Reason - FBI Agent Says He Hassles People 'Every Day, All Day Long' Over Facebook Posts [29/03/2024]

The FBI spends "every day, all day long" interrogating people over their Facebook posts. At least, that's what agents told Stillwater, Oklahoma, resident Rolla Abdeljawad when they showed up at her house to ask her about her social media activity. Three FBI agents came to Abdeljawad's house and said that they had been given "screenshots" of her posts by Facebook. Her lawyer Hassan Shibly posted a video of the incident online on Wednesday.

Abdeljawad told agents that she didn't want to talk and asked them to show their badges on camera, which the agents refused to do. She wrote on Facebook that she later confirmed with local police that the FBI agents really were FBI agents. "Facebook gave us a couple of screenshots of your account," one agent in a gray shirt said in the video.

"So we no longer live in a free country and we can't say what we want?" replied Abdeljawad.

"No, we totally do. That's why we're not here to arrest you or anything," a second agent in a red shirt added. "We do this every day, all day long. It's just an effort to keep everybody safe and make sure nobody has any ill will."

Abdeljawad's Facebook timeline is public, so the FBI agents could have found it themselves. For the past week, she has made multiple angry posts per day about the war in Gaza, referring to Israel as "Israhell." But none of the posts on her feed call for violence.

Miami Herald - Have more Palestinians or Israelis died in war? Half of Americans don’t know, poll says [22/03/2024]

About 32,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis have been killed since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, marking a casualty ratio of roughly 26 to 1, according to officials from both governments. But despite this massive disparity, half of Americans do not know which side has had a higher death toll, according to a March 21 poll from the Pew Research Center. The poll, conducted in February, sampled 12,693 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. When asked via a “basic knowledge” multiple choice question whether the death toll was higher among Palestinians or Israelis, 48% of respondents did not select the correct answer. One-third, 34%, selected “not sure,” while 7% chose “higher among Israelis” and 7% chose “about the same.” A slim majority of respondents, 52%, correctly reported that more Palestinians have died.

Newsweek - Planes Hit by Mystery GPS Jamming Across Europe [25/03/2024]

Persistent interference with navigational signals in eastern Europe impacted more than 1,600 airplanes—including civilian aircraft—in less than two days, according to open-source analysis, as jamming plagues the airspace around the Baltic Sea.

Jamming lasting just under 48 hours affected 1,614 airplanes, many of which were civilian aircraft flying around the Baltic region in eastern Europe, according to an open-source intelligence account that regularly tracks GPS interference. An initial map, posted by the account, shows extensive jamming across Poland and southern Sweden early on Saturday. A later map appears to show interference limited to swathes of northern Poland.

Interfering with or spoofing Global Positioning System (GPS) and broader Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals can confuse manned or unmanned aircraft, or make their navigation systems believe they are in a different location.

Unnamed pilots told Forbes earlier this year that they had started to switch off GPS navigation when passing close to the Baltic Sea and its surrounding countries in favor of other systems, such as inertial navigation.

too busy watching movies and telling activists calling her out that they're not helping the situation

The Kyiv Post reported a 'pre-election scoop' last Friday about how POO TIN will win:

Video evidence alleges that the Kremlin has distributed special pens with ink that disappears for use in the weekend’s presidential elections, enabling Putin’s United Russia operatives to change votes to those endorsed by Moscow, independent sources reported.

The independent Russian news site Sirena was told by sources in Kursk and Rostov-on-Don who were setting up polling stations ready for the start of today’s presidential election that they were provided with pens to place in polling booths that “contain a secret.” The pens arrived in boxes sealed with the official emblem of Russia’s Central Election Commission.

The sources provided video evidence of how the ink from the pens could be made to disappear which Sirena posted on its Telegram channel. The ink used to mark the voters ballot paper seems normal but can be made to disappear when it is heated.

BBC - Czech Republic struggles to contain surge of whooping cough [18/03/2024]

In the first week of January, say the Czech authorities, there were 28 registered cases of whooping cough. That figure now stands at 3,084 – a number not seen since 1963. Sufferers include the 80-year-old mayor of Prague, Bohuslav Svoboda, who is an MP as well as an eminent gynaecologist.

Health Minister Vlastimil Válek told Czech Television the current rise in cases is down to a combination of two things: a resurgence in respiratory diseases as society abandons strict Covid measures; and incomplete immunisation in children. The whooping cough vaccine is applied in five stages, the first three in the first 12 months of life. Almost all children receive these initial doses. However, only 90% end up receiving the final two, administered around the ages of six and ten. This, said Mr Válek, would explain why the greatest rise is among Czech teenagers.

Reuters - Poland's capital Warsaw earmarks $30 million for bomb shelters and other security [13/03/2024]

Poland's capital Warsaw will spend 117 million zlotys ($30 million) in the next two to three years on bomb shelters and other security measures, with war in neighbouring Ukraine in its third year, the city's mayor said on Wednesday. "On our own initiative we undertook an inventory of places for sheltering," Rafal Trzaskowski told a news conference after the publication of a report by Poland's Supreme Audit Office into the provision of bomb shelters in the country.

