in the region out of the blue and start giving them very high stature, that is maybe true, but it's not. That's an indicator of an assassination coming and that he spoke to General Soleimani the day before he was assassinated while he was in Beirut about that and warned him as he was flying to Baghdad on a domestic flight that this is actually even more worrisome that he was on a domestic flight given all this attention. So now we see kind of the same thing happening here, all this hype being pumped about Raisi in the month before the assassination, specifically since the retaliation of Iran against the assassination of its diplomats in the Damascus. So I see it as actually an indicator that he was going to be assassinated and now that's what actually happened. Wilmer Leon (00:06:26): To your point that this was an assassination, there are a couple of things that as soon as I heard that the helicopter went down that came to mind. One was, was it taken down? Apparently there were three helicopters flying in formation and his helicopter was one of the three, and it seems as though it just dropped out of the sky. They keep talking about the terrain, they keep talking about the fog. I know some US military trained helicopter pilot certified helicopter pilots. The first thing I did was call them and ask them when you heard fog, when you heard terrain, when you heard the helicopter went down. I said, what's the first thing that came to your mind? They all said, oh, they took that thing out the sky and they said, first of all, they all said to me as certified pilots, we would never have crashed our helicopter. That just was not going to happen short of some catastrophic mechanical failure. They said, which by the way, we are trained to deal with. They told me the quality of pilots that they have in Iran that those pilots, they say this goes all the way back to when Iran was an ally of the United States during the Shaw's time and that the protocols that were in place then are many of the same protocols that they follow today. (00:08:03): So there was a lot of information opinion that they gave to me, which said, and then they even mentioned, you got to understand the MEK along that region, that Azerbaijan is an ally of Israel or that there are elements within Azerbaijan that are so connect some of those dots for me please. Are these just the opinions of Ill-informed individuals or they said for the fact that the thing dropped out the sky without it, even a mayday call indicates that something was wrong here? Laith Marouf (00:08:43): Yeah, I mean, you mentioned a lot of important things. So first off, obviously there was no made call as you said. So we don't have any information about some problem happening on the helicopter. The other is that there was two other helicopters with it and they continued to reach their target and destination and they reached it. That's the question also, why didn't they stop and fly back and look for the other helicopter? That's a big indicator that there's something wrong that happened there that is not just a regular crash. The other thing is that the Iranian government took a very long time to really show us what happened and tell us that Rasi and his companions were dead. In fact, the hours after the crash, the Minister of Internal Security told the whole world that they received two calls from survivors on the plane, on the helicopter, and later on all the way around 2:00 AM PA on time, again, the minister of internal claim that they received a call from one of the crew members on the helicopter all the way that late saying that they were hearing the ambulances or the sirens in the area. (00:10:13): So while all of this was happening, the minute the helicopter crash was announced and called a soft landing, and then it took so long, I mean, this is Iran that has satellites. This is Iran that has drones that can fly and reach Israel and hit their targets thousands of kilometers away. I thought in my mind that either from the first minute that Raisi and his team were assassinated and they're dead, and the Iranians were delaying the announcements so they can tidy up their house and prepare for the transition and think about what they want to do if there's an actual assassination or that the Iranians were hiding the fact that he was alive and they were just milking it for support. This is what I thought during the whole night as they were doing this search, and obviously for them to finally tell us they're dead, that's in me confirmed that there was an assassination. (00:11:21): None of the stories that came from the Iranian government to the media during the quote search made any sense. And so now we know they're killed. I believe the Iranian government knows that they were killed and how they were killed, and I think given the fact that the Israelis have a tendency of assassinating political leaders as retaliation for their failures on the battlefield, this is historic. Look at how even recently, look at how they assassinated Hamas leadership in Beirut because they were failing on the ground in Gaza and they failed in the battle with Iran after they targeted the embassy in Damascus and Iran landed a huge blow on them and they were not able to retaliate. So their only usual behavior is to assassinate political leaders, and that's what we saw. The question is because Netanyahu attempted last month when attacking the embassy to drag the United States into a war because he sees Israel losing the battle on the ground. (00:12:47): He sees that Israel cannot even fight Hezbollah if a bigger war starts with Lebanon. He needs the United States to be around on the battlefield with him. He wanted to drag Iran into that war with the attack on the embassy, and they didn't retaliate in a way that created a war. And now he did this to try to drag again Iran into this war. But this is not what Iran wants. Iran has a clear plan with the access of resistance that we're seeing unfold over the last seven months, which is to chisel away at Israel slowly and cook it like a frog, a live frog boiling where it collapses internally, where all this support from the world collapses externally, and there's no need for a war for this Zionist colony to collapse, but Netanyahu wants a war. So I think the Iranians are not going to admit that this is an assassination because if they admit this an assassination, they have no choice but to carpet bomb the hell out of the Zionist colony, and that would derail the plan and will take it to the stage that Netanyahu wants it. So I think they're going to just bite the bullet and continue on their set plan and will not be dragged into, it's very sad. I mean, it's very sad that this is going to be what's going to happen, but that's the only thing path forward I see. Otherwise, if Iran decides to retaliate, we're going to be in World War three immediately. Wilmer Leon (00:14:24): And I think it's important for people to understand that there's a much longer term vision here, that the axis of resistance, they have a different worldview. We know that if the situation were reversed and either if somebody had shot an Netanyahu's playing out the sky or if this had happened to Tony Blinken while he was traveling in the region, that the bombs would be exploding by now. But I think there are economic concerns here that those in the region are taking into account war. As I said to Godfather, war is messy business war is very expensive. And with their economies under sanctioned, with their now finding ways to move and operate without the sanctions to go into a war right now, whether it's the Russian economy, whether it's the Chinese economy, whether it's the Iranian economy, they don't want that economic stress on their economies. They also know that I think going into a World War which, or at least a regional conflict, would shut off oil transport through both the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, which would then collapse the world economy. They don't want do that. I don't think I'm conflating their concern for world welfare. I think they're looking much, much longer. Am I connecting some dots here? Laith Marouf (00:16:04): Yes, yes, you definitely are. And although most of the access of resistance and China, Russia, and most of Africa and Latin America want to see an end to American imperialism, no one wants the whole world to burn in the process. Okay? It's no one's interest to have a World War. People want to clip the wings of the United States, bring it back to its natural size, and the same thing for Europe and balance humanity. There's no interest in these countries to see the United States burn and Europe become a wasteland. And so there's the difference. The difference is people in the south and the East just want the foot of America off their neck. They don't want to put their own foot on America's neck. And so we will see, as we are seeing right now, both in the battlefield in Ukraine, or what's happening around Taiwan or what's happening here right now in the Western Asia battlefield is the constant attempt by the access of resistance and others around the world to take things slow, to allow time to be the biggest weapon. Wilmer Leon (00:17:33): Hence the adage. You have the watches, we have the time. So with all of this, what's next for Iran? Laith Marouf (00:17:43): Yeah, I mean, we already know that they have to have an election within 50 days. That was announced yesterday, and the current vice president was appointed as temporary president until elections happen. Iran as a constitutional democracy will fill these positions as fast as possible, even though these individuals leave a huge gap behind them because of their knowledge and portfolios. abd Ian being the youngest foreign affairs minister of Iran's history, and because of his relations in Africa and Latin America and Rasi with the relationships that he built. So where should expect that this is going to happen this election. But look at one thing, the Israelis, at least what they got from this is at least now a distraction for the next three, five days in Iran and World News while they intensify the massacres in Gaza and in the West Bank last night, for instance, eight people were killed in Janine, so Palestinians. (00:19:06): So there's a lot that we can't really predict what's going to happen. The other thing is that it's very possible that Iran, although they don't announce that this was an assassination and that they don't put the finger on Israel, that they actually conduct clandestine actions that are in kind and something nasty happens to some Israeli official, and nobody can say who it is. So those are possibilities. But I think the most probable thing is that Iran will try to stay the course that the support fronts in Lebanon and Yemen will intensify rapidly to a different level. Wilmer Leon (00:19:49): That's my next question. What happens in the region? Laith Marouf (00:19:53): Yes. Yes. So we're already seeing an intensification even before this assassination. We had a change in the tactics on the Lebanese front with Hezbollah conducting multilayered complex operations that include drones, guided missiles, and achieving huge hits. Much of the air defenses that Israel has downing two huge surveillance balloons. One of them is the biggest in the world, this Zeppelin balloon, there's only two of them in the Zionist colony, one around the Una reactor, one in the north. And the Israelis had put this one in the north because of the destruction of all of their surveillance equipment on the border with Lebanon. So to see Hezbollah not only down these drones, but also film the after from, sorry, not only down these balloons, but also film with surveillance, drones after effect of the destruction and coming back with their images, 100% high HD 4K images of the, so we're already passed into a new stage now in Lebanon, and I expect it to only intensify. And similarly with Yemen, I think that in the next 24 hours, we will see Yemen starting to attack shipping in the Mediterranean, and that will add another sea under Yemeni sovereignty. It's not only going to be the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Indian Ocean, you'll have also the Mediterranean, and that will be the smartest thing that Iran can do with the access of resistance is to intensify the battle on these fronts without addressing the issue of the assassination of Raisi. Wilmer Leon (00:21:55): When we look at the recent dynamics, and what I mean by that is if we go back to October 7th, in fact not even that, I'm sorry. What I mean is China gets involved with the Saudis, the Saudis wind up talking to Iran. There's reproach mom between Iran and the Saudis haven't heard much from the Crown Prince Ben Salman. In all of these most recent developments, are there things coming out of Saudi Arabia that are not being reported in the West, particularly now as it relates to the death of former President Raisi? And is Bin Salman concerned about his longevity? Laith Marouf (00:22:54): I think everybody is right now worried about their longevity. We've seen the assassination attempt on the Czech president, so we saw the attempted coup, all of this within 24 hours in Congo. Again, American Israeli mercenaries trying to overthrow the president of La Congo. So we're right now entering a new stage in the global battle, not only in Western Asia, we're seeing the West do the maximum they can with the hybrid war. So it's not only a media war, it's not only a sanctions war, it's not only direct confrontations or military confrontations. We're seeing these assassinations and cos and so on, intensified by the United States and its vessel states. So the Saudis issued an official statement condolences to Iran on the assassination. In fact, all of the Gulf countries, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Emirate, Oman, Saudi, all of them send their condolences. There is three days of mourning in Lebanon, in Syria, in Iraq, in Pakistan, in India, and in Tajikistan and in Turkey. And this is things that are unheard of. Maybe it was expected as Syria or Iraq, but Lebanon and Pakistan and Turkey, this is so we can see that the whole region is worried about the results of this assassination. What does it also mean to, what are the rules of the game now? What is allowed to be done? Because if you are allowed to assassinate presidents now, this means there's no rules. Wilmer Leon (00:25:05): Lemme just quickly say to that point, that reminds me of a comment that President Putin made maybe a year ago as people were talking about, oh, is Russia going to assassinate the president of Ukraine? And Putin said, no. He said, no, no, no, we don't do that. So people need to understand that there's a, I hate to use it. There's a decorum, there's a protocol. There are certain things you're not supposed to do even in the rules of war, even in warfare, you don't assassinate the leader of your opposing country. So you are making that comment just made me think about the point that Laith Marouf (00:25:57): By the way, president Putin is on the way right now on the flight to the Harran, and he's flying with escorts of Soho 35 to the Harran, and he will be there tomorrow during the funeral procession led by the Illah. Wilmer Leon (00:26:19): What is that signal? In my mind that's huge because that's huge on a couple of fronts. One, his country is in the midst of a conflict with NATO slash the United States slash the West. So he must feel incredibly comfortable to leave as he did when he went to China in the midst of this conflict. I can leave my country. I'm not concerned about a being assassinated. I'm not concerned about something happening domestically. B, he's flying into a war zone. He's flying into a country whose president was just killed, many believe assassinated. So on a number of fronts, that to me speaks volumes. Laith Marouf (00:27:07): Yes. And there's the ICC arrest warrant Wilmer Leon (00:27:10): Against that too. Laith Marouf (00:27:11): It's the National Criminal Court. So we know that yesterday, the minute the announcement was made that the crash happened, the President Putin called in the ambassador of Iran to Moscow into almost a six hour meeting with all the heads, the intelligence military in foreign affairs of Russia. It was like a special kind of war council almost. And we don't know what happened in this meeting. So what information did Russia share with Iran? What are their points that were made in that meeting? And immediately we see this visit by President Putin being confirmed, and he's flying over the Caspian Sea directly into Iran from Russian territory to Iranian territory with the military escorts. We will clearly that this indicates a lot of things. And he's flying with him the top cater of the Russian military intelligence and foreign affairs to Iran. So there's something that's going to happen there. (00:28:34): We don't know what's the exchange that's going to happen in these meetings. And to go back to the issue of assassinations, the access of resistance members have never assassinated any Israeli leadership. Not because they can't. In fact, the only time that there was any assassination of an Israeli official is the Minister of settlements during the second in the Father in 2002 was conducted by the popular front for the liberation of Palestine in retaliation for the assassination of the leader of the PLFP AB mufa when the Israelis fired missile from a helicopter into his official office. So historically, the axis of resistance does not do assassinations like this. Why? Because number one, and this is true for Russia, by the way, number one, our enemies don't have any heroes. They only got lunatics, stupid leaders. And if you kill them, Wilmer Leon (00:29:42): You martyr them. Laith Marouf (00:29:43): You create the martyrs, right? The Israelis, Wilmer Leon (00:29:48): You inflate them to an artificial sense of value in power. Laith Marouf (00:29:56): Exactly. So there's no need to create martyrs for the Ukrainians or the Israelis. These are all goals. They should never be allowed to reach that status of martyrdom. The second issue, and this is true again for Ukraine, is because we're gifted as an axis of resistance. And Russia is gifted with the stupidest kind of enemy. Why would you want to kill Zelinsky if he's so dumb? Or Netanyahu is making so many stupid mistakes. If you kill them, maybe somebody smarter will come, you'll be even cursed. And in fact, if you look at the Israelis assassinating over and over, leaderships in the axis of resistance, every time they assassinated somebody, somebody even more cunning and more ready to fight them, gets into the position. Look at Hezbollah. Say Hasan came into his position as Secretary General after the assassination by Israel of Del Mu, the former First Secretary General of Hezbollah who was very moderate, soft spoken. And then you get sala and look at what so assassinations don't work on those two grounds. So it's a stupid thing that the Israelis did, this assassination of sei, and it's just going to bring somebody more in power. And now Iran has a president as a martyr on the path of liberation of Palestine. What glory does Iran have? No other nation lost a president in defense of Palestine, not even the Palestinian authority. You see, Wilmer Leon (00:31:49): You're laying out. That logic also goes back to some fundamental organizational constructs, as in organizations that are personality led versus organizations that are structurally led. So what I understand you to be saying is that this resistance is not based upon the personality in charge, that there is a structure here. There is an ideology here that, as we've said a number of times on a number of shows, you can't kill an ideology with a military. You can only defeat an ideology with a better ideology. And so you can assassinate all the leaders you want to, but there are people right behind them that are waiting to take charge. Laith Marouf (00:32:48): Yes, it is institutionalized. Obviously, we don't want to undermine the human factor, like a human factor is very important in all of these things. And people's personalities and connections make a difference. And so yes, these losses are always big, but because of this institutionalization, hopefully the, and because of the actual human factor, this new person that will fill, will bring new openings, new connections with them. Yes, the human factor is very important and institutionalization is as important. Wilmer Leon (00:33:28): Switching gears a bit, the ICC, the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for the leader of Hamas, Yaya Sanir, as well as the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity. And it seems to be centered around the October 7th retaliation by Hamas on Israel. President Biden has denounced as outrageous the request for these warrants. Biden has said, let me be clear. Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no evidence none between Israel and Hamas. Biden said that this is a false equivocation. A couple of things. One, people need to understand that the ICC, the prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants. No warrants have been issued yet. I also find it interesting that they are tying all of this back to the October 7th response by the resistance as though October 7th is actually the beginning of something as opposed to the continuation of something. And then I'd like to get your take on, as I understand international law, the actions taken by Hamas on October 7th do not violate international law because Hamas is, Hamas represents the occupied, Israel is the occupier. And in international law, the occupied can do anything in its power to resist occupation. There is no right to defend oneself when you are the occupier. Laith. Maro your thoughts on that analysis? Laith Marouf (00:35:35): Yeah, I mean, I agree with everything that you said, and I would add to it, can you imagine if during the Vietnam War, Vietnam was, and the Vietnamese resistance were taken to the international criminal court and their leadership were declared terrorists for defending themself against French and American occupation, or the Algerian resistance being called terrorists at the ICC for defending themself against the massacres of the French or the French resistance against the Nazis Wilmer Leon (00:36:13): Or the A NC in South Africa Laith Marouf (00:36:15): Or the A NC? So I personally think the collaboration is Palestinian Authority on purpose launched this case at the ICC because they wanted the leadership of the resistance in Hamas to be charged with war crimes. Okay, Wilmer Leon (00:36:43): Wait a minute. Start that again because man, I never saw that one coming. Start that one again, please. Laith Marouf (00:36:52): Yes, yes. I know it's sometimes hard for people to make these connections, but you see there's never been, that's why Wilmer Leon (00:36:58): You're wrong. Connecting the dots. Laith Marouf (00:37:00): Yes. There's never been in history international criminal court case of the occupied taking their occupier into court and the occupied being charged with crimes against their occupier. And it was the Palestinian authority that pursued this case. Okay? And I think it was done on purpose by Abbas Wilmer Leon (00:37:29): Mah. Abba did this Laith Marouf (00:37:31): Mahmud, Abba and his collaborationist goons to dirty the reputation of the resistance to make their resistance equal to the crimes of the occupier. Okay? And I add to it even more the these arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Ganz, who's going to actually enforce them? No Western country will stop Netanyahu from flying over its airspace or landing on its territory, that's for sure, 100%. But you know who's going to be a target? It's a smile Nia, who's sitting in Qatar, right? SSIR and Aldi are in Gaza. The Israelis can't even kill them or assassinate them. They can't reach them, let alone try to arrest them for ICC charges. But smile, Nia, the head of Hamas in foreign political borough is now the number one target. He's probably right now running to find a place that he can hide than Qatar, because Qatar is a vessel state, and they will hand them over to the Americans at any moment. Okay? So in reality, this is one of the worst things that ever happened to the Palestinians. This ICC case, there's nothing to celebrate about it. And if you notice the limitations of this case that it only, as you said, starts October 7th, Wilmer Leon (00:39:03): They don't mention genocide, Laith Marouf (00:39:05): Okay? And not only that, the case is only for crimes inside Ga Gaza, none of the historical Palestine, west Bank, east Jerusalem, any of that will be included in this. And this is not only to protect Israel from accusations of apartheid and the settlement building that is one of the biggest war crimes possible, but also to hide the fact that all these internment camps that have been built since October 7th, were thousands of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip were abducted and sent into these Guantanamo and being tortured, raped, and killed on mass, disappeared completely, because nobody even knows that they're in this. And the fact that VE turned all the Israeli prisons into that same model, 12,000 Palestinian prisoners since October 7th, have been living in these internment camps, tortured, raped, and killed with hundreds, hundreds of testimonies of rape and torture by men, women, and children coming out of these dungeons. And if you notice the docket of these requests for arrest warrants, this house, slave Han, who is a puppet of the United States and Israel, who came as a replacement to the ICC chief prosecutor before him, who got humiliated and death threats and banned from entering the United States and so on, because she even dare thought about charges Wilmer Leon (00:40:56): Even his family was under. Yes, Laith Marouf (00:40:58): Yes. So now, what does this guy do? If you look at the charges when he's talking about Hamas crimes, he speaks of them as if they're facts that rapes happen. We have no, Wilmer Leon (00:41:17): No evidence Laith Marouf (00:41:18): Any rape that babies were killed. No evidence, no evidence killed. But when he talks about the crimes of the Zionist, Wilmer Leon (00:41:27): He uses a minute, just to that point, going back to President Putin, I remember him saying, if you have evidence of these crimes, please show the world. He was very emphatic on that point. You have made these allegations. If you have evidence, please show the world. And no matter how many times Joe Biden, no matter how many times Tony Blinken wants to talk about these atrocities, they've never even pierce Morgan. I know you saw the interview with Dr. Morandi and Pi Morgan, where Morandi just cut him a new one. He said, Pierce, where's the evidence? And Pi Morgan just kept chatting, just kept chirping. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Laith Marouf (00:42:30): Yes, yes. I mean, the evidence is like you have to take the word of the chosen people for fact. What are you antisemitic, Wilmer. You don't believe every word that comes out of a chosen person mouth. I mean, that's it. That's all evidence you need. So Wilmer Leon (00:42:48): If I was antisemitic, I wouldn't be talking to you. Laith Marouf (00:42:50): Exactly. Exactly. But we're joking about it. But truly, this guy, this sock puppet had, he went down to Israel after October 7th and sat down with the families and unquote survivors, and visited the colonies that were attacked, but refused to enter Gaza Amass, opened the door for him, invited him to come and see Joe evidence, the war crimes. He refused to go to Gaza, okay? And then now he's coming and he's writing in his docket that these crimes happened by Hamas. But when he's talking about the crimes accusations against Israel, he says reasonable grounds before every accusation he is already, you could see how tainted this case is and what is its ultimate goal. I mean, yesterday, the spokesperson for the American government, I can't remember his name, the thin white guy. He was being interviewed, sorry, asked in the question period about this issue, and the guy claimed that the Palestinians have no right to go to the ICC and that their only courts that have jurisdiction are Israeli or American courts. He wants the Palestinians to come and beg at American courts, which even shows you how Israel is a colony, a vessel of the United States. But yes, this is where Wilmer Leon (00:44:32): Matthew Miller, Laith Marouf (00:44:35): Yes, Matthew Pillar, and people call him Matthew Killer. Yes, Wilmer Leon (00:44:38): Right. Matthew Miller. Laith Marouf (00:44:39): Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wilmer Leon (00:44:42): So I'm sorry, I interrupted you. You're saying he was saying that they need to come to American courts? Laith Marouf (00:44:47): Yes. That they have no right to go to the ICC, and the only place that has jurisdiction is the US or Israel over crimes in Gaza, Wilmer Leon (00:45:00): Which is also very telling in that the United States is not as signatory to the ICC, but seems to want to either use it when it's convenient or condemn it when it's convenient. But in fact, excuse me, there's a standing American law, and people can look this up, that if an American is brought before the Hague, the United States reserves the right to invade it. I might even be called the Hague Invasion Act. I'm drawing a blank on the name, but people, folks, you need to look this up. The United States has a standing American law saying, we will invade the Hague if an American is arrested and held accountable for crime. Laith Marouf (00:45:59): Yes, it's ally known as the Hague Invasion Act. And in fact, if you look at the ICC record, 42 out of the 42 people that were convicted of crimes at the ICC were African African leaders, and then add to it that the charges against President Putin. So this ICC is the most captured, un affiliated organism captured by the West, along with the International Atomic Energy Organization and the Chemical and Weapons Organization. These are the least trusted three organs of the un. And we're seeing, I believe these indictments, or if there is an arrest warrant issued, I mean, I don't see anything good coming to the Palestinians from this. Wilmer Leon (00:47:08): Wow. That's a perspective and a level of analysis that I did not see coming. But what you're saying makes sense. Bring us up to date, please on what's happening in Rafa. According to the new Arab, there are by 1.4 million Palestinians there. And that around the 7th of May, they were told that they had to leave. And the number I see is about 80,000 people have fled, but there's, I guess a slow boiling Israeli incursion into the area. What's going on in Rafa now? Laith Marouf (00:48:02): Yeah, I mean, the Israelis are doing what they call belts, fire belts. It's like bombardment from the land, from the sea, from the air on straight lines, and then going next straight line and so on. This is what they've been doing since last week. They haven't yet attempted invading Rafa. They have been stuck in Jabal since last week in the longest and fiercest battle on the ground of Gaza since the beginning of the war. The Israelis lost, according to their own media, at least 10 officers there. That includes a field general, the highest ranking military officer on the field of any army, and along with all his commanders. So we've seen the videos come out from this Jabali battle every day, two or three videos coming out from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others that showed us tens of Israeli tanks destroyed APCs and bulldozers. So they're receiving a beating, a whipping in the battlefield of Jabal. (00:49:21): So I don't think they're going to invade RA anytime soon. They'll continue bombing from the air. But this has also happened at the same time as yesterday or the day before the Americans finished building the pier, right? Right. And we already now have images of this spear with American air defenses, radars and tanks and ABCs waiting in the landing ships. So clearly the sphere is not about delivering any aid, and it's definitely not about the mass expulsion of Palestinians. This is an invasion, beachfront landing zone in the case of total collapse of the Israeli military on the battlefield. And that's what we are seeing right now happening. Wilmer Leon (00:50:11): And is it a coincidence or should we connect dots that the pier was completed right around the same time that it was announced that, what was it, 1.2 billion more of weaponry has been approved. And so is that a coincidence or am I wrong to connect these dots? Laith Marouf (00:50:34): No, it's not a coincidence. It's also not a coincidence that it was finished the day they assassinated rasi. You see, all of these are time things. It's same thing. It's not a coincidence that the sock puppet Han announced the ICC arrest warrants at the same day of the assassination. So all of this is clearly timed together, and we now saw in the last 48 hours, the cards of the West put on the table, have opened. Now their hand, they just opened their hand with these three moves. The Wilmer Leon (00:51:15): But wait a minute, president Biden is calling for a ceasefire. How can this be true? Laith Maro, when President Biden, when he was at Morehouse giving his commencement address, he's calling for a cease fire. Help me understand this, because obviously you didn't hear him. And so now that you understand, Joe Biden wants to cease fire, how can everything that you've just said be true? Laith Marouf (00:51:44): Isn't it one of the most disgusting things that Biden could do is to lie to the black students and the administration of the university say that he will not use their black faces in his promotional materials for his election? That was one of the conditions to allow him to speak to the students who were going to demonstrate. But because their administration found a middle ground and told them, okay, you can demonstrate without, Wilmer Leon (00:52:15): Don't make any noise, shut Laith Marouf (00:52:16): Down, don't make any noise, and so on. And this guy is not going to use your faces for his election. And now he goes around and immediately, immediately releases a promotional video of using these students to try to get sympathy from the black communities in America. This is, and obviously anybody that believes American leaders should go and ask the indigenous people about all the treaties and their promises. I mean, there's 400 years of record of broken promises and broken treaties. There's not one treaty I think the United States ever abided by with anyone. Have Wilmer Leon (00:53:04): You seen this Washington Post article from last week? The Washington Post reported about a WhatsApp chat stream where New York mayor Eric Adams was chatting with a number of American multimillion and billionaires, such as the former founder of Starbucks and the CEO of Dell and a number of other financiers where they were demanding that Eric Adams send the NYPD into Columbia University. They offered campaign contributions, they offered to fund private investigators to look into the students. And he is now, of course, denying that this took place. But the Washington Post has the transcript of the WhatsApp communications, and they named these individuals by name. And it seems as though their whole concern or motivation behind this is they're losing control of the narrative. Your thoughts, lath maus. Laith Marouf (00:54:21): Yeah. I mean, it's 100% a fact that this happened. No matter what the mayor says, who was another sock puppet? And if me and you have enough money, we can buy American politicians if we want to. They're very cheap. They'll sell you their mamas if you have enough money. Okay? So it's not a surprise. It's actually great that it got leaked, and I'm sure the Washington Post only published it because it was going to be all around the internet anyways, and they needed to have a scoop to stay on top of the story. But this is the truth. The political class and the economic elite are abusing the police in the United States, abusing the power they have over the police, forcing the police to become political police, to suppress the students and the communities that are demonstrating for the liberation of Palestine. I mean, I watched these images over the weekend. The beatings that the NYPD was giving to these youth was, I mean, very similar to who Wilmer Leon (00:55:36): Were peacefully protesting, Laith Marouf (00:55:37): Peacefully protesting, being jumped and taken to the ground and punching women in the face while having your legs on their necks. I mean, it is very similar to how they treat on a daily basis, the black community, specifically black men. But now we're seeing it on a daily scale of people not being accused of any crime or just speaking out or demonstrating. And that's what was happening to the black community in the sixties and the seventies and or the Black Lives Matter movement during the Obama years. Now we are gearing up to this summer of discontent all across the west as these youth finished their exams in the universities and pour into the streets. And we should expect maximum suppression from the political class, and they will be abusing the police to do so because they can't use the courts. Look, in Canada, there's been now two court cases where Zionist students went to court to try to force the police to remove a student encampment from McGill University in Montreal. (00:57:01): McGill University is the Ivy League University in Canada, and they lost. The judge said, no, the students have a right. And then the university administration itself appealed and went to the court to also asked the court to tell the police to remove the students. And again, the court said no. And therefore, this is what's happening. The Zionists in Canada were stupid enough to think that they can win this in court. They thought like, oh, we have all the media, we have all the politicians. We can rip apart the Bill of Rights in Canada. But the Zionists in the United States are a little bit smarter. They know that if they go to court First Amendment, they cannot remove these students. Therefore, they skipped all the legal process and went immediately into abusing their access to power by moving the police, setting them like dogs on the students. Wilmer Leon (00:58:03): Laith Maro, my brother. As always, I got to thank you for joining me today. And let me reiterate to folks that they need to go to Free Palestine video. Go to Free Palestine video. You can see if you could quickly just explain to the audience what you're doing there on the ground, real time in Beirut with free Palestine video. Laith Marouf (00:58:33): So yeah, as a volunteer community television, we're teaching youth and students to produce content in English. We're also doing everyday almost reporting from the south of Lebanon, from the Warfront exclusive coverage of what's happening there, interviews of people on the ground. And we're doing weekly episode of a special show called Wartime Cafe with the biggest intellectual and political leaders in Lebanon in English. Last time, the last episode of wartime Cafe was with Ibrahim Al Mu, who is a member of Parliament, but also the former spokesperson for Hezbollah. He hasn't spoken in English media for a long time. So this is the kind of content that you will get. Please support us donations. We need membership. If there's possible, so people subscribe for monthly donation, that will be amazing. And you can add on our website, free pass. Send the video. You have the links to all our socials, so Twitter, telegram, Instagram, YouTube, brumble. Please watch the content and help us through donations. Wilmer Leon (00:59:49): My brother, my dear brother, lathe Maru, thank you so much for joining me today. Laith Marouf (00:59:54): Thank you for having me. Wilmer Leon (00:59:56): Look forward to having you back. Folks. Thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Please leave a review, share the show, and you can follow us on social media. You'll find all the links below to the show description, contribute to this effort if you can. Nothing is too small and we know nothing is too large. We greatly, greatly appreciate the contributions that are helping to keep this program on the air. Remember, this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we don't chatter here on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (01:00:59): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world. Bordered by Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan it spans 371,000 square kilometres and bridges Europe and Central Asia. It's fed mainly by Russia's Volga and Ural rivers and the sea is not only rich in oil and gas but is also home to numerous rare and endemic species, including the Caspian seal and 90% of the world's remaining wild sturgeon. But the Caspian Sea is in crisis. Climate change and the damming of Russia's rivers are causing the coastline to recede at an alarming rate. The sea's levels have fallen by a metre in the last 4 years, a trend likely to increase. Recent studies have shown that the levels could drop between 9 and 18 metres by 2100. Last June Kazakh government officials declared a state of emergency over the Caspian. Iran has also raised the alarm with the UN. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent travels to Kazakhstan for Assignment to report from the shores of the Caspian Sea on what can be done to prevent an environmental disaster.

