Category: Security

The world’s top professional cowgirls and cowboys are showing off their skills this weekend as the 24th annual San Bernardino County Sheriff’s P.R.C.A Rodeo returns to Glen Helen Regional Park.

Rodeo-goers can enjoy bareback and saddle bronc riding, bull riding, steer wrestling, tie-down roping, barrel racing and team roping through Sunday, Sept. 24. The rodeo, which began Friday evening at the San Bernardino park, continues through the weekend. Gates open at 4 p.m. Saturday and the rodeo begins at 8 p.m. On Sunday, gates open at 2 p.m. and the rodeo starts at 6 p.m.

At opening night Friday, attendees donned their best purple duds to “Take A Stand and Break the Cycle of Domestic Violence,” as the rodeo put a spotlight on domestic violence. The rodeo will support the nonprofit organization Man Up Crusade with a donation to a local domestic violence shelter, according to a news release.

Other beneficiaries of this year’s rodeo include the Loma Linda University Hospital for breast cancer awareness and The Cannonball Memorial Run, which provides financial support to the survivors of officers killed in the line of duty nationwide.

Rodeo guests can wear pink Saturday in support of breast cancer awareness and Sunday’s rodeo performance is dedicated to military and public safety personnel.

Tickets are $35 Saturday and $20 Sunday. For children ages 4 to 6, tickets are $5 (free on Sunday). Children under age 3 may attend at no cost. Parking is $10. Tickets and information are available at sheriffsrodeo.com.

___

(c) 2023 the San Bernardino County Sun

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

Amid ongoing efforts by the Taiwanese authorities to stem a roiling tide of Chinese money and disinformation aimed at influencing Taiwan’s January presidential elections, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Tuesday indicted members of the Taiwan People’s Communist Party.

A day later, National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Ming-yen warned Taiwan’s legislature that Beijing’s methods of interference in the elections have also diversified, including manipulating public opinion polls and packaging false information as reports from international media.

The development came just days after the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center issued a report warning that China is engaged in a global campaign of disinformation, throwing billions of dollars at furthering Beijing’s aims and burying all criticism of its policies.

The sums in the Taiwan Communist Party case – totaling around US$11,000 in contributions for Don Quixote windmill tilts at office in Taiwan, among other accusations – are paltry by comparison to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) alleged billions sloshing around the world in pursuit of a coherent soft-power narrative.

But the fact that Taiwan even has a communist party signals that Taiwan’s inclusive, democratic society makes it vulnerable to information influencing campaigns. Allegations in Taiwan are subject to due legal process, which makes it vulnerable to unscrupulous bad actors.

Chief among these is the CCP’s United Front organizations – funded networks of groups and individuals that advance Beijing’s interests – which have been assiduously working for decades to bring Taiwanese around to the idea of unification. Funding is growing year by year.

According to Ryan Fedasiuk, a Non-Resident State Department Fellow at the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, based on information from more than 160 budget and expense reports from national and regional PRC government and Communist Party entities “organizations central to China’s national and regional united front systems spent more than US$2.6 billion in 2019.”

That’s more money than China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs got, according to Fedasiuk.

Diversified disinformation: more targeted and nuanced

Analysts say that China’s disinformation has become more targeted and nuanced over the years.

Kenddrick Chan, head of the Digital International Relations project at LSE IDEAS, said: “It is important to recognise that disinformation from Beijing often takes on different tones and varies in messaging, depending on the target audience.

“For the younger crowd, it is more of portraying the U.S. as an ‘unreliable ally,’ with Ukraine and Afghanistan being examples etc. Beijing knows that the ‘China is your friend’ line is much less likely to work for the younger generation.”

But, for the older generation, says Chan, “the messaging tends to be that the DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] has messed up across the spectrum, from worsening Cross Strait’s relations to economic mismanagement etc.”

Last week a State Department report said, “The PRC suppresses critical information that contradicts its desired narratives on issues such as Taiwan, its human rights practices, the South China Sea, its domestic economy, and international economic engagement. More broadly, the PRC seeks to cultivate and uphold a global incentive structure that encourages foreign governments, elites, journalists, and civil society to accept its preferred narratives and avoid criticizing its conduct.”

Last year, Taiwan was the leading target for foreign – and China – disinformation for nine years in a row, according to V-Dem, a Swedish institute that produces annual reports dedicated to pulling back the veil on global disinformation. 

In the Taiwan legislature on Wednesday, National Security Bureau’s Tsai told legislators that apart from military intimidation, the CCP United Front was also exerting economic pressure, including putting pressure on Taiwanese businesses, disseminating false information and shaping a narrative that Taiwan must choose between “peace or war” in the January presidential elections.

DPP legislator Lin Ching-yi asked Tsai whether Taiwanese collaborators were playing “ping pong” with the United Front, referring to “pay to play” bounce-forward-bounce-back amplification of disinformation.

“There’s an industry chain involved in the operation of false information,” Tsai replied. “The CCP quotes international media, such as Russian media, to present it as an international media report, and then creates disputed information to resell to the industry chain. Distribution channels include one-time accounts, stolen accounts and AI technology to massively generate artificial accounts.”