According to the fire service, less than 4% of the population can count on a place where they could shelter, the audit said. The report also found there was a lack of basic regulations for shelters, including the necessary equipment and technical features required of protective structures. Underground car parks and metro stations were among around 7 million square metres of space in Warsaw that could serve as shelters, the mayor said.

AP - Poland’s foreign minister says the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine is ‘not unthinkable’ [09/03/2024]

Poland’s foreign minister says the presence of NATO forces “is not unthinkable” and that he appreciates the French president for not ruling out that idea. Radek Sikorski made the observation during a discussion marking the 25th anniversary of Poland’s accession to NATO in the Polish parliament Friday, and the Foreign Ministry tweeted the comments later in English.

RTÉ.ie - We live in pre-war times, Tusk tells EPP delegates [07/03/2024]

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has told delegates at a congress of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) that "we are living in new times, in a pre-war epoch". Speaking in Bucharest, Romania, and referencing the war in Ukraine, Mr Tusk said that "the times of blissful calm are over" and that the "post-war epoch is gone".

The event culminated in the election of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the party’s lead nominee to retain the Commission's top job. As the EPP’s only candidate for the nomination, Ms von der Leyen was elected by 400 votes to 89.

TVP.info - Will Russia attack Poland? Almost half of the Polish people think so [04/03/2024]

Ipsos asked Polish people if they think Russia will attack Poland militarily in the coming years. As the TOK FM portal explains, the answer "definitely yes" was given by 12% of respondents, and the answer "rather yes" by 36%. A total of 48%.

32% of respondents believe that Russia will "rather not" attack Poland militarily, and 9% are of the "definitely not" opinion – a total of 41%. 11% of respondents have no opinion on the matter.

The study was conducted using the Mixed mode method on a nationwide sample of n=1000 adult Polish people on February 22-26, 2024.

another retired Polish general going off, happens quite often actually

Poland Daily 24 - Polish General Said Deporting Ukrainians from Poland Would Help on the Frontline… But Would It Really? [06/02/2024]

General Skrzypczak proposed that the Polish government take a drastic measure to support Kyiv by deporting all Ukrainian men residing in Poland back to their homeland. He believes this action would strengthen Ukraine’s defense capabilities. “The Polish government should assist Kyiv in the deportation of Ukrainians living abroad. We need to reach out to Ukrainian citizens who are living abroad to address this issue. This initiative should be directed towards the governments in Warsaw, Paris, Prague, and wherever else they may be residing. These governments should help Kyiv in carrying out the deportations,” Skrzypczak stated during a TOK FM radio interview on January 23.

I feel like he's a mercenary academic they bring on shows to say stuff they want to hear and make themselves feel good. Like 'what is evil!?' or 'how can we understand tyranny?!' level of questioning, very shallow and pro-west of course.

new cope dropped, interview with a recently retired Polish general, translated by duckduckgo with slight edits:

The former Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Army stressed that "the Russians do not attack when they have a strong opponent against them." "They always attack when they feel weakness" he said, adding that "the European 'Fit For 55' program, which was supposed to tighten the European Union's climate policy, was like using a red cape on a bull."

(The Russians) have understood that this is the last 5 minutes when they can use their energy advantage to implement their strategy to push the US out of Europe, destabilize individual countries and at the same time prevent the integration processes of Ukraine and Belarus. Otherwise, they may lose the battle for energy supremacy, as the U.S. and China compete to build an advantage when it comes to carbon-free energy. (...) They simply began to calculate and estimated that the West is weak, that there are no arguments in this clash, and there will be no better opportunity. I think that they were aware of their impeding loss in the energy race during the 2020-2030 window" argued General Rajmund Andrzejczak.

RT - Ukraine ready for war with China – top MP [2024-02-24]

Kiev is ready to assist the US in a war against any enemy, be it Iran, North Korea, or China, a senior Ukrainian MP has said, claiming that his country would prove to be a valuable military ally.

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Friday, Aleksey Goncharenko doubled down on calls for the US to send Ukraine more military aid amid gridlock in Congress.

”Ukrainians are ready… We are ready to stand with the United States shoulder-to-shoulder, either in trenches near Tehran, or in North Korea, or near Beijing. No difference,” he stated. “Because we appreciate your support.”

Despite his plea for more Western military aid, Goncharenko argued that Ukraine has “the second strongest army in the free world” after the US, making it “a very valuable ally.”

EURACTIV - West’s Ukraine strategy ‘completely failed’, says Slovak PM ahead of Paris summit [2024-02-26]

On Sunday (25 February), Fico announced he would be convening the Slovak Security Council, together with the government and coalition parties, due to the “chilling” nature of the topics to be discussed in Paris.

Several NATO and EU member countries were considering sending their soldiers to Ukraine based on their bilateral agreement, he claimed.

“Proposals for the direct physical presence of soldiers from EU and NATO member countries in the territory of Ukraine, albeit only on a bilateral level, will lead to a significant escalation of tensions if implemented,” he stated.

According to Fico, the Paris talks would be a “battle meeting” to “prevent the direct participation of Slovak soldiers in the war in Ukraine”.

Fico noted that his country will focus on civilian and non-lethal assistance, and would continue to help Ukraine with de-mining activities.