The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world. Bordered by Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan it spans 371,000 square kilometres and bridges Europe and Central Asia. It's fed mainly by Russia's Volga and Ural rivers and the sea is not only rich in oil and gas but is also home to numerous rare and endemic species, including the Caspian seal and 90% of the world's remaining wild sturgeon. But the Caspian Sea is in crisis. Climate change and the damming of Russia's rivers are causing the coastline to recede at an alarming rate. The sea's levels have fallen by a metre in the last 4 years, a trend likely to increase. Recent studies have shown that the levels could drop between 9 and 18 metres by 2100. Last June Kazakh government officials declared a state of emergency over the Caspian. Iran has also raised the alarm with the UN. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent travels to Kazakhstan for Crossing Continents to report from the shores of the Caspian Sea on what can be done to prevent an environmental disaster.Presented by Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent Produced by Caroline Bayley Editor, Penny Murphy Sound Engineer, Rod Farquhar Production coordinator, Gemma Ashman Dombyra played by Yelnar Amanzhol

This episode includes a discussion about the weather conditions in the helicopter crash in Iran. The following topics are also discussed: India Heat, Midwest Tornadoes. We also discuss heat advisories issues for parts of Israel and the spread of summer heat frrom the Caspian Sea into Poland.  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/weather-with-enthusiasm--4911017/support.

We discussed Steve's impressive journalistic background and then  the state of the battery and electric vehicle industries, domestically and globally. Steve LeVine is Editor of The Electric, a publication on the future of batteries, electric vehicles, and the new mobility.  The Electric is owned by The Information. Sign up for the pilot: https://www.theinformation.com/newsletters/the-electric  Steve is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Foresight, Strategy and Risks Initiative, and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. Previously, Steve was a foreign correspondent for eighteen years in the former Soviet Union, Pakistan and the Philippines, running a bureau for The Wall Street Journal, and before that writing for The New York Times, the Financial Times and Newsweek.  In recent years, Steve conceived and launched the Future newsletter at Axios, The Mobilist, a blog published at Medium, and before that was on the launch team at Quartz, where he was Washington Correspondent.  Steve has written three books. The most recent is The Powerhouse: America, China and the Great Battery War, which was long-listed for the FT-McKinsey book-of-the-year prize in 2016. In 2007, Random House published The Oil and the Glory, which chronicled the struggle for fortune and power on the Caspian Sea. BusinessWeek magazine selected it as a Top 10 book for the year. In 2008, Random House published Putin's Labyrinth, a profile of Russia through the life and death of a half-dozen Russians. #EV #electricvehicles #autonomousvehicles #tesla #byd #ford #kia #mercedes #BMW #VW #GM #podcast #afewthingspodcast 

The Excellent Adventure: In the course of their pursuit of the fleeing Khwarazmian Amir, Genghis Khan's two top commanders have reached the shores of the Caspian Sea, and heard some of the strangest tales about what – and who – lay beyond. When the Great Khan gives his go-ahead to scout it out, they'll launch a three-year trek that will remake the world in their bloody image. The Bogus Journey: Reaching the far side of the Caucuses Mountains, Subotai and Jebe have a surprise in store. But the true wonders, riches, and opportunities still lie ahead among the forests and winding rivers north of the Black Sea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iran,[a] also known as Persia[b] and officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI),[c] is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Iraq to the west and Turkey to the northwest, Azerbaijan, Armenia, the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, Afghanistan to the east, Pakistan to the southeast, the Gulf of Oman & the Persian Gulf to the south. With almost 90 million people in an area of 1.648 million square kilometres (0.64 million square miles), Iran ranks 17th in the world in both geographic size and population. The country is divided into five regions with 31 provinces. The nation's capital and most populous city is Tehran, with around 16 million people in its metropolitan area, other major urban centres include Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, and Shiraz. Ира́н (ایران [ʔiˈɾɒn]), с 1979 года Исла́мская Респу́блика Ира́н (перс. جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ — Джомхури́-йе Эслɒми́-йе Ирɒ́н), до 1935 года также Пе́рсия — государство в Передней Азии. Столица — город Тегеран.На западе граничит с Ираком, на северо-западе — с Азербайджаном, Арменией, Турцией, на севере — с Туркменистаном, на востоке — с Афганистаном и Пакистаном[7]. С севера Иран омывается Каспийским морем, с юга — Персидским и Оманским заливами Индийского океана.

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Cyrus Tabrizi is the founder of Caspian Monarque, a producer and distributor of fine Iranian caviar. I first met Cyrus last year when we happened to be seated together at a dinner in Udine, Italy during an event called Ein Prosit. After spending a few minutes with him, I began to realize how little I actually understand about caviar and where it comes from. I know it's considered a luxury product. That caviar is usually expensive. That Russians are known to eat a lot of it. That suddenly millennials are putting it on fried chicken and tater tots. But if you asked me what distinguishes good caviar from great caviar, I couldn't tell you.The world of caviar has changed dramatically since 2008 when a global ban on caviar from wild sturgeon was enacted by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species after sturgeon were being severely overfished. Now, nearly all of the world's caviar comes from farmed sturgeon. There are 26 different types of sturgeon and each kind produces unique tasting roe, but the conditions in which each are being raised can vary drastically. The most coveted caviar comes from the Beluga, followed by the Ossetra, sturgeons, which are originally from the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Farmed caviar, however, is coming from anywhere now. There are hundreds of farms all over the world. There's lots of caviar being farm raised in the United States. It's being raised in Uruguay. A ton of it is being raised in China. Much of it is not Ossetra and Beluga, but from other species. There is also fish roe from other kinds of fish, such lumpfish, flying fish or even salmon, that are called caviar, though technically they do not fit the definition.I tried Cyrus' caviar in Italy and it is indeed the great stuff. That much I know. He explains why Caspian Monarque stands out, in his words. They are a sustainably minded sturgeon farm in the Caspian Sea, the origin of the finest grades of caviar. As they are being farmed within the Caspian Sea, the natural environment they are from, eating the same food they eat in the wild, they can get the highest quality caviar. However, I cannot even get his caviar, Iranian caviar, in the United States because of a ban on Iranian products in the U.S. He explains why that is and how Iranian caviar industry has a history of legal issues despite being historically sustainable and well managed. That's why he started the business. He was a lawyer and he liked the challenge.The caviar industry is one ripe with fraud. There are scandalous producers and misleading labels, though there are ways to know if you are getting caviar from a good source. On Caspian Monarque's website they actually have a way to check the origin of a tin of caviar by the CITES number on the label, and it's not just for their caviar, but any legally traded variety. For the most part, it's up to the consumer to know the difference and understand what they are buying. We talk about how blockchain might be used in the future to help make caviar even more transparent. Who knew there was so much to know about caviar?Read more at New Worlder on Substack.

In the final Rewind of the series we're heading back to Baku and Loreen's first Eurovision victory. We complete the circle on her Eurovision story as we explore the controversial contest, with stories both on and off stage as the contest headed to the coast of the Caspian Sea. We also find out more about the Netherland's Eurovision entrant for 2024, and Rob gets revenge with this week's One Second Song.To support the podcast and for links to all our research, head to Buy Me A Coffee.Follow us on Twitter, Instagram & TikTok or email hello@eurotrippodcast.com, and find us online at eurotrippodcast.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the ninth century, the Vikings earned a fearsome reputation by wreaking chaos on the coasts of western Europe. But what is perhaps less well known is that they also travelled eastwards. By sailing along the great rivers of north-eastern Europe, they reached Constantinople, the Caspian Sea and even Baghdad, the bustling heart of the mighty Islamic Abbasid Empire. In this episode of Gone Medieval, Matt Lewis welcomes Dr. Cat Jarman back to the podcast to explore why Viking raiders traded the frozen hinterlands of Northern Europe for the heat and hubbub of the Near East. Senior Producer: Elena GuthrieAssistant Producer: Peta StamperScriptwriter: Peta StamperEditor: Joseph KnightThis was a special collaboration between Ubisoft and History Hit. The content and story was inspired by Assassin's Creed Mirage. To learn more about 9th century Baghdad and the historical characters in the game, listen to Echoes of History here.Discover the past with exclusive history documentaries and ad-free podcasts presented by world-renowned historians from History Hit. Watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device. Get 50% off your first 3 months with code MEDIEVAL sign up now for your 14-day free trial >You can take part in our listener survey here.