But long-time Taiwan commentator and election pollster Courtney Donovan Smith said despite all the money being thrown at influencing elections in Taiwan by the CCP’s United Front, he thought that Taiwan’s electorate was becoming increasingly better at sorting the wheat from the chaff.

“They’ll [the United Front] run into diminishing returns as more and more people grow suspicious, [and] eventually they’ll only be trusted by the hardcore and extreme voters who want to believe them.

“It will take time, though, so I’m worried it might impact this election.”

Chan of LSE IDEAS was more cautious, noting that influencing Taiwan’s elections may not be as simple as China’s United Front imagines.

“Of course, it is safe to say that CCP influence campaigns have had a non-negligible effect on the decision-making process of voters,” he said. “However, there are also other factors at play here – some voters might give more weight to socio-economics issues as opposed to geopolitical ones.”

He added, “This is where you can see the dynamics of Taiwanese politics at play.”

Blame the Americans

As Chan noted, the ‘China is your friend’ line is widely met with justified skepticism by Taiwanese, who closely watched the CCP’s hard-handed and increasing control of Hong Kong after the 2019 protests.

But “Americans are untrustworthy” is a line the CCP’s United Front sees as having traction.

Last month, The Taiwan Information Environment Research Center (IORG) released a report entitled “U.S. Skepticism Narratives and Where They Come From.”

According to the report, the CCP leads the way in skepticism towards the U.S., shaping a worldview for Chinese-speaking readers that aligns with the CCP’s interests.

Between 2021 and the first half of 2023, the United Front, the report said, highlighted shortages of COVID-19 vaccine supplies, the Biden administration’s first arms sale to Taiwan, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, TSMC’s establishment of factories in the U.S. and the CCP’s military exercises against Taiwan in April of this year – the latter being a scare tactic: vote wrong, vote for war.

The IORG classified the above as mostly “conspiracy theories” that aimed to lead Taiwanese to see the U.S. and Taiwanese elites as conspiring to exploit the Taiwanese people and profit from them.

The investigation found that the CCP accounted for some 84% of such narratives.

“Skepticism towards the U.S. can be understood as an authoritarian regime’s attempt to create dissent against its competitors,” Huang Jaw-nian, assistant professor at National Chengchi University’s Graduate Institute of National Development, told Radio Free Asia Mandarin service.

“From China’s perspective, it crafts ‘dissent against the U.S.’ and covertly infuses agreement with China.”

Jasmine Lee, analyst at BowerGroupAsia and co-editor at U.S. Taiwan Watch said her research suggests the CCP is involved in more than half of the disinformation efforts that she described as “Fake Friends, Fake Democracy, Anti-World and Destroy Taiwan.”

“Is it possible that … the CCP understands better than the Taiwanese whether the U.S. and Taiwan are friends? Is China more aware of the crucial role of democracy in U.S.-Taiwan relations?” she asked.

“No,” she said. “It’s just that China understands the leadership position of the U.S. in the world, and so they want to tell you that the U.S. is ‘anti-world’ and will harm Taiwan.”

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

China’s internet censors have deleted a photo of two embracing runners displaying the taboo combination of “6” and “4,” an inadvertent reference to the June 4, 1989, Tiananmen Square massacre that authorities have tried to cover up.

Photos of sprinters Lin Yuwei and Wu Yanni hugging each other just after Lin’s Oct. 1 victory in the 100 meters hurdles at the Asian Games in Hangzhou had been removed from several official news websites including that of state broadcaster CCTV by Tuesday evening.

While the two women are patriotically draped in Chinese flags, the numbers on their shorts reads “6’’ and “4,” a common discreet way of referring to the Beijing’s Tiananmen massacre, in which dozens of Chinese students calling for greater democratic freedoms were killed in the square by People’s Liberation Army troops.

Any public mention of the event or the date is censored by the Great Firewall.

In June, censors deleted a video of a woman dancing in which she makes hand gestures corresponding to the numbers 6 and 4. The woman was reportedly placed under close surveillance by police in her home city of Guangzhou.

Public commemoration of the massacre is banned in mainland China, while an annual candlelight vigil that used to mark the anniversary in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park has fallen silent after more than three decades, its leaders in prison under a draconian national security law used to crack down on public dissent.

‘They’re afraid of everything’

The Twitter account “Mr Li is not your teacher” posted before and after screenshots of CCTV’s website, one showing the political gaffe, and the other a blank space.

“This photo has been deleted behind the Great Firewall,” the account said.

“They’re afraid of everything,” commented one user, while another said, “Amazing numbers!”

Canada-based democracy activist Sheng Xue reposted the item, with the comment: “People will always think of the June 4 massacre when they see the two of them … June 4 is a curse on the tyranny of the Chinese Communist Party.”

Taiwan-based exiled dissident Gong Yujian said some people inside China didn’t know why the photo had disappeared from view, and had speculated that the numbers had some kind of pornographic meaning.

“They didn’t think it would be about June 4, and it prompted a bit of discussion inside the Great Firewall,” Gong said, adding that the government has been so successful at removing references to the 1989 massacre from the Chinese internet that many young people don’t know anything about it.

