#Afghanistan man arrested

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, Chelsea Manning!

(December 17, 1987)

As a member of the US Army, Chelsea Manning struggled with her gender identity and the moral weight of the innumerable crimes which she was privy and party to in America’s Middle Eastern wars. Each day, she encountered more and more evidence of war crimes and misconduct by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. Downloading nearly 500,000 documents and smuggling them past security, Manning set out to expose them to the world. Rebuffed by mainstream news outlets, Manning instead gave the documents to WikiLeaks, who published them. She continued passing information on to WikiLeaks until she was caught and arrested. Her sentence of 35 years in prison caused outrage, and it was eventually commuted by Barack Obama in the final days of his Presidency. Since her release, Manning has continued her activism, including being jailed again for over a year after she refused to testify in a government case against WikiLeaks.

“In our zeal to kill the enemy, we internally debated the definition of torture. We held individuals at Guantanamo for years without due process. We inexplicably turned a blind eye to torture and executions by the Iraqi government. And we stomached countless other acts in the name of our war on terror.”

[jqmalikhsgib]

quest

three

when emily received your phone call she knew immediately she had to inform jj. telling her everything. from where you’ve been this entire time to why you’re in jail.

jj was shocked and a bit pissed she kept this from her. she was close to you as well. but she understood why. she would not agree with you keeping your pregnancy away from hotch and constantly tell you that.

but now she had to tell the team. she knew she’d have to inform hotch first before they flew to houston texas and figure out why they’ve arrested you for a crime they know you could never commit.

jj sighs as she walks to hotches office and knocks. “come in.”

jj gives him a look and he knew they had a case.

“ill inform the team.”

“wait! this isn’t just some case hotch. it’s about yn.”

hotch heart starts to beat out of his chest. what could this be about? were you okay? where exactly were you this whole time? had you been alive? fuck! he hoped the last thing you remembered wasn’t him cheating. he couldn’t bare that.

“just—just tell me she’s alive jj?!”

“she’s alive.”

he breaths a sigh of relief.

“but she was arrested for murder charges last night. she’s currently in houston texas.”

“murder?! we know she didn’t do this!”

“yes! we know her well. but she was near the body, blood all over her clothes, and the weapon had her fingerprints on it. she looks good for the crime.”

“what do we know?!”

“we should get the team together and discuss. but first there’s something else you should know.”

“this is insane! yn won’t hurt a fly! how could they possibly believe she’s the killer?!” derek shakes his head.

“guys! we gotta focus. we all care about yn but she needs our help more than anything. penelope what have you found on the victim?”

“oh, yes sir. robert kelp. he’s the ceo of a dna company. he has helped many families find so many lost loved ones. he’s donated to plenty of charities to stop human trafficking and even helped sex workers get back on their feet if needed. oh. he was a very kind man. says he’s—oh, sir. it says that he started the business because long ago he’s fallen in love but was sent to afghanistan. his lover at the time let him know she was pregnant but lost the baby. when he got home he tried to find her. after years of searching he found out she ended her life through her father. she couldn’t take the lost of her baby.”

“could you find any records of the woman, baby girl?”

“um—i found her name. sarah wilson. but—”

“what is it?”

“there’s no death certificate. and—oh, god!”

“what? what is it p?”

“sarah jones. currently married to a darius y/l/n.”

“that’s—”

“holy shit!”

i love leaving you all in suspense!

anyway i got a person on my taglist for stone cold.

please let me know if you want to be added or unadded <3

taglist:

@ivebeenthearchersstuff

[apricitystudies]

what i read in may. 2023:

(previous editions) bold = favourite

class, race, & labour

blackbirding: families were ripped apart in the pacific — now, these women are working to reunite them (australia)

the not-so-hidden racism of nancy drew

i’m fucking agitated, are you going to murder me? (usa)

who owns the country? the secretive companies hoarding england's land

a gruesome severed fingertip tells a painful story about corporate japan

being an honorary white person doesn’t make us more powerful

gender, sexuality, & intersectionality

cocooning

‘fearless, stoic and attractive': a history of the state-sanctioned russian woman

i am a man, but i am not

chile's new law blazes trail for children of femicide victims

why foreign wives in south korea are vulnerable to domestic violence

politics & current affairs

the true cost of tuna: marine observers dying at sea

the abolitionists born after hurricane maría (puerto rico)

thailand’s opposition parties start alliance talks after voters reject military rule

how half a tonne of cocaine transformed the life of an island (portugal)

el salvador gangs: mass arrests bring calm but at what price?

after the fall (australia/afghanistan)

history, culture, & personal essays

how i left the far right (usa)

‘how do I prove my innocence?’ casting students as would-be cheaters eager to exploit ai tools is disheartening

the rape culture of the 1980s, explained by sixteen candles

i placed my first wager when i was 10. i’ve gambled more than $1 million since

the joy of sulk

missed calls

i asked chatgpt to control my life, and it immediately fell apart

[cicidarkarts]

Why do you like Idrees, you missin the whole point of the movie dawg

The whole point of the movie isn't "let's hate on Idrees". As we see in basically every single frame, the point of the movie (and