In the wake of the USSR breaking up, Kazakhstan was wrestling with the challenges of independence; hyperinflation, the economy collapsing and food shortages. But three-and-a-half kilometres underground on the north-east shore of the Caspian Sea, a giant financial opportunity was lying dormant – The Tengiz Oil Field. Less than two years after gaining sovereignty, the government signed the “deal of the century”. The state partnered with American company Chevron and started drilling to access the estimated 25 billion barrels of oil in the ground. Tengiz is the sixth largest oilfield in the world, and its resources would change Kazakhstan from a fledgling state, to one of the largest oil producers in the world. Johnny I'Anson speaks to Bruce Pannier, a news correspondent in Central Asia for over 30 years, who saw first-hand the chaos of independence and the growth of wealth in the country. (Picture: Tengiz Oil Field. Credit: Getty Images)

Since August 2021 when the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, an estimated 600,000 Afghans have crossed the border into Pakistan. Pakistan has hosted millions of refugees over the years, but has recently cracked down on undocumented Afghans, who now struggle to find jobs and housing, and to educate their children. BBC Urdu's Nazish Faiz met a teacher who's set up a free school in Peshawar for Afghan children. K-pop bands with no Koreans Black Swan is the first K-pop girl group with no Korean members. They're from Belgium, the US, Germany and India. Yuna Ku from BBC Korean recently met the group to find out how this came about, and what makes a band K-pop if there are no Koreans. Iran's Ashuradeh Island: a wildlife sanctuary under threat Ashuradeh Island in the Caspian Sea is a wildlife sanctuary now threatened by plans for tourism development. BBC Persian's Siavash Ardalan tells us about the island, and also the bigger picture of the many threats facing habitats and wildlife in Iran. Caucasus women escaping for a better life Women in Russia's North Caucasus republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan report being denied education, forced into marriage and subjected to FGM in the conservative village communties. Zlata Onufrieva of BBC Russian tells the stories of some who've fled their family homes for a freer life. Elections and the oligarchy in Guatemala Sunday sees the second round of voting in Guatemala's presidential election, following the surprise success of centre left candidate Bernardo Arévalo, who's challenging former first lady Sandra Torres. The election has thrown the spotlight on Guatemala's business elites, who have held enormous power since colonial times. BBC Mundo's Gerardo Lissardy explains their influence.