“While they can’t stop people from getting to the bottom of it, they can simply block it from the whole of the [Chinese] internet, so only people overseas can see it,” he said.

“All memory of what happened on June 4, 1989, has been wiped away from the Chinese people,” Gong said. “Unless they have personal experience of it, or they circumvent the Great Firewall, they won’t know anything about this chapter in their own history.”

Wu Chien-chung, associate professor of general studies at the Taipei University of Marine Science and Technology, said Chinese officials are “terrified” by those two numbers.

“This shows they have no self-confidence at all … maybe in future they won’t let four-year-olds and six-year-olds play together,” he quipped.

He said many people had commented on Chinese social media sites that censoring the numbers will only make people more curious and interested in that part of their history.

‘Bringing glory’

Lin crossed the finish line first in a personal best of 12.74 seconds, while Wu finished second in 12.77 seconds, but was disqualified by a panel of judges for jumping the gun, the nationalistic Global Times newspaper reported, without mentioning the numbers gaffe.

Wu issued a public apology on Monday for her disqualification.

“I am very sorry that my result was disqualified due to a false start, disappointing everyone’s expectations,” Wu said via her official Weibo account. “I deeply apologize to all my friends who have supported me and to the competitors in tonight’s race.”

“What sports has taught me is to get up where I fall, accept failure, face failure, and start over,” she said.

The paper quoted one online comment as saying, “Mistakes in sports competitions can be understood, but what’s more important is the intention to bring glory to the country.”

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

South Korea warned that it would seek to terminate the Kim Jong Un regime should nuclear weapons be used in practice, calling Pyongyang’s nuclear intimidation a “grave challenge” to the international community.

“Despite repeated warnings from the international community over the past several decades, North Korea has been upgrading its nuclear and missile capabilities. Moreover, it has been blatantly threatening to use nuclear weapons,” South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol said Tuesday, in a speech to celebrate the South’s Oct. 1, Armed Forces Day.

“If North Korea uses nuclear weapons, its regime will be brought to an end by an overwhelming response from the ROK-U.S. alliance,” Yoon said, referring to South Korea’s formal name. He called the North’s nuclear gamble an “existential threat” to South Korea, and poses a “grave challenge” to global peace.

“Our people will never be deceived by the fake peace tricks of North Korea’s communist regime, its followers and anti-state forces,” the President stressed, adding that South Korea will further strengthen trilateral security cooperation with Washington and Tokyo.

Yoon’s comments are the latest in a recent spate of warnings amid rising tensions and the North’s accelerated provocations. North Korea announced a new law regarding its use of nuclear weapons in September last year. In the new legislation, Pyongyang delineated the circumstances under which nuclear weapons could be used, giving it the option to  deploy nuclear weapons not merely as a retaliatory measure, but also as a pre-emptive strike mechanism to bolster its deterrence capabilities.

The legislation grants the nation the authority to use nuclear weapons preemptively in scenarios where: a weapon of mass destruction launch or approach is assessed, a nuclear or non-nuclear assault on the state leadership and the command structure of the state’s nuclear forces is initiated or deemed imminent, or a lethal military attack on significant strategic assets of the state is initiated or deemed imminent. 

“The North Korean regime must clearly realize that nuclear weapons will never be able to guarantee its security,” Yoon said, vowing that he would expand the scope of the U.S.-South Korea alliance into the space and cyber domains to further strengthen the allies’ capabilities.

Yoon also pinpointed the North Korean regime’s vulnerable point. “The North Korean regime’s obsession with the development of nuclear weapons aggravates the North Korean people’s suffering. It continues to exploit and oppress its people and violate their human rights,” he said.

South Korea has indicated that it would continue to raise the North’s human rights issue. It appointed a North Korean defector as its top policy aide earlier this month, underscoring the Yoon administration’s renewed stance towards a more hardline policy on Pyongyang.

Yoon’s warning came a day after North Korea labeled him a “political immature”, “diplomatic idiot” and “trash-like head.”

The verbal tit-for-tat between the Koreas this week followed Yoon’s harsh message to North Korea and Russia at the U.N. General Assembly last week, vowing that Seoul and its allies “would not just stand idly by,” should the two authoritarian states pursue military cooperation.

In a bilateral summit earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin had offered to aid Kim in perfecting his “satellite” technology. 

Yoon, who is a conservative, has been seeking to align Seoul’s foreign policy stance with the U.S. to counter global challenges including North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. 

Though many people go down to the Florida Keys to drink margaritas, lie on the beach and drink some more margaritas, Monroe County has some stunning parks perfect for nature lovers.

Some of the spots are known — but others could be considered secret gems, tucked along the the 120-mile archipelago.

This fall, the state and national parks in the Keys will be at their prime for swimming, hiking and kayaking.

Here’s what to know about them:

Dagney Johnson North Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park

This state park, which covers the northern third of Key Largo, was established in 1982 after a long battle between developers and environmentalists to prevent development of the land.

It’s named for Dagny Johnson, one of the activists who fought to protect the area’s plants and animals.

Don’t be fooled by “hammock” in the name — it doesn’t refer to the kind of hammock you take a midday nap at your Keys motel. This hammock is a dense patch of clustered trees, and the park contains one of the largest sections of West Indian tropical hardwood hammock in the U.S.

What to do:Take a self-guided hike to see some of the 84 protected plant and animals in the park. From the main entrance, follow the Port Bougainville (Port B) Trail, which has a loop choice of one or two miles. The trail runs along gravel or coral rock, and takes you past a native butterfly garden and into the hammock.

Hours: Sunrise to sunset, 365 days a year

Fees: $2.50 per person

Location: County Road 905, Card Sound Road, mile marker 106, Key Largo

Contact: 305-676-3777

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park

This Key Largo state park is famous for being underwater and boasts four kinds of boat tours, which include glass-bottom boat trips.

What to do:Rent a kayak, canoe or paddleboard and make your way through the park’s 50 miles of mangrove wilderness. Reservations must be made online, and you can call 305-451-6300 for more information.

Hours: 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year

Fees:

Multiple-occupant vehicle, $8 plus 50 cents per person up to eight people.

Multiple-occupant vehicle, $2.50 each additional person (over the eight).

Single-occupant vehicle, $4.50.

Pedestrian or bicyclist, $2.50 per person.

Boat ramp fee: $10 per vessel, day use only.

Location: Overseas Highway, mile marker 102.5, Key Largo

Contact: 305-676-3777

Indian Key Historic State Park

Like other parks in the Keys, Indian Key is a great spot to sunbathe, snorkel and kayak. But Indian Key is also known for its history.

Now a ghost town, Indian Key was once home to indigenous people. In 1831, Jacob Housman, a wrecker who salvaged cargo from shipwrecks, settled in Indian Key and established it as the first county seat for Dade County.

In 1840, a battle between the settlers on the island and the Seminole tribe left 13 residents dead. About 50 to 70 residents escaped, but the town never fully recovered, and was abandoned before the turn of the 20th century.

This secluded park is only accessible by kayak. The park recommends renting a kayak from one of two shops in Islamorada:

With your kayak in hand, you can launch off of the park area along the Overseas Highway between mile markers 77 and 79. It should take you about 30 to 45 minutes of paddling to reach Indian Key.

What to do:After your kayak journey, wander through the ruins of the key. Download the Florida Stories app to listen to an audio walking tour of the key produced by the Florida Humanities Council.

Hours: 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year

Fees: $2.50 per person

Location: Offshore Island, Islamorada

Contact: 305-664-2540

Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park

Walk through the geological and industrial history of the Keys at this state park, which sits on a 20th century quarry site.

The land is formed from Key Largo limestone, which is fossilized coral. The Florida East Coast Railway bought the land in 1908, and the railroad was completed four years later.

Trains stopped daily to deliver water and goods to workers in the quarry. Then the trains carried polished ‘keystone’ back up to the mainland. The quarry was abandoned in 1960.

What to do: If you visit between December and April, join a ranger-guided tour for $2 per person. Tours run Friday through Sunday at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Check out fossilized brain coral and other forms of ancient sea life preserved in stone.

Hours: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Monday

Fees: $2.50 per person

Location: 84900 Overseas Highway, Islamorada

Contact: 305-664-2540

Lignumvitae Key Botanical State Park

This Key is named for the Holywood lignumvitae plant, an endangered species known for its showy purple flowers and dense hardwood. The plant can be found throughout the state park, which is only accessible by boat or kayak.

In 1919, a wealthy chemist from Miami named William J. Matheson bough this 280-acre island and built himself a home on it. The home now serves as a visitor center.

The park recommends accessing the island via locally chartered boats:

What to do: Take a ranger-guided tour of the island to explore its rich natural environment. Tours are available December through April, Friday through Sunday, at 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Keep in mind that trail access is restricted to these guided tours to protect the island’s fragile environment.

Hours: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursday through Monday

Fees: $2.50 per person visitor fee, $2 per person tour fee

Location: 77200 Overseas Highway, Islamorada

Contact: 305-664-2540

Long Key State Park

Though it was once a vacation destination for the rich and famous, Long Key State Park is now open for anyone to enjoy.

In the early 20th century, Henry Flagler’s Long Key Fishing Camp was a luxury tourist outpost along Flagler’s railroad to Key West. The camp attracted celebrities, politicians and famous saltwater anglers until the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 destroyed it. The outpost never reopened.

Now, the park isn’t just for famous socialites, and it boasts activities such as kayaking, hiking, birding and fishing.

What to do: If you’re bored of the park’s two hiking trails, kayak rentals, and fishing spots, try your hand at geocaching. Geocaching is an outdoor game that uses GPS devices to find “caches,” which are essentially hidden treasure (they’re usually just containers with some trinkets or informational cards). As long as you use the land responsibly (stay on trail and don’t harm the local flora and fauna), geocaching is an inexpensive and interactive way to explore Long Key.

Hours: 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year

Fees: $4.50 per person visitor fee, $5.50 for two or more people plus 50 cents per additional person

Location: 67400 Overseas Highway, Long Key

Contact: 305-664-4815

Curry Hammock State Park

Located halfway between Key Largo and Key West, this park protects vast mangrove swamps, rockland hammocks and seagrass beds.