Day 538.Today, we discuss developments in the humanitarian grain corridor in the Black Sea, movements in the alleged Russian spy-ring in the UK, and how Russia & Iran might be circumventing sanctions by using the Caspian Sea. Contributors:Dominic Nicholls (Host, Associate Editor, Defence). @DomNicholls on Twitter.Francis Dearnley (Host, Assistant Comment Editor). @FrancisDearnley on Twitter.Elizabeth Braw (Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute). @elisabethbraw on Twitter. Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/03f220e1-6a7e-4850-bf4e-4b0f521d8f8cTo listen to David's interview with celebrated Ukrainian historian Serhii Plokhy, scroll to the bottom of this article and hit play on the audio player: Serhii Plokhy interview: ‘Putin wants control of Ukraine – but he is prepared to go for plan B'Subscribe to The Telegraph: telegraph.co.uk/ukrainethelatestEmail: ukrainepod@telegraph.co.ukSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You think you know the full story of the devastating Hawaii wildfires? Think again. This isn't just another tale of nature gone wild. It's a wild time to be alive, and it's time to wake up from the mainstream slumber. In this eye-opening episode of the Adams Archive, We dive headfirst into the blaze of confusion and conspiracy surrounding the Hawaii fires. Including documents that prove the government has been working on directed energy weapons capable of causing a terrible wild fire since before 1975. We then go deeper into the modern applications of this technology and who is behind them... could it be the same organizations looking to take over the sacred Maui land? Join me as we unearth the hidden secrets and questionable narratives that the 'powers-that-be' would prefer you to ignore.  What were those government-funded experiments all about? Why are so many conspiracies suddenly becoming realities? And most importantly, how long can we remain oblivious to the shadows that lurk behind these tragedies? All the Links: Https://linktr.ee/theaustinjadams Substack: https://austinadams.substack.com   Full Transcription:   Adams Archive. Hello, you beautiful people and welcome to the Adams Archive. My name is Austin Adams, and thank you so much for listening today on today's episode, we are going deep into a recent topic that has come up as a result of the devastating fires in LA High. Hawaii. Now, if you don't know anything about this, you've probably been sleeping under a rock for the last week, but that's okay. I'll catch you up to speed. Uh, so basically what's been going on is there's been horrific, horrific wildfires that have been spreading across a specific island in Hawaii, and not just any island, but one of the most affluent areas that there is. Now, as a result of this, you know, there was, uh, a lot of conversations being had about a specific topic, but. The first conversation to have is, it's terrible. It's horrific. All of these people are losing their livelihood, uh, potentially hundreds if not thousands of people have lost their lives. I've seen video after video of, of men, women, and children escaping from their cars and running into the water on the side of the road to escape from these horrific fires. So my heart goes out to all of them. My heart goes out to the island. My heart goes out to the people of Hawaii. Uh, what a terrible tragedy that this is, but something has come up as a result of this that has directed the conversation into something that makes people believe that maybe this wasn't the organic fire I. That were being sold, that it was, a lot of people in Hawaii itself are coming out and saying that they, they don't believe that narrative. And we've seen this happen in California. We've seen this happen now in Canada with, with smoke going all over the United States to where, you know, I, I woke up here and look outside on certain days and you can barely see the sun. It's, it's, it's a wild time to be alive. And so now another time. In Hawaii. So one only has to wonder how much of an anomaly is this? We, we, I cannot recall this many devastating wildfires at any given time. Now, what the mainstream narrative will tell us is that it's climate change, right? It's because you drive your vehicle to work every day and you fill it up with gas instead of our electric vehicles, which, you know, we create the batteries from, you know, coal and, and other fossil fuels. But, um, I digress. That's what we're talking about today. What this led into a conversation about was now being called a conspiracy, which is the idea of directed energy weapons, which I will dive into you with you. I didn't believe, I didn't understand this. I didn't know this was a thing. There's very few conspiracies that we go into, conspiracies that we go into that I don't have a clue going into it. And I took a deep dive into this over the last 24 hours and have been really, uh, Learned a lot about how longstanding these military operations and government funded science, uh, scientific experiments have been happening for, and I'm blown away. I I had no idea that this was going on. So I'm gonna take you through my findings. We're gonna walk through what's happening in Hawaii, uh, and we're gonna read it from the accounts of some, some people that were there, some accounts of people who have broken this stuff down. But the longer you stick around, the deeper. We get, all right. As always, leave a five star review. Hit that subscribe button. If you're here with me for the first time, I appreciate you. If you're here with me for the second time or however many times after that, go ahead and leave a five star review. Um, uh, it's literally the only way that you can give back to what I'm doing here today at this time, and that's all I want from you is if you know I'm putting a lot of work into this, if you can. Show that you appreciate that by just going in there, leaving a five star review. I hope that you enjoyed our silent weapons for quiet wars deep dive that we did last week, that we tied up with a bow. Uh, if you go to my Instagram, the Austin J. Adams, and you go to the most recent video on there about silent weapons for quiet wars, you can actually comment silent weapons onto that and I will automatically send you the documents and both of the deep dives. Alright. Before we get into all of that, I am going to dive into, or, or just jump into a, a video that has gone viral across the entire United States, because so many people are hungry, hungry to hear the, the narrative of the people and not the narrative of the propaganda that we're being sold. So stick around for that. But first, let's jump. Into it, the Adams archive. All right. The very first thing that we're gonna jump into today is going to be a musician by the name of Oliver Anthony. And if you have not heard this song yet, you have been living under a rock. Alright. In the last six days from this video being posted from a no-name artist, Oliver Anthony is now a one of the biggest country stars that there is. Okay? Six days, 10 million views. Wild to see how something in, in a time where, you know, we hear about the, the Renaissance time and, and, and the, you know, cultural movements of art and how art truly speaks to the times that people were living in and, and what, what the soul needs to be quenched when it's thirsty during those time periods. And I think that this song is one of those times I think that, that the American people are so thirsty, so, so, Fed up with the mainstream narratives, with the mainstream news corporations, with the, with the mainstream politicians. They're so fed up with it that it was just absolutely perfect timing for a song like this to come out. So, I'm gonna start your day off right? Let's go ahead and listen to this song that's been stuck in my head for five straight days. Joe Rogan posted this song about 36 hours ago, and I'm actually the number one comment on that post, giving a quote from this song that I love of has over 12,000 likes. Just my comment on this Joe Rogan post. But, um, Uh, there's some really amazing parts to this, so I'll, I'll give you a few of my favorite parts, but let's go ahead and, and listen to this because Oliver, Anthony just crushes this and I'll set the scene for you. I'll actually go ahead and, and show this on my screen for you as well. Uh, What I'm gonna pull up for you is actually the music video that he did in a, just a, a surrounded by trees in the woods. A deer stand in the background, three dogs at his feet, and what this like, awesome looking guitar in his hands. Um, so here we go. This is Oliver Anthony, rich Men north of Richmond.  I've been selling my soul working all day overtime, hours for bullshit pay so I can sit out here and waste my life away, drag back home and drown my troubles away. It's a damn shame. What the world's gotten to for people like me, people like you wish I could just wake up and it not be true, but it's, oh, it's living world with and so. These richmen. Know through Richman, Lord knows all wanna have total control. Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do and they don't think you know, but know that you do because your dollar ain't shit. And it's tax to know him calls a I wish politicians. Look out for miners and not just miners on an island somewhere. Lord, we got folks in the street. Ain't got enough in the heat and the whole beast. Milk and welfare. But God, if you're five foot three and you 300 pounds, taxes don't. Not to pay for your bags of fudge round, putting themselves six feet in the damn country. Does. Is keep on kicking them down, Lord. Hits a damn shame what the world's gotten to for people like me, people like you wish I could just wake up and it not be true, but it is. Oh it is living in the new. These rich men know the rich men. Lord knows they all just wanna have total control. Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do, and then don't think you know, but I know that you do. 'cause your dollar ain't shit and it's taxing. No hand calls. I've been selling my soul working all day overtime, hours for bullshit pay. Ooh. And if that doesn't speak to your soul, son, you have not been paying attention. God, that's amazing. All right, so Oliver, Anthony, as I just said, has had some incredible, incredible songs come out, but none other than that one right there that has just spread like wildfire across the entire psyche of the American public. And there's a few lines in there now. You know, I'll give you some, some context here. The rich men north of Richmond are the politicians, right? That's Washington dc. Some of the other parts that I found to be, you know, the comment that I made, That was the number one comment on Joe Rogan's Instagram of this post was that I wish politicians would look out for minors, not just minors on an island somewhere, calling out a number of politicians who were seen on Epstein's Island's flight logs, including our very own president. Bill Clinton, I believe it was some 17 times, bill Clinton was on the flight logs and 21 times or 21 times he was on the flight logs 17 times that he was logged into the White House. Epstein was, while Bill Clinton was in office, right? And, and, and so he talks about inflation, right? Your dollar ain't shit. It's taxed to no end. We talked about that in our last episode. The salesman that comes up to you and tries to sell you this idea of the government, and it just doesn't make sense today with all these frustrations that we have and all, all of the, all of the totalitarian control that he's referencing. They just, they just want total control. And he perfectly articulates this in the song and captures the, the essence of the American frustration in, in, in three minutes and 10 seconds perfectly. And as a result, this man now gets his due. He will be one of go down as, as one of the most famous country artists. Ever, I believe with a, you know, the, the, the songs that he's singing right now just resonating across state lines, county lines. Right. And, and there was some, you know, I posted that on, on Joe Rogan's. Video of this and, and some people were arguing about whether it was minors with M I N O R S or m I n E R S, right. I wish politicians would look out for minors, not just minors on an island somewhere. And what I believe that he was referencing and, and you know, we won't know for a little bit until the actual. Lyrics of this come out, but, and what a lot of people seem to think is that he, he's talking about m i n e r s. I wish politicians would look out for minors. I wish politicians would look out for the, the blue collared workers, the people doing overtime, hours, just trying to make ends meet. And, and again, I think this just perfectly encapsulates what we've been missing in the public. And, and speaks to the frustration, speaks to the, the angst of the American people. And, and the, the, the, the. Wanting to rid ourselves of the grossness. That is the, the hands of the politicians on everything that we do. Right? So I just wanted to play that for you. Start this thing off. Right. We'll move into the next topic. Right now, but I hope you enjoyed that song. I hope you go follow Oliver Anthony, uh, on YouTube, on Instagram, anywhere that you can find him. Um, go, go look it out or go, go listen to him. Go follow him. Pretty incredible stuff. Alright, let's move on to our very first topic of the day. But man, that song just hits home. Alright, uh, here we go. So this is the video. Of a news anchor who is showing the Maui wildfires, which is now the deadliest wildfire in American history. Let's watch this video. Maui where we have just learned that this is now the deadliest wildfire in modern US history and just behind us, this is the remnants of a house burned in another blaze as the entire island is battling ideal conditions right now for wildfires. What we know about this tragedy is already unbearable. Nearly 100 dead, more than 2000 homes and buildings destroyed. We are still so far from understanding the full toll, and we'll explain why tonight. This is the overhead view of the sweeping devastation in La Hana. We now know that only 3%, 3% of those homes have been checked for bodies. Just next to where we're broadcasting tonight, we have two cars incinerated by the wildfires. That right there was a Tesla. You can see what's left of the front row seats in the distance. That was a lush green hill. Now scorched to its core. It shows the power of these wildfires. The governor has been warning that the death toll will go up, and there are still so many residents who escape the flames but are now searching for their loved ones. And tonight, angry at officials and a warning system, they say failed them. MG Room, third room. Third MGM Tonight. This is what it looked and felt like. Escaping the LA wildfire. Oh, no guys. No, we, we. This new video showing the sheerer panic as a family stuck in a line of cars, had minutes to escape before the flames engulfed the road out. This is a disaster. That drive through hell is how Rafa Ochoa and his family made it out alive. I knew it was bad and it was moving fast, and it was moving fast, really fast. It got it got to our homes within seconds. With the fast moving fire, closing in on his home, Ochoa heroically grabbed both his kids and his friend's children. Their parents were at work and scrambled everyone out. Did you hear any alarms? Did you get any kind of warning? No alarms, no warning. Nothing. No. That's something that will come up in a little bit about the To police. Police rolling by telling us to evacuate or anything. Warning the desperation of those chilling moments. Now turning to anger. Where were you guys too? To try and get us out. Evacuate us. You know, we're mad. We're mad. No, we didn't just lose our homes. We lost our town. Lost history. You know, our kids are traumatized. You guys messed up real bad. Hawaii emergency officials have said sirens on the island weren't activated during the fire. Wow. The other alerts by phone crazy and broadcast were having seen that storm. Uh, we have, we have doubts. That much could have been done with a, a fiery, um, fast moving fire like that. The scale of the devastating loss now unprecedented in modern times, the deadliest wildfire in the US in more than 100 years, claiming at least 93 lives, just so you know, 3%. That's what's been searched with the dogs 3%. When we pick up the remains and they fall apart. And so when you have 200 people running through the scene yesterday, I don't know how much more you want me to describe it, that's what you're stepping on as FEMA and the governor survey, the damage search teams with cadaver dogs that just arrived to Maui yesterday. Now scouring the ruins of historic Lana again today. Are you saying we're just at the beginning of this disaster? So for the first few days we had done searches in the streets. Now the guy that you hear talking is the police chief. Uh, let me see if I can get his title up here. But he's the police chief of Laina of Hawaii, um, in Maui. Now, this man. If I'm not mistaken, I, I believe it is this man right here. There's some questions around this man, because apparently, and let's, let's double check first from some of these articles that I have up here, but apparently Yep. That's the same guy. The guy running the show in Maui right now during these wildfires is the, this, the police chief in Maui is the same guy who ran the show during the Vegas massacre. Something even crazier about this police chief is that he is a federal agent with a top secret clearance according to LinkedIn. Hmm. Now what would a man with a top secret clearance, a federal agent finding himself in the midst of two of the biggest crises in American history? One being the largest massacre, I believe, the largest mass shooting of any ever. And now the largest death toll, the deadliest wildfire of any in US history. What are the odds of that? What are the odds of that? How many police chiefs are there out there, and how did he find himself moving from Vegas to now Maui as the police chief? The same guy who ran the show during the Vegas massacre. Interesting. So let's go ahead and let's look a little deeper into that because the police chief, the one answering all the calls, the one talking to all the news media, coordinating every single part of the narrative here is the same exact guy. The same guy that did it during the Vegas shooting. And if there's a, you know, Hamm's razor. Would tell us if I'm, if I'm using that correctly, right. The least, the, the most likely scenario is the likeliest, right? It's like the, the one that involves the least moving parts. Sometimes that can be used in a different way. It's like, what? What is the likelihood that the same man. Right. Well, the, the, the most likely scenario here seems to be telling us that it's not a coincidence that this man was there in both instances, because statistically speaking, that just shouldn't be the case. Right. So let's go ahead and read more about this individual.  So let's start back at the Vegas investigation. If you recall. What ended up happening with that is they spent years of investigations tearing the guy's history apart. This says and spent millions of dollars, and they still had no idea what his motive was, why he was there with the guns, or that anyone anywhere was aware of it. Somebody else said the, that a reminder of the Vegas coverup, a high ranking Saudi aristocracy. Aristocrat got drunk and drugged and started shooting from their, her hotel window into a crowd. The United States helps cover up, but asks for the punishment of the guy, which the Saudis agree upon, and do it. Hmm. So they point to the Wikipedia, ar, or Wikipedia pages of the Las Vegas shooting. And if you recall, let's go ahead and just read this real quick. A 64 year old man from Nevada Open Fire on the crowd attending the 91 Harvest Music Festival on the Vegas Strip from the 30 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel. He fireboard a thousand bullets, killing 60 people, and wounded at least 413. Wow. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. How convenient The incident is, the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in American history. It focused attention on firearm laws in the us, particularly with regard to bump stocks. Ooh. Hmm. Says the 64 year old former auditor in real estate businessman who had been living 80 miles of northeast of, uh, northeast of Las Vegas in a retirement community in Mesquite, Nevada. Yeah, that sounds like who's gonna shoot 400 people. Had a long-term girlfriend and had no known children. He was son of Benjamin Paddock, a bank robber who was on the FBI's most wanted list between 1979 and or 1969 and 77 Pex only inter uh, interactions with law enforcement were traffic citations. Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. So same guy who was the police chief during this time. Right. Let listen what the governor of Hawaii had. Oh, alright. Jumping ahead of ourselves first about preserving. So let's go ahead and read a little bit about what people are saying about the Hawaii situation because some people are pointing to what the mayor. Uh, in, or I'm sorry, the governor is saying about the land already, right? They're saying that a lot of people seem to think that this is some type of land grab. So let's see what we have here. It says the governor of Hawaii already having ideas for the land being Laina moving forward. I'm already thinking about ways for the state to acquire that land so that we can put it into workforce housing to put it back into families or to make it open spaces in perpetuity as a memorial to people who were lost. We want this to be something that we remember, uh, after the pain path. Okay? I gotta tell you guys, I am so frustrated with investors and realtors calling the families who lost their home offering to buy their land. How? Dare you do that to our community right now. Frustrated hearing since yesterday that multiple families that I know personally were reached out and offered money from investors and realtors. Shame on you. Shame on you. If you are a Maui realtor contributing to that, karma's gonna come and get you. Hmm. Here is another video had to say about the fires of the destruction of Laina. It does appear like a bomb and fire went on. It does appear like a bomb and fire went on. All of those buildings virtually are gonna have to be rebuilt. It will be a new Lana in its own image, its own values. It's gonna be billions of dollars. We are so coordinated with state, county, and federal support that it took less than a quarter of a day, six hours to get the approval from the president to bring those resources in. This was, of course, a shock to see a hurricane and its winds. I think that we're seeing this for the first time in many different parts of the world. I've been contacted by several governors across the country to share their experiences in a time where global warming is combined with strengthening students. So let's just go over a few of the red flags there. It is the very first time that anything like this has ever happened. Hmm. Very interesting. They want to acquire the land as quickly as possible and turn it into government subsidized housing. And also there's been discussions around turning Le Hana into some sort of smart, connected city, right? You recall some episodes that we did on the 15 minute cities where basically it's just completely under totalitarian control exit. He said, very coordinated bomb and fire went off. All right. There's the other one. A bomb and fire went off according to the governor of Hawaii, why would you use the word bomb in a wildfire? I, I wonder how many, how many other wildfires you could go find where the governor of the state mentions bombs? Hmm. All we will need to rebuild is billions of dollars in its own likeness and own image with its own values. What does that even mean? And it's so coordinated with state, county, and federal support that within less than six hours, they got six hours, got approval from the president to bring resources, hurricane type wind that just happened to be the same time as the bomb, like fire governors calling to share their experience. So we start the press conference out with bombs and explosions, then set up how we're gonna get some smart cities in Hawaii and then we end it with 2030 propaganda of global warming. Right? Yep, exactly right. So we see all of these things coming together and, and we're gonna get into eventually how people are thinking that this actually happened. I wanna set the stage for you, right? The governor is saying bomb like fires. He's saying the immediate resourcefulness of the federal, state communities coming together to fund this operation, to buy out this land. Now, this land wasn't just, isn't just a piece of Hawaii. This land was originally a, a piece of land that is one of the most sought after pieces of land in Hawaii, in Maui. Um, the, these waterfront properties are worth tremend, like billions of dollars combined, and they would not sell the property to the government no matter how many times they came to them. Right. Now there's certain amendments within the Constitution that would allow them to, under certain circumstances, to basically take over this land by purchasing it at a fair price, uh, without the consent of the owners. And so let's watch one more video, maybe a couple more on this, and then we'll move into the actual directed weapons. It looks like there's a fair amount of videos actually on this, but I don't want to go too, too deep into other people's stuff. We'll do our own deep dive here, but I do wanna set the stage for you now. There's a guy named Matt Kim, who does a pretty good video on this that we'll go ahead and watch, and then we'll go from there. Several wildfires have broken out on the island of Mau. What's going on in Maui? There is a lot to unpack, so try to keep up. Several wildfires have broken out on the island of Maui, creating mass devastation and destruction, most notably, the town of Laina. This is not the people's fault, and our hearts go out to those affected. Why is Laina significant? It was once the capital of the kingdom of Hawaii. Prior to the forced US annexation and the eventual move to Honolulu, Lena is filled with native property and business owners that have dug their heels in and have refused to sell their properties to conglomerates such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and Oprah Glob Prime oceanfront property, still owned and managed by the natives. So what caused this destruction? Short answer, no one knows. All government agencies, local and federal have vehemently stated that it is unknown. However, there are two competing theories online. One environmental, the perfect combination of a major hurricane, 200 miles off the southern shore of Maui, combined with northern pressure to create massive dryness and winds were too diabolical. Something the conspiracy theorists call A D E W Direct Energy Weapon. And you will find that that's not just the conspiracy theories. That's articles from back from 1979 that we're gonna read that talk about directed energy weapons, so not just the conspiracy theorists. These are articles from like the Washington Post in the seventies talking about the Soviet directed energy weapons. What? I had the same response. So I started Googling the first article that pops up when you Google Maui. D e w is from Newsweek. It starts like this. The devastating wildfires in Hawaii have brought a new conspiracy theory from climate change deniers who suggest that the destruction was orchestrated by the federal government's direct energy weapons. Ugh. Anytime a propaganda media article starts with conspiracy theory by climate change deniers makes me wanna believe it more. Mm-hmm. Next article, fact checked. False. Wait, what? I thought the facts were unknown. How can we rule out trending theories as impossible already? Joe Biden just announced that the federal government will provide aid to those that lost their homes. That means homeowners who lost their houses and properties can now loan money from the federal government at a low interest rate. Your super valuable property that is skyrocketing value. You can now get a new mortgage courtesy of Uncle Sam. There are also countless efforts by the people to send aid and support to devastated areas. This would be great, except local residents are now saying that they're having difficulty delivering such aid and only FEMA and Red Cross aid is being allowed in roadblocks everywhere. No one allowed in or out. Hmm. And Maui is an island surrounded by water next to one of the largest US military bases. Local residents are saying that they received no advanced warning and that they only evacuated once. They saw the thick black smoke at their doors. Now that's an interesting concept that a lot of people are starting to talk about in some of these videos is that, that the, they said that, uh, some of the residents in this area said that every single Saturday at the first of each month, they do their emergency warnings every Saturday without fail, and all of the sudden there's a huge wildfire, wildfire that is creeping up to their doorsteps. And they don't, they aren't notified at all until the smoke is seeping through their doors. And if you recall, there was a false, like nuclear text message claiming that there was a nuclear bomb headed towards Hawaii at one point where they falsely stated that from a military individual who pressed the wrong button, now all of a sudden they don't know how to find the right button when there's a, a cata catastrophic fire coming and creeping up to the people's doors all around an entire island killing. Tens and hundreds of people, right? As they said in that article, there's only 3% of houses that have been searched so far, and there's 93 deaths. Let's do some math, right? 93. Let's multiply that times three. That's, uh, two hundred and seventy nine, two hundred eighty. Multiply that by 10, that's 2,800 deaths, potentially based off of the 3% rate at 93 deaths. That's just the math, right? And maybe there's more people, and maybe there's less people, but the off of the 3% math that we can do right there, that's what what we're probably looking at around a thousand people, more than that, right? That are dead as a result of this. And some people are asking why. Even the people that are on the the island are very, very skeptical of who and what caused this. And they, they don't seem to be convinced that it was a hurricane or a random fire. Right. It's like less than 3% of fires are caused by non manmade ways, and we're seeing this in every single wildfire instance. We're seeing that there's multiple locations being targeted that like a singular time that causes this massive, massive fire right around the time that there's extremely high winds, right? You cannot tell me that that's a coincidence. You cannot, I don't believe you. All of these wildfires happening simultaneously in all these weird areas coming together perfectly at the right time when there's a massive amount of winds. I don't believe you. So a lot of people seem to be very skeptical as well, especially when you have back to back, to back to back. You see California on fire. We see Canada on fire now. Maui on fire. Completely unrelated circumstances, and all of them seem to have to do with climate change according to, like he said, the most frustrating part about this, one of the most frustrating parts about this is that these fact checkers come out and say that, oh, it's absolutely can't be directed energy. Weapons fact check. False, not true. You don't know. You have no idea. Why are we ruling out the idea? Nobody's saying no. You know, it's, it almost shows the blame, right? It, it almost shows that, that they're so scared of this narrative when it could be Russia, it could be China, it could be any number of different countries that are targeting us with these weapons that they've been developing for over 50 years. But you want to immediately write it off, and that makes you look more guilty than anything. Alright? Um, Here we go. Let's go ahead and watch this. Let's go ahead and read this article here. Let's exit out of that video. Alright. There's another portion of this, and again, this comes from a video on Twitter from Paul's corner 21, and it says, many are speculating that the fires could have been intentionally set to disenfranchise The natives who owned the historic ocean from properties that were devastated in the blaze. Others believed the fires were started to level the area to make way for 15 minute cities promoted by the likes of the World Economic Forum. Hmm. Interesting. Even more people are curious why there are brick and mortar buildings burnt into rubble while surrounded by trees. That's kind of weird. So let's look at this video. Uh, mentioning some of the, the ideas around this and didn't flood them, didn't give them, you know, crazy, you know, other things. But it caused fires. It caused fires, and not only on Maui. But it caused fires in the most precious parts of real estate in Maui. Laina Front Street is worth billions. The Hawaiians that have been holding out and the Kanaka have been holding out for years not wanting to sell their property in Laa due to these big million dollar companies. It is not a coincidence, I don't believe how in the most precious parts of Maui, Kula, Laina, and that the locals that are standing strong and do not want to give up Oprah Winfrey's fucking view up in Kula that the Hawaiians are holding out on that the fire was going to the ho, the Hawaiians and the Kanaka that was holding right there on Front Street. Hmm. Interesting. So specifically targeted areas that seem to be worth lots of money where people were digging their heels in. Right now, when we get to what these directed energy weapons are and who is developing them, one of the largest names is Lockheed Martin, and when you look into who's the largest shareholders of Lockheed Martin, the list goes like this. State Street, 14% State Street, 14% of Lockheed Martin, Vanguard 9%, and BlackRock 7%. The very same companies that this man is claiming are going and after these properties and have been trying to buy them out. He didn't name them by name, but he's talking about those companies going to buy them out and take over this property, right. Now another conversation that comes up is around 15 minute cities. So the idea here is that Hawaii and the different islands of Hawaii have been used for test experiments, right? You wanna go back into shock testing and economic, uh, data mining and all of those things that we talked about in silent weapons for quiet wars. These are perfect areas. Each of these islands is its own economic institution, which can be leveraged and utilized in ways that you cannot imagine for data mining, right? You can release viruses, you can release, uh, uh, you know, you can make toilet paper scarce. You can do whatever that you want within these individual islands and use it as a way to leverage the data that you are, that you are getting because there's no other outside factors coming into these areas, right? And each one of them is their own control group. So that's why they're looking at Hawaii. And Maui specifically being a big part of the 15 minute city rollouts, right? The one that the World Economic Forum has been bragging about for so long, you'll own nothing and you'll be happy. Oh, and to get you there, we just have to burn down your current city with directed energy weapons. Maybe here's a video, maybe not, not a video. It's a picture of a video. It says, new mind-numbing conspiracy theory about this is from politics and Ed on Twitter around 15 minute cities is Maui fires in Hawaii, where supposedly set so they rebuild into 15 minute cities. Disgusting. It says, Hmm. Well, and you go back to what the governor was saying and the governor was saying that, you know, it will be a new. City it will be a, it will have its own culture. It will have a new feel to it, right? Hmm, hmm. Lemme go ahead and read this to you. This article that he's referencing, this is the, the Federal Agency concerned with weather modification activities are the departments of Agriculture, commerce, defense, and Interior. Plus the Environmental Protection Agency, the national, uh, aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation. The Department of State is also interested in the effects on other countries of weather modification efforts. Uh, And some states also conduct weather modification programs in 1977. The federal government will spend about $20 million compared to 3 million in 1963 for such activities as fog, cloud and precipitation modification, ball and lightning suppression, uh, amite amyl, lation of severe storms and hurricanes, and other related activities. Most of the information gathering and analysis asked for the study required by the SS 1383 has already been performed recently by the federal government. During the past year. The domestic council through the Environmental Resources Committee, subcommittee of Climate Change, has completed an extensive study of the role of the federal government in weather modification. Hmm, maybe I don't know, causing such type of hurricanes so that you can then spark these types of fires with that much wind. That's interesting. Hmm. Yep. And we'll go into that in just a minute, right? It says that, uh, and yet others have put forward the theory that wildfires could have been started by environmentalist arsonists to justify climate change. Talking points already put out by the likes of the New York Times, which the New York Times claimed the n Maui fires are already one of the deadliest wildfires in modern US history. How did it happen? In a state defined by its lush vegetation, the explanation is straightforward as the planet heats up. No place is protected from disasters, says the New York Times. And yet no fact checkers coming here to say, well, actually nobody knows what happened here. Right. We don't know if this is from climate change. We have no reason to believe that. Yet you're jumping to conclusions while calling other people conspiracy theorists. Hmm. Sounds like you're directing the narrative. And there's some, there's some really horrific videos of people, uh, trying to get out of these, uh, uh, these fires. Right. The wildfires started Tuesday. Have, starting Tuesday, have scorched over 2000 acres of land, including most of the town of Lahaina, a rich cultural and historical area of the Hawaiian Island. Though the cause of the fires have yet to be officially determined, when the establishment makes a decision to quash conspiracy theories and questions, before all the facts are in, there's reason to be suspicious. And now you might say space lasers. Directed energy weapons. That sounds like something from Star Wars and you might be correct, but also this is something that we as a culture, as a species, have been studying since the sixties and have been implementing since very close to that. So let's go ahead and figure out what are directed energy weapons. What are these space lasers that people are referring to that could have started this fire? That's a good question. I'm glad you asked. Let's jump into it. So to to reference a few other things that mention this. This isn't the first time that this has come up. There's a Reuters article that says, Russia uses new laser weapons in Ukraine. Zelensky mocks wonder weapon. Now this was May 18th, 2022. And it says Russia dips into its secret laser arsenal. Russia on Wednesday said it was using a new generation of powerful lasers in Ukraine to burn up drones, deploying some of Moscow's secret weapons to counter a flood of western arms. Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018 unveiled an intercontinental ballistic missile, underwater nuclear drones, a supersonic weapon, and a laser weapon. Lulu is known about the specifics of the new laser. Putin mentioned one called Pervet per per pervet. I don't dunno. I don't speak Russian. Named after a Midieval Orthodox Warrior monk, Alexander Pervet, who perished. Im Mortal Kombat. Yuri Borisov, the Deputy Prime Minister in, in charge of military development told a conference in Moscow that Pervet was already being widely deployed and they could blind satellites up to 1500 kilometers above Earth. He said there was already more powerful systems than Pervet that could burn up drones and other equipment. Bov cited a test on Tuesday, which he said had burned up a drone five kilometers away within five seconds. Great, and, and I want you to notice that keyword burned up. It is thermal. This action of this laser is just heating this up to the point where it burns it, right? That that is written by Reuters. Right? We are not talking about conspiracy theories. We are talking about a technology that is here today, right now that most of you are not aware of, that you should be horrified of. Because if this type of technology exists, imagine the implications of this when there's riots in the street for, I don't know, authoritarianism. Hmm. So just wanted to start this off with, this isn't all that crazy? Right? And if you still don't believe me, let's go back in time to Nikolai Tesla. Nikolai Tesla had created what he had as a theory of technology, which he called a death Ray. Let's go ahead and watch this short clip about it. An Israeli arms company known as Raphael Advanced Defense Systems reveals details of a laser defense system capable of shooting missiles from the sky with a pulse of energy, the futuristic military hardware. Is called iron beam. The concept of iron beam is that it's essentially a high energy laser that is designed to rapidly heat up the target that it's aimed at. We're talking about aircraft, drones, missiles. Anything that could launch an attack on a city could be literally destroyed in the sky by I and D. This sounds very much like Tesla's death, Ray. This is exactly the kind of technology that Tesla was talking about in the 1920s and thirties of using these beam weapons to shoot down missiles and projectiles. The war department sided with Einstein and Oppenheimer's atomic bomb, not with Tesla. But now what we're seeing is that Israel is developing this. Iron beam technology because they realized that atomic weapons were far too destructive. Is it possible that Tesla developed a time viewing or time travel technology and that he became aware of these developments? Tesla was once quoted as saying, the present is theirs, but the future for which I have really worked is mine. Did Tesla in fact see into the future might Iron Bean be proof that plans for the death Ray not only existed, but also may have even been confiscated and carried out by the United States government? There are those who believe that Nicola Tesla was not only in contact with extraterrestrials. But was sent here to earth by them to fulfill a mission and usher in a new age for mankind. One of the big questions is who is Tesla? Is he, in a sense, an avatar, an enlightened being that comes to the earth to help humans? No one really knows exactly what's going on, but I think all great artists and Tesla saw himself as artists, feel that they're instruments of a higher purpose, and Tesla certainly felt that he was working. Along those lines, there is an agenda for humanity. There is a plan, and in every generation, whatever power it is that's behind the plan sends to earth certain specific souls who are by birth more inclined and able to be receptors to the higher knowledge. Interesting. But that just starts the conversation right now. There's a whole deep dive that we could do into Tesla, which is super interesting in all of the technologies that he built and some of the things that they actually referenced there, which I seem to be, that's pretty interesting, right? The idea that there's these enlightened, uh, individuals who are these, you know, uh, satellite or, uh, re satellite, uh, boxes