In the park, you can camp, stargaze and try to spot manatees, dolphins, stingrays or sharks from the beach.

What to do: If you’re feeling adventurous, join the park’s kite boarding community. On days with good wind, kite boarders flock to the park from all over the state to soar over the water. Ensure that you follow the park’s rules and regulations for staying safe.

Hours: 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year

Fees: $4.50 per person visitor fee, $5.50 for two or more people

Location: 56200 Overseas Highway, Marathon

Contact: 305-289-2690

Bahia Honda State Park

With access to both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, Bahia Honda is a great launching pad for boaters. If you aren’t using your own boat, you can join a boat tour and snorkel in the Looe Key National Marine Sanctuary.

Boaters can also camp on their boats, which is the perfect opportunity to stargaze after dark.

The park cautions that due to its popularity, the park can close when it reaches maximum capacity in its day use areas. It’s best to arrive early on busy days such as holidays and weekends.

What to do: Sit still and watch the island’s beautiful birds. During low tide, shallow sand flats emerge on the ocean side of the island, attracting shorebirds including willets, sanderlings, ruddy turnstones, short-billed dowitchers and plovers. The park is also a great spot to see wading birds such as herons, egrets and ibis. From mid-September to mid-November, hawks fly over the island during their annual migration.

Hours: 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year

Fees: $8 per vehicle

Location: 36850 Overseas Highway, Big Pine Key

Contact: 305-872-2353

Fort Zachary Taylor Historical State Park

The southernmost state park in the continental United States, Fort Taylor allows visitors to explore U.S. history alongside typical Keys activities like swimming and bird watching.

The fort’s red-brick walls hold evidence of the fort’s former military use, such as old cannon and gun ports. On the third weekend of each month, re-enactors bring history alive in the park.

During the Civil War, the fort was in Union hands and served as headquarters for the U.S. Navy’s East Gulf Coast blockade squadron, which deterred supply ships from accessing and leaving Confederate ports in the Gulf of Mexico.

Fort Taylor was used again during the Spanish-American War.

What to do:Take in a historical re-enactment and join a guided tour to learn about the fort’s role in the Civil War and Spanish-American War. Once you’ve gotten your fill of history, visit the beach on the park’s southern end to picnic, swim, snorkel or fish.

Hours: 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year. Fort closes at 5 p.m.

Fees: $6 per vehicle

Location: 601 Howard England Way, Key West

Contact: 305-292-6713

Dry Tortugas National Park

Almost 70 miles off the coast of Key West lies Dry Tortugas National Park. The park is known for the 19th century Fort Jefferson, but over 99% of the park is underwater.

When you’re not wandering through the fort, you can snorkel in a coral reef, dive among a shipwreck and cruise along on the clear blue waters with your boat.

Keep in mind that the park is only accessible by boat or seaplane.

What to do: If you aren’t afraid of the dark, snorkel along the fort’s moat wall at night. As long as you’re comfortable in the water and bring a strong dive light, this is considered safe, and will allow you to see a much wider range of animals than daytime snorkeling. According to the National Park Service, fish are much more docile at night, and you can expect to see lobsters, octopuses and starfish.

Hours: 24/7, 365 days a year. Fort Jefferson is open from sunrise to sunset year-round.

Fees: $15 per person, those under 16 enter for free

Location: Off Key West in the Dry Tortugas. The park is only accessible by boat or seaplane.

Contact: 305-242-7700

___

© 2023 Miami Herald

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Three of them came dressed in their Sunday best, wearing suits and sitting among the worshipers. Twelve others were heavily armed and wearing SWAT uniforms similar to those of the Haiti National Police.

Their mission: find the pastor and grab him.

But the brazen attack, partially captured while a church service in Haiti was being streamed live on Facebook, didn’t necessarily go as planned after the armed bandits invaded.

The incident occurred at Christ Rendez-vous Church in the Delmas 75, neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. In the video, seven choir members are seen on stage singing when one of them suddenly stops, and looking uncertain, tries to make out the figures moving toward the stage. Then the members start to scatter, placing their microphones down before the screen goes dark.

In a post, the church’s pastor, Julio Volcy, then issues a plea for help. “Bandits invade the church. I ask for your help to pray for us,” he said.

In an interview with the Miami Herald, Volcy said one of the alleged assailants was killed by police and a member of his 30-person security team was kidnapped. Several worshipers were also robbed during the invasion, and equipment from the church was stolen.

“They were looking for me,” he said. “My security managed to grab me and place me in a secure location.”

Volcy said he and his team were already sensing trouble when he arrived for his 7 a.m. service on Sunday morning. He noticed an unfamiliar face sitting in the congregation very close to him, dressed in a suit. Volcy, himself, was dressed down.

“It’s only every now and again we dress up and we noticed that this isn’t someone who is a regular,” he said.

During the welcome, Volcy said he went to shake the visitor’s hand. This is when his security realized the man was armed, and approached him. The visitor then said that in a few minutes a “police” backup would arrive for a kidnapping operation.

Realizing that he was targeted, Volcy said his security agents whisked him away to a secure location on the premises and alerted the rest of the security.

“Moments later a dozen guys came out of vehicles, they all had large guns, and they were dressed in police uniforms with ski masks,” Volcy said. “The guy who was sitting next to me, then entered with the [armed gunmen] because he was the one who had to identify who the pastor was.”

Volcy, who was watching everything on the church’s closed circuit cameras, said when they entered, “they made people lie on the ground, they stole telephones and disconnected our computers, televisions so the incident wouldn’t be livestreamed.”

At the moment of the attack, Haiti National Police agents were carrying out another operation nearby where they freed three people and two bandits were allegedly killed. They responded quickly to the church attack and police wounded one of the alleged assailants who later died at the scene. There are preliminary reports that a police officer from the 22nd promotion was also killed. Haiti media have identified him as Marc Elie Azaël. A police investigation is ongoing.

Volcy, who is a U.S. citizen and active in helping the country’s youth since returning to Haiti 13 years ago, says he doesn’t know why he was targeted. He is a well-known figure who is active in the Protestant Federation of Haiti, his church has been visited by diplomats and he has been active in trying to get Haitians to reach a political consensus on the country’s governance.

“There are people who like this, but there are people who probably don’t like this too and probably is the reason why they attempted to kidnap me. But God had other plans,” he said. ‘Since 2018, we have a security team in the church that’s about 30 people and…they put me in a secure location.”

Haiti is plagued by soaring gang violence and kidnapping and not even houses of worship are immune. There are several incidents of people being kidnapped while attending church. In 2021, four people, including a pastor and a well-known pianist, were kidnapped and it also played out live on social media. The group, members of the Seventh-day Adventist Gospel Kreyòl Ministry Church in Diquini on the outskirts of metropolitan Port-au-Prince, were performing live on Facebook and YouTube in a studio adjacent to their church when a heavily armed man walked up to the stage and abducted them.

Haiti is seeing an unprecedented wave in gang violence. More than 2,500 people have died so far this year at the hands of gangs, the United Nations said, and at least 970 Haitians have been kidnapped. Thousands of others have been forced from their homes by gangs who have emptied out entire neighborhoods.

Among the latest victims of the violence is a U.S. citizen, Lauren Charles, who was reportedly ambushed by gangs in Port-au-Prince’s Cul-de-Sac plain and shot on Tuesday. A photo of her passport was circulated on Haitian social media and a family member, contacting the Miami Herald, said they are trying to find the document in order to have her body return to the U.S.

The latest wave of violence has also resulted in the forced displacement of over ten thousand people who have sought refuge in spontaneous camps and host families.

Last week, the United Nations Security Council approved the deployment of a multinational security mission into Haiti that will be led by the East African nation of Kenya.

___

© 2023 Miami Herald

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

As Japan releases the second batch of treated radioactive water from Fukushima, Chinese state media and social media users have lashed out at the Japanese press for inflating Chinese tourist numbers during the Golden Week holidays, a move seen as Beijing’s way to exert political pressure on Japan. 

Japanese media outlets, including The Japan Times, reported on Oct. 5 that Japanese airlines’ flights from China to Japan are almost fully booked during an eight-day holiday that began Friday, highlighting that Japan tops the list of popular overseas destinations for Chinese travelers during the holiday period. On the same day, Tokyo began releasing a second batch of treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

In response, the nationalistic Global Times and Chinese self-media – bloggers and citizen journalists – not only deplored Chinese tourists visiting Japan, but they also blasted the Japanese media for deliberately hyping up the travel trend and, in their view, tarnishing the image of Chinese people.

“They also forcefully connected this with the attitude of the Chinese people toward Japan’s dumping of nuclear-contaminated wastewater into the sea, deliberately creating misleading arguments such as that Chinese people are ‘forgetful or do not care about Japan’s dumping,’” reads a Global Times commentary on Wednesday.

The commentary also named and shamed Japan’s Fuji TV and the Mainichi Shimbun in a bid to expose the propaganda war [with inflation of Japan-bound Chinese tourists figures], as well as the Japanese government’s irresponsibility. Chinese tourist arrivals reached 364,100 in August this year, or more than a third of the 1 million arrivals recorded before the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2019, according to the latest available official data from Japan.  

Blogger Xuanji Shijie, or mystic horizon, lamented: “Japan will immediately start its second round of nuclear sewage discharge on October 5. Don’t these tourists know our country’s attitude towards Japan’s discharge of radioactive water? Can you have some backbone?”

To be sure, the U.N.’s atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that the planned discharge of wastewater meets relevant international safety standards and would have a “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment.

Experts warned that leveraging on issues ranging from nuclear wastewater to criticism of Japanese tourism, is one of Beijing’s tactics to politically oppress Japan. However, this means that China could have cornered itself should it want to change its foreign policy towards Japan.

China’s independent political scholar Chen Daoyin pointed out that the Chinese people’s grievances against Japan have been used to rationalize China’s economic pressures exerted on the country. Since Japan started releasing the treated Fukushima water into the Pacific Ocean in August, Beijing has banned imports of Japanese seafood. 