or, you know, that take in the, the, the technology ideas and, and implement them in, in the world, right? What percentage of people, there's like a handful of people who have really changed the dynamic of the technology of our world as we know it today, for literally everybody. And this could be one of those instances only, maybe it was put under wraps for quite a long time, because I have articles here from the sixties, okay? One of these articles. Let's go to this one first, which is dated 20 May, 1979. Death Ray weapons bid to outlink salt arm efforts. This conversation about direct energy weapons is not new. Nikolai Tesla had this idea way back in the thirties. It was discussed as a death ray weapon in 1979 in the literal, what was it? The Washington Times. Try and see who, uh, who actually published this article. Um, but no, here it is. This was the one that I was thinking of. Um, There's, there's article after article after article, and this is a sanitized version, and I, I pulled all of these articles from the ccia that discuss these direct energy weapons, so you can go to cia.gov, the reading room there and search direct energy weapons. I sifted through some of the articles there. This is what I found to be some of the most interesting. Alright, so the very first page of this one, right, released in 2013 about direct energy weapons from the C I A released again 2013. The very first page is denied, right? Still under wraps. They still will not release some of this information, right? So if you don't believe that these things are real, you need to wake up because the c i A has has had this on their website since 2013, right? Soviet's push for Beam Weapon is the name of the article. It says, U S S R developing charged particle device aimed at missile defense, exploring high energy lasers as satellite killer. It says, Soviet Union is developing a charged particle beam designed to destroy US intercontinental. In submarine, uh, ballistic missile, nuclear warheads development tests are being conducted at a facility at Soviet Central Asia. So all the way back in during the Cold War, they had these, these types of weapons that they were developing, right? This is nothing new, but yet they want to call you a conspiracy theorist for even discussing them, right? This article is named Soviet's Push for Beam Weapon. Another article is named Death Ray. Weapons Bid to Outlink Salt, warm, uh, salt Arms Efforts. Another one is, A literal letters back and forth between Soviet, uh, Soviet Union, um, discussions that were being had within people that were recently declassified. Another one of these articles is Soviets are developing their own star war system, right? But yet you are a conspiracy theory for even talking about directed energy weapons. And that one, that's the one I was referencing that was from the Washington Times. C i a Soviets are developing their own Star War system. So let's go in chronological order here, starting with the one from 19, let's see, 1960. Where was it? The one that was released in 2013. This is the very earliest one. A charged particle beam, uh, in projects, atomic part or. Sorry, this some, some of this is like typewriters type stuff, so it's not fully copied over. Um, a charged particle beam weapon focuses and projects atomic particles at the speed of light, which could be directed from ground-based sites into spaces to intercept and neutralize reentry vehicles. According to u s officials, both the U S S R and the US are investigating the concept of placing charged particle beams devices on spacecraft to intercept missile warheads in space. This method would avoid problems with propagating the beam through the earth's atmosphere. Because of a controversy within the US intelligence community, the details of Soviet directed energy weapons have not been made available to the president or the National Security Council. Recent events have persuaded a number of US analysis to that directed energy. Weapons are nearing prototype testing in the Soviet Union. They include detection of large amounts of gaseous hydrogen with trace of tritium in the. Upper atmosphere. The United States Air Force Block 6 47 Defense support system early warning satellite with scanning radiation detectors and infrared sensors have been used to determine that on seven occasions since November, 1975, tests that may have been related to development of a charge particle D beam device have been carried out in a facility in Semial tins, some Russian area ground testing of a small hydrogen fluoride high energy laser, and detection of preparations to launch the device on board of spacecraft. Some US officials believe the test of the anti-satellite laser may be related to recent Soviet activities on the demand. SST Space Station tested a new far more PO powerful fusion post magneta hydrodynamic generator to provide power for a charged particle beam system At. ASR in Kazakhstan near the Caspian Sea. The experiment took place late last year in an underground chamber in an area of natural salt formations in the desert near asr. Interesting. And now there's even some, uh, actual images that were on this, not copied over super well. Um, but it says, debate scene on charged particle work. So even back in the seventies, this was being discussed, right? It talks about the energy levels required, it talks about, uh, could be perfected. Project was abandoned at some 0.3 or theoretical blocks to this in-house research. Just reading you some of the headlines here and some of the underlying parts. It says through open sources, they learned that the Soviets had long since solved some of the problems that they ran into in tours Stinging. Hmm. And they give some diagrams, like this is, this goes pretty deep into this for, you know, it's like 8, 9, 10 pages long. Some of it redacted, the first and the last pages. Um, but again, I'll include all of this in the sub stack as well as, uh, the Instagram posts on this for you. So that was the very first one. The next article pops up and says, now this one is 26 pages, some of which are redacted. This was the National Intelligence Council in 1985. It was a letter from David Abshire, the Ambassador to Mission nato. It says, dear David, following up on a recent conversation in London, I have checked into where Washington stood in the preparation of unclassified fact she'd done Soviet efforts in the s t I field. You'll be glad to know that state, uh, that state is putting the finishing touches on such a paper, and I'm told you should have it fairly soon. In the meantime, I thought it would be, uh, you'd be interested in two unclassified articles done by agency analysts. Although these papers do not have any official STA status, they contain much excellent information that should prove valuable for use on background information. I very much enjoyed your presentation and was glad that we had a few minutes to chat. I had to stop in Brussels sometime this fall, and we look forward to seeing you at that time. And this goes into, the Soviet directed energy weapons. And it's 24 pages. 24 pages about this, about these lasers.   The key judgment says the Soviet Union is believed to have inter uh, to be interested in the development of directed energy weapons. For ballistic missile defense and anti-satellite applications, the Soviet Union has been engaged in research on the directed energy weapons technologies for as long as the United States, Soviet efforts are under the leadership of some of the finest scientific minds in the U s Ss r in directed energy technologies, the Soviets are in a, in a comparable or highly competitive position with respect to the United States, uh, the Soviets are believed to have progressed beyond the stage of pure or basic laboratory research, hostile Soviet reactions to the US Strategic Defense initiatives in lobbying against the S d I by high level support Soviet scientists. Hmm. Now just give you the outline. It says number two. Uh, page two is about laser weapons management resources, technology, advanced developments, particle beam weapons, which is differentiation, microwave weapons, Soviet responses to the s d I and bibliography. So one of the things that we've discussed before about this is the Havana Syndrome. Havana Syndrome was something that people believed was being targeted by the Soviet Union onto certain politicians of these types of weapons from the microwave weapons that are potentially being discussed within this document on page 13. See if we can pull that up for you here. But this is, this is nothing new. It's just the application that people are now waking up to, how this can be leveraged. So multiple articles. Since the seventies have been talking about this, and there's one, so one, one question I have was like, okay, can yes, these are real, can they be used to create fires? So I, I did a little bit of research on that. It's like, okay, of course it makes sense that if all they're doing is heating something up and they're, they're being utilized to, uh, further thermal uses and that's how they're d destroying these types of missiles and, and everything at a very, uh, very tactile or tactical and, uh, very accurate way. Could they be used in, in the same way that we're talking about here, right? Could, could they be used to start fires? I couldn't find much on that because it just seems so obvious. But I did find this from the US Department of Agriculture and it says laser ignition device in its application to forestry, fire and land management. It has a laser ignition device for controlled burning of forest logging slash have been developed and successfully tested the devo. The device which uses a kilowatt class carbon dioxide laser, operates at the distance from 50 to a 1500 meters, right? We're not talking about these directive wet energy weapons, but this is an example of how this has been used in the past to create controlled burnings. Acquisition and focus control are achieved by the use of a laser range fire finder and acquisition telescope. Additional uses of the device include back burning, selective undergrowth removal, safe ignition of oil spills. A truck mounted version will be operational by fall of 1987 and an airborne version by the summer of 1988. All right, so there's that to further discuss that. Now let's get into what the actual conspiracy theory is here. It's the same thing happened to us in Paradise, California. November 8th, 2018. Somebody said our homes were le uh, leveled to ash, but most of the trees were still standing. Houses, steel buildings turned to ash. Cars, trucks flipped inside or flipped upside down, but still the gas tanks were still intact. We were hit back in Paradise 11 eight of 2018 by directed energy weapons. Looks the same as paradise did. Maui looks to be the same cars burned out even the glass windows. Some of the cars in Maui had large holes in the hood of the cars and trucks. Looked like a direct energy attack to me, but trees next to the cars still had leaves on them. This, in my humble opinion, is another attack on their towns. Agenda 21, burn the people off the land and take everything away from them. The winds came up as soon as the fire started, just like in paradise and many mountain communities in Northern California. Prove me, I'm wrong. Learn what's happening. Our towns are under attack. None other than the new world order, taking everything away from us, burning our towns down. No early warning system in place tells me they wanted lots of casualties. Deaths, just like in paradise. We had no warning at all. They aren't playing. They're dead serious. Hmm. Right. And says the first day of every month somebody commented, they test the emergency sirens to make sure that they work. It's crazy that they didn't work in an actual emergency. And then somebody commented back from the C N N article that they said they didn't even try to activate the sirens. Hmm. So somebody says here that less than 1%, 1% of Hawaii wildfires are natural. They had four burnings all at once. It says they still have no official cause of the fire. The fear of a land grab amongst the locals is real. Most of the homes and lots were not properly documented, like most of La Haena, which was part of its charm. But we fear that land will not go back to locals, but instead, LA Hana will become w Kiki 2.0 and be developed like nowhere else on Maui. The way Lana was built could have never supported the government's idea of smart city, which they desperately want. Every official from the mayor, governor General, fema, red Cross, et cetera, has said the same thing. It looks like a bomb went off. It looks like a war. I conclude this. The lack of warning and the incompetence is alarming all on its own, but there is a bigger agenda here for Laina, Maui, Hawaii, and states, everywhere. Hmm. Very interesting. We live in buildings made with and full of accelerants. Well, that's pretty true. Very interesting. Uh, here we go on, it says, do direct energy weapons exist that can cause wildfires? Right. That's the question I've been asking myself. The question I've been asking myself through all of these wildfires is, can this be done in this way? Can it be a weapon? Do directed energy weapons exist that can cause wildfires? The answer is yes. Does the US government have the ability to use these resources? The answer is yes. Does the government have reasons to cause such events to create the appropriate circumstances for their narratives and to justify their policy changes? They say most certainly, yes. Can we prove that this event was caused by the government? No, we cannot. We do not have the tools or the knowledge to prove this. Now, we need to wait till there's more information, a whistleblower or some other thing. At the moment, all that we can do is ask questions. The media and the mainstream thinking will tell you that doing so is bad, but don't think there's anything wrong with that. We should always question authority, right? And that's, that's some of the most concerning parts about this, is like, this doesn't even, this doesn't even have to be like, if you wanna, let's, let's make this a more, let's make it a more palatable conversation. Maybe it is in the government. Maybe you look at Vanguard, maybe you look at State Street, maybe you look at BlackRock. Maybe it's them, right? Maybe the same people who were willing to release a virus into our country and to the world killing hundreds of thousands of people for profitability by enforcing mandatory vaccination, would also be willing to, I don't know, kill a thousand people and start a few fires to take over an entire island. Maybe they would do that for profitability. Maybe we should just be asking ourselves that question. Right. Is there, is there one of these corporations that you trust enough to know that they would not do this thing? I don't think that I trust them enough to, to believe that there's no way possible that they would do this. This seems very feasible to me from what we've learned about these companies and corporations and, and even our own government over the last I. Three, four years. Right. It seems very plausible that this was a possibility either by our government or by these corporations, which is, you know, truly in the oligarchy that we live in the same thing, right? Those corporations that I just mentioned own the politicians. So whatever they wanna do, they'll do through funding. That's just the way that our pay to play government works. Hmm. Alright, so let's get into the next conversation. Let's, let's lis, let's listen into the own words of our Secretary of Defense in 2020, where Mark Esper confirms that these weapons exist, confirmed that they will be weaponized to create fires just like this one. Here we go. Cyberspace conference. Thank you to the Air Force Association for hosting an important event that brings together the world's finest aerospace leaders and professionals. I. First and foremost, I'd like to wish a happy birthday to the United States Air Force for 73 years and counting you have provided. Our nation with force in particular has maintained uncontested air superiority for decades with persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and precision airstrikes. Anytime, anywhere. However, our near peer rivals China and Russia seek to erode our longstanding dominance and air power through long range fires, anti axis, aerial denial systems, and other asymmetric capabilities designed to counter our strengths. Meanwhile, in space, Moscow and Beijing have turned a once peaceful arena into a war fighting domain. They have weaponized space through killer satellites, directed energy, weapons, and more in an effort to exploit our systems and chip away at our military advantage. Furthermore, our competitors and adversaries exploit cyberspace to undermine our security without confronting. Okay. If you didn't hear that, let me play it again for you, where he says that these companies could weaponize long range fires and killer satellites. Yet were conspiracy theories for bringing this up in a time where, I don't know, it appears that there was long range fires seek to erode our longstanding dominance in air power through long range fires, anti axis, aerial denial systems, and other asymmetric capabilities designed to counter our strengths. Meanwhile, in space, Moscow and Beijing have turned a once peaceful arena into a war fighting domain. They have weaponized space through killer satellites, directed energy, weapons, and more in an effort to exploit our systems and chip away at our military advantage. So these things have been happening for quite. Some time, right? Directed energy weapons, these killer satellites as he calls them this. Why do you think Trump implemented a space force? It wasn't for the, the comedic relief. It was because there is a real threat of countries and companies weaponizing satellites to create fires, to create, uh, explosions, to accurately target infrastructure, to accurately target, I don't know, real estate on an island that they want to take over by force in order to implement totalitarian smart cities. Maybe it's that maybe. Now what, when we look into the logistics of this and, and some of the, the things that might come up when we discuss the idea of those satellites is that in order for it to cause such a thermal, uh, reaction as we would see to start these fires simultaneously would be that the problem would be the atmosphere, the amount of, of energy that it would require to overcome the atmosphere when going from a satellite into the area that it's going to, to, to cause this fire. But why not extremely high altitude aircraft? Right? Maybe we can prove this through, uh, the, um, radar, uh, where it shows the, the aircraft that was flying over, right? Something like that may, I don't know. I don't know what it is, but it, it satellites seem unlikely. High altitude aircraft seems much more likely. 'cause then you don't have to deal with the atmosphere causing an eruption with the, the amount of energy that's being relayed. Uh, but here's. Now let's go into some other sources of this, talking about these directed energy weapons that a allegedly, according to the fact-checkers at Snopes do not exist of defense, spends about $1 billion annually developing directed energy weapons, such as high energy lasers and high powered microwaves. These weapons can disrupt or destroy their targets at the speed of light. For example, d o D has developed high energy lasers that have successfully shot down drones, but speed isn't their only advantage. They're also less expensive for use than traditional weapons like guns and missiles. Despite those potential advantages, d o D has had trouble getting these technologies out of the lab and into service. The Army has developed a detailed transition plan to support moving these weapons into the next stages of development. We recommended that the Navy and the Air Force develop similar plans that comes from the government accountability organization or office giving information on these very things that allegedly don't exist. Here's another video coming from Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin produces systems that do everything from detect the threats to identify the threats, determine whether it's a threat to the aircraft, and then employs the appropriate weapon, in this case, a laser weapon system. What we're hearing from our customers is that they need a layered, multi-domain defensive approach that can be integrated across platforms to neutralize these threats across all those domains. Imagine an aircraft equipped with a laser system with the capability to be able to neutralize a threat at the speed of a lightning strike. The precision of a surgical scalpel with the magazine to deal with a swarm and with the scalable effect. To be able to address that threat, providing an effect all the way the one end from simply deterring it for a short period of time, all the way up to completely neutralizing and defeating that threat. Now this video looks literally like something outta Star Wars. We were able to integrate our laser weapon system Athena into the classified C two network, and receive cues from the radar on the range in order to execute the full kill chain. I love how these people are just like Helios laser weapon system builds on 40 years of combat system, do lasers that, you know, maybe it could cause the takeover of the planet for everybody that I know and love and I'm really excited about it. And these lasers make things really hot and uh, it could. Kill everybody. So me and Stan at the office have been really working hard on this project for quite some time now, and we're really excited to roll it out. That's what's weird to me about all these things is like, what would it take from a societal humanistic perspective for people to just like throw up their hands and be like, you know what, maybe I shouldn't work at Lockheed Martin. Maybe I shouldn't work for the, you know, the, the, the literal military i

Tom Parfitt walked across the northern flank of the Russian Caucasus, from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea, through republics whose names are synonymous with violence, extremism and warfare. He joins me to discuss the Circassians, mass relocations under Stalin, and high mountain villages where resourceful people have survived for centuries on the stoniest ground.

https://amateurtraveler.com/azerbaijan-itinerrary/ Hear about an itinerary for travel to Azerbaijan as the Amateur Traveler talks to Australian journalist Emily Lush who is based in nearby Kutaisi, Georgia. Why should you visit Azerbaijan? Emily says, "It's really fascinating from a cultural point of view. Being in the Caucasus, it's got those great mountain areas for hiking. It's a misunderstood country in a lot of ways. It's quite young and it has this really Interesting history with all different influences." "And then the oil stuff, so maybe people know it's a wealthy country with really outlandish modern architecture, but then there are also quite a few UNESCO sites that are really, very old and very interesting. It's a very complicated country with a little bit of everything, like this region." We start in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, which is situated on the Caspian Sea, below sea level. Explore the Old Town (Esher Esher) with its historic architecture, including the Shivan Shah Palace. Visit the Heydar Aliyev Center, designed by Zaha Hadid, and other interesting landmarks like the Flame Towers. Take a day trip to Gobustan, south of Baku, to see the fascinating mud volcanoes and ancient rock carvings, a UNESCO site. Visit the Fire Temple of Ateshgah and the burning mountain of Yanadag. Consider visiting Nakhchivan, an autonomous republic that can only be accessed by flying from Baku. Explore the Machu Picchu of the Caucasus, Alinjagala Fortress, and other attractions. Head northwest and visit Kynalik, one of the highest continuously inhabited villages in Europe. Experience the traditional way of life, including homestays, and enjoy hiking in the beautiful mountain setting. As you head northwest, you can stop at Quba, a small village known for its exquisite carpet workshops. Watching skilled artisans create beautiful carpets is a unique experience. Continue to Lahıc, another mountain town with copper workshops and traditional crafts. Don't miss the opportunity to buy a samovar, a traditional tea-making instrument. Next, venture deeper into the mountains to Gabala, a popular ski resort with stunning scenery. Even if you visit in spring, you can still enjoy a cable car ride and savor fresh river fish in nearby restaurants. Shaki is a highlight of the trip, a charming city with a fascinating history and well-preserved monuments from the Silk Road era. Explore caravanserais, the Palace of the Shekhi Khan with its Persian miniature paintings and unique Shaki glass. Visit Kiş to see the oldest Caucasian Albanian temple, with mysterious origins. For those with more time, Lankaran in the south offers tea plantations and a unique tea house culture. Also, keep an eye out for vintage Lada cars, as they are still popular in Azerbaijan. Overall, this trip combines history, culture, natural beauty, and warm hospitality, making Azerbaijan a fantastic destination to explore.

Rendering Unconscious episode 249. This episode is special in honor of Juneteenth. It's a recording of an event held June 19, 2022, as part of the Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult series at Morbid Anatomy Museum, online. http://psychartcult.org https://www.morbidanatomy.org/events Animism for Apocalypse by Langston Kahn and Spirit Voices: The Mysteries and Magic of North Asian Shamanic Traditions by David Shi Langston Kahn is a Black, Queer, New York City based shamanic practitioner specializing in emotional healing and radical transformation. He stands firmly at the crossroads, his practice informed by Inner Relationship Focusing, initiations into traditions of the African Diaspora, the contemporary shamanic tradition of The Last Mask Community and the guidance of his helping spirits and ancestors weaving it all together. His new book is Deep Liberation: Shamanic Tools for Reclaiming Wholeness in a Culture of Trauma. Follow him at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/langstonkahn/ David Shi talks about his new book Spirit Voices: The Mysteries and Magic of North Asian Shamanic Traditions, exploring the history and practice of shamanism. What is it? Where is it from? What do shamans actually do? He guides the audience through unfamiliar territory—the landscape of North Asia – and through what are largely hidden and unfamiliar traditions. This area, ranging from the Caspian Sea to the Pacific Ocean, is a vast region often described as the “Cradle of Shamanism” and where the word “Shaman” originates from. His book features history, first-hand experiential reports, mythology, and folklore to explore the spirits, spirituality, and practices of true shamanism. In addition to history and analysis of North Asian shamanism, Shi also provides practical information for those seeking to implement practices that are appropriate to non-initiates and outsiders to the culture. Follow him at Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidjshi311/ This episode also available to view at Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/722101145 You can support the podcast at our Patreon, where we post exclusive content every week: https://www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl Your support is greatly appreciated! Rendering Unconscious Podcast is hosted by Dr. Vanessa Sinclair, a psychoanalyst based in Sweden, who works with people internationally: www.drvanessasinclair.net Follow Dr. Vanessa Sinclair on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/rawsin_ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rawsin_/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drvanessasinclair23 Visit the main website for more information and links to everything: www.renderingunconscious.org The song at the end of the episode is “Ancestors of both blood and adoption” from the album "Kaleidoscope of the 23rd Mind" by Vanessa Sinclair and Pete Murphy. Available at Bandcamp. https://petemurphy.bandcamp.com All music at Swedish independent record label Highbrow Lowlife Bandcamp page is name your price. Enjoy! https://highbrowlowlife.bandcamp.com Music also available to stream via Spotify & other streaming platforms. Many thanks to Carl Abrahamsson, who created the intro and outro music for Rendering Unconscious podcast. https://www.carlabrahamsson.com Image of Langston Kahn and David Shi

In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Europe along with thousands of other refugees. Sent to Siberian slave labor camps in the wildernesses, they suffered brutal cold, famine, and disease. When Germany invaded Russia many refugees were forced out of Siberia to primitive tent camps in Uzbekistan, accompanied by the Polish army-in-exile previously imprisoned by the Soviets. Within weeks the commander of the army, General Wladyslaw Anders, received orders to relocate his army to Iran to train to fight alongside the British in North Africa. Instructed to leave without the civilians, Anders instead ordered all evacuees, including Jews, to head southward with his troops. Joe and the refugees were again loaded on trains, accompanied by the Polish soldiers, and sent to the port of Pahlavi on the Caspian Sea.  Then, transported by trucks over treacherous mountain roads, they finally arrived in Tehran, where they struggled to survive in horrifying conditions. In October 1942, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem accepted responsibility for the nine hundred orphaned Jewish children in the camp, and by January 1943, the agency secured travel certificates for the Tehran Children to evacuate to Palestine. Joe and the other children, after five terrible years, finally reached safety at the Athlit Detention Camp, north of Haifa, on 18 February 1943.  Readers will find the story is one of the swift brutalities of war, and the suffering of civilians swept up in the maelstrom of fierce conflict. Randy Grigsby's book A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019) recreates a remarkable, and little-known story of escape and survival during the Second World War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Europe along with thousands of other refugees. Sent to Siberian slave labor camps in the wildernesses, they suffered brutal cold, famine, and disease. When Germany invaded Russia many refugees were forced out of Siberia to primitive tent camps in Uzbekistan, accompanied by the Polish army-in-exile previously imprisoned by the Soviets. Within weeks the commander of the army, General Wladyslaw Anders, received orders to relocate his army to Iran to train to fight alongside the British in North Africa. Instructed to leave without the civilians, Anders instead ordered all evacuees, including Jews, to head southward with his troops. Joe and the refugees were again loaded on trains, accompanied by the Polish soldiers, and sent to the port of Pahlavi on the Caspian Sea.  Then, transported by trucks over treacherous mountain roads, they finally arrived in Tehran, where they struggled to survive in horrifying conditions. In October 1942, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem accepted responsibility for the nine hundred orphaned Jewish children in the camp, and by January 1943, the agency secured travel certificates for the Tehran Children to evacuate to Palestine. Joe and the other children, after five terrible years, finally reached safety at the Athlit Detention Camp, north of Haifa, on 18 February 1943.  Readers will find the story is one of the swift brutalities of war, and the suffering of civilians swept up in the maelstrom of fierce conflict. Randy Grigsby's book A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019) recreates a remarkable, and little-known story of escape and survival during the Second World War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Europe along with thousands of other refugees. Sent to Siberian slave labor camps in the wildernesses, they suffered brutal cold, famine, and disease. When Germany invaded Russia many refugees were forced out of Siberia to primitive tent camps in Uzbekistan, accompanied by the Polish army-in-exile previously imprisoned by the Soviets. Within weeks the commander of the army, General Wladyslaw Anders, received orders to relocate his army to Iran to train to fight alongside the British in North Africa. Instructed to leave without the civilians, Anders instead ordered all evacuees, including Jews, to head southward with his troops. Joe and the refugees were again loaded on trains, accompanied by the Polish soldiers, and sent to the port of Pahlavi on the Caspian Sea.  Then, transported by trucks over treacherous mountain roads, they finally arrived in Tehran, where they struggled to survive in horrifying conditions. In October 1942, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem accepted responsibility for the nine hundred orphaned Jewish children in the camp, and by January 1943, the agency secured travel certificates for the Tehran Children to evacuate to Palestine. Joe and the other children, after five terrible years, finally reached safety at the Athlit Detention Camp, north of Haifa, on 18 February 1943.  Readers will find the story is one of the swift brutalities of war, and the suffering of civilians swept up in the maelstrom of fierce conflict. Randy Grigsby's book A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019) recreates a remarkable, and little-known story of escape and survival during the Second World War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

In October 1938, eight-year-old Josef Rosenbaum, his mother, and his younger sister set out from Germany on a cruel odyssey, fleeing into eastern Europe along with thousands of other refugees. Sent to Siberian slave labor camps in the wildernesses, they suffered brutal cold, famine, and disease. When Germany invaded Russia many refugees were forced out of Siberia to primitive tent camps in Uzbekistan, accompanied by the Polish army-in-exile previously imprisoned by the Soviets. Within weeks the commander of the army, General Wladyslaw Anders, received orders to relocate his army to Iran to train to fight alongside the British in North Africa. Instructed to leave without the civilians, Anders instead ordered all evacuees, including Jews, to head southward with his troops. Joe and the refugees were again loaded on trains, accompanied by the Polish soldiers, and sent to the port of Pahlavi on the Caspian Sea.  Then, transported by trucks over treacherous mountain roads, they finally arrived in Tehran, where they struggled to survive in horrifying conditions. In October 1942, the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem accepted responsibility for the nine hundred orphaned Jewish children in the camp, and by January 1943, the agency secured travel certificates for the Tehran Children to evacuate to Palestine. Joe and the other children, after five terrible years, finally reached safety at the Athlit Detention Camp, north of Haifa, on 18 February 1943.  Readers will find the story is one of the swift brutalities of war, and the suffering of civilians swept up in the maelstrom of fierce conflict. Randy Grigsby's book A Train to Palestine: The Tehran Children, Anders' Army and Their Escape from Stalin's Siberia, 1939-1943 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019) recreates a remarkable, and little-known story of escape and survival during the Second World War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

The world's a whole lot bigger than our own back yards, and about half-way around the world nestled right up against the Caspian Sea is Azerbaijan. Find it on a map. We all had to the first time.  There are surprisingly long-standing duck hunting traditions. While there chasing unicorn duck species, there's no ignoring cool-factor surroundings.  Back for the first time since the pandemic, Ramsey meets with long-time associate Kenan Sherif, deep diving into a cultural backdrop that makes Azerbaijan duck hunting an old-timey National Geographic magazine story type adventure but with waders and shotgun. This episode depicts one of the most off-the-beaten-path places you've never thought about duck hunting. Until now.   Podcast Sponsors: BOSS Shotshells https://bossshotshells.com/ Benelli Shotguns https://www.benelliusa.com/shotguns/waterfowl-shotguns Tetra Hearing https://tetrahearing.com/ Ducks Unlimited https://www.ducks.org Mojo Outdoors https://www.mojooutdoors.com/p Tom Beckbe https://tombeckbe.com/ Flash Back Decoys https://www.duckcreekdecoys.com/ Voormi https://voormi.com/ GetDucks.com USHuntList.com     It really is duck season somewhere for 365 days per year. Follow Ramsey Russell's worldwide duck hunting adventures as he chases real duck hunting experiences year-round: Instagram @ramseyrussellgetducks YouTube @GetDucks Facebook @GetDucks.com   Please subscribe, rate and review Duck Season Somewhere podcast. Share your favorite episodes with friends! Business inquiries and comments contact Ramsey Russell ramsey@getducks.com

The Neo-Assyrian Empire has been almost forgotten in comparison to the other massive states of the ancient world, but at its peak, it stretched from the Nile to the Caspian Sea and central Turkey to the Persian Gulf. Assyria was a brutal and dominating force for centuries, and it pioneered the infrastructure and ideology of empire, laying the ground work for everything that came after.Patrick's book is now available! Get The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World in hardcopy, ebook, or audiobook (read by Patrick) here: https://bit.ly/PWvergeListen to new episodes 1 week early, to exclusive seasons 1 and 2, and to all episodes ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App https://wondery.app.link/tidesofhistory.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.