“The nuclear wastewater incident should not be viewed in isolation, but is part of a system of economic coercion by China, using it to force Japan to bow to Beijing’s demands, mainly in its Indo-Pacific strategy,” Chen said. “Japan can play a leading role and moderate its stance towards China, which will continue to exert pressure as long as there are opportunities.”

Separately, Sung Kuo-chen, a researcher at the Institute of International Relations at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University, said Chinese people’s anti-Japanese sentiments were fanned by the official Chinese position. Such a negative atmosphere would increase the difficulty to turn relations around when Beijing should have a change of heart.

“The Chinese government is facing two very contradictory situations. If it wants to ease relations with Japan, will the public agree? The Chinese Communist Party also refuses to restrain itself on the military front, even though it claims to want to improve Sino-Japanese relations diplomatically. It cannot have its cake and eat it too; it is a self-contradictory foreign policy.”

With the United States, South Korea and Japan allying strongly, Sung said the conflicting Sino-Japanese relationship will be hard to turn around.

This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.

A 60-year old Vietnamese activist was sentenced to six years in prison for making a short drunken tirade video that cursed the Communist Party and revolutionary leader Ho Chi Minh, the country’s first leader, his lawyer told Radio Free Asia.

The Hanoi People’s Court handed down the punishment Friday to Nguyen Minh Son, saying that the video he made on Dec. 31, 2021, was “anti-state propaganda.”

In the live-streamed video, Son stood outside the same court, reacting the trial of activist and citizen journalist Le Trong Hung, who that day had gotten five years for violating Article 117, a vaguely-written law that is frequently used by authorities to stifle peaceful critics of the country’s one-party communist government. 

Almost 10 months later, Son found himself under arrest under the same charge. 

His lawyer, Ngo Anh Tuan, said that Son was drunk at the time and admitted that he had acknowledged making mistakes.

“Mr. Son admitted all his acts, saying that he had made mistakes,” Tuan told RFA Vietnamese. “He was accused of making a video clip, only one clip, which he live-streamed and disseminated online.”

Tuan said the jail term was too harsh considering that his client had only made one video. 

He said that he had tried to help lower the penalty for his client by requesting the judging panel to look at his case from another angle, but his request was rejected.

“I presented my analysis and judgment, recommending that his act be handled in a more appropriate way, and it could be an administrative penalty,” Tuan said. 

Pleading for mercy

Son had been an active participant in many demonstrations in Hanoi between 2011 and 2018 over issues ranging from China’s claims to territories in the South China Sea, to the Hanoi city government cutting down ancient trees located downtown. He also frequently expressed his views on Vietnam’s social issues using his Facebook account.

According to Son’s friend, his arrest on Sept. 28, 2022, was surprising because so much time had passed since he had been involved in any protests.

When Son was allowed to say a few words at the end of the trial, he apologized, expressing his regret and requesting for a penalty mitigation, Tuan said, adding that he was not sure whether Son would make an appeal or not.

Son’s wife Nguyen Thi Phuoc told RFA that she was prevented from attending the trial. Security guards would not allow her to enter the courtroom until nearly noon after the trial had ended, she said. She only saw her husband the moment the police were escorting him to leave the courtroom.

No freedom of speech

Vietnam is a one-party Communist state that clamps down harshly on those who criticize the government.

In another similar case, police on Friday in the southern province of Binh Duong detained Tran Dac Than on charges of using his social media accounts to create posts and share articles that “abused democratic freedoms to violate the state’s interests or the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and individuals,” in violation of Article 331 of Vietnam’s penal code.

Rights groups have said that Article 331, like Article 117, is often employed by the government  to silence dissenting voices and repress the people. 

According to state media reports that cited the police, the government had summoned Than to warn him about similar acts in 2013.

Vietnam has arrested at least 18 people and convicted nine for violating Article 331 since January this year, according to RFA’s statistics.

A 22-year-old man from Missouri was identified as one of two U.S. Army soldiers killed in a military transport vehicle crash in Alaska, officials say.

Fort Wainwright said the crash happened Monday, Oct. 2, in the Yukon Training Area. Seventeen soldiers were aboard the vehicle when when the driver lost control on a dirt road, causing the vehicle to flip, an Army spokesperson told the Associated Press.

Two soldiers were killed and 12 were injured, Alaska’s News Source reported. The soldiers were based out of Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks and had been participating in training exercises, the outlet said.

Fort Wainwright identified the soldiers Wednesday as 22-year-old Brian Joshua Snowden, of Lonedell, Missouri, and 23-year-old Jeremy Daniel Evans, of Knoxville, Tennessee.

“This is an incredible loss for all of us across the division,” Maj. Gen. Brian Eifler, commanding general of the 11th Airborne Division, said in a statement shared on Facebook. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families, friends, and fellow soldiers of Spc. Evans and Spc. Snowden. “While we’re always challenged by the environment, we’re Arctic Angels, we overcome these challenges and accomplish our mission by being a team, and teams take care of one another, especially in times like these.”

Snowden joined the Army in July 2020 after completing training at Fort Moore in Georgia, the Army said. He came to Fort Wainwright in 2021.

The Grandview R-II School District in Missouri said Snowden was a 2020 graduate of Grandview High School.

“Our hearts, thoughts, and prayers are extended to his family for their loss, as well as our thanks for his service,” the school district said.

Dona Sappington, Snowden’s older sister, said in a Facebook post she last saw her brother in January 2022.

“Before you left, I told you that you had to come home because after mom dies it’s just the two of us,” Sappington said. “I knew something was off for days and I definitely didn’t feel right all day. I could never ever imagine that today would be the day you left us.”

___

© 2023 The Charlotte Observer

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Yoni Asher last spoke to his wife on Saturday morning, when she called from her mother’s home in southern Israel near the Gaza border. “She told me terrorists had infiltrated the home,” he said. “The phone got disconnected.”

He last saw her later in the day — in a video circulating online. She and their daughters, 3 and 5 years old, were huddled with others on a flatbed in the back of a vehicle. Men with guns ushered them off.

Asher’s wife, Doron Asher Katz, 34, is one of an unknown number of Israelis who have been captured and presumed to be held as hostages after an unprecedented invasion by Hamas militants of southern Israel, taking control for a time of multiple communities and at least two military camps, and killing hundreds. Videos posted online show armed men marching or dragging men and women through the streets, some elderly, some bloodied.

Israeli authorities have responded with force in Gaza, bombing buildings and killing at least 413 people, including 78 children and 41 women, according to Gaza’s health ministry. On Sunday morning, Israel was still trying to regain control of seven communities and an army camp, IDF spokesman Richard Hecht said.

It’s unclear how many hostages have been taken. Hamas has said it was holding dozens of commanders and soldiers. Israeli media reported that the number was at least 100, including elderly people and children. The militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, separate from Hamas, said it was holding 30 hostages and wouldn’t return them until Palestinian prisoners were freed. The Israeli military confirmed that hostages had been taken but wouldn’t give a figure.

The hostage taking has struck a particularly emotional nerve in Israel and makes the country’s response more complicated — and, potentially, more deadly. “This will shape the future of this war,” reserve military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told the BBC, and later reiterated to Bloomberg.

Instagram and other channels were flooded with faces of missing people and pleas for information. Many of those identified were young attendees of an outdoor desert rave. One of those was Almog Meir Jan, who at age 21 had recently finished his army service.

“He called my mother at 7:45 a.m. and told her there were rockets, that they have started running and that he loves her,” his sister, Geut Harari, said in a phone interview. “Since then, we have not been able to reach him.”

His family identified him, alive, in a clip sent around on the Telegram messaging app. The footage showed young men illuminated by a bright light, cowering on the floor, some with their hands behind their back and others attempting to shield their faces from the light.

Several wars have been set off by abductions and killings of just a handful of Israeli soldiers or civilians. In 2006, the capture of three soldiers — one in Gaza, two in Lebanon — ignited the deadly Second Lebanon War with the Iran-backed Hezbollah. Eight years later, the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in West Bank by Hamas gunmen led to a 50-day war in Gaza. In 2011, to free soldier Gilad Shalit from Gaza, Israel freed more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, several of whom went on to carry out deadly attacks against Israelis.

This time, many of those taken aren’t soldiers but civilians.

At about 8 a.m. on Saturday, Adva Adar lost contact with her grandmother, Yaffa Adar, 85, of Nir Oz. She learned late in the day that the Israeli military found her grandmother’s house burned down and vacant. The first time she learned her grandmother had been taken was when she saw videos on Facebook posted online by Hamas and widely shared. There was her grandmother, sitting on a golf cart, clutching a pink blanket.

“I cannot even start to imagine how scared and uncomfortable she was,” Adva Adar said. “She doesn’t have a lot of time without her medicine.”

Several family members say Israeli authorities haven’t responded to calls for help.

“No one spoke to me,” Asher said at around 11 p.m., after 12 hours of frantic calls, and after tracking his wife’s phone to Khan Yunis, a city in Gaza. “No one contacted me. I called the police, I called the Home Front Command, the local councils.” He also contacted German authorities, because his wife has German citizenship. So, like many others, Asher turned to social media and local television stations.

In one situation, hostages were being held for more than 24 hours in Be’eri, an Israeli kibbutz with a population of about 1,000 located in the northwest Negev desert near the eastern border with the Gaza Strip. Tens of them at least were held hostage by armed militants at the settlement’s common dining hall and later released.

After he woke up and realized what was going on, Goni Godard, 22, pulled a bandana over his face and headed through Be’eri toward his parents’ home. A man pointed a gun at him but didn’t shoot; Godard thinks it’s because with the bandana, they couldn’t tell which side he was on. Walking through the kibbutz, he saw bullet-laden bodies in the streets before coming to the place that used to be the home of his parents, Many Godard, 70, and Ayelet Godard, 60.

“Everything was burned and destroyed,” he said through sobs. They weren’t there.

He hid in the home until 4 p.m. when the Israeli military arrived. He’s still looking for his parents.

___

© 2023 Bloomberg L.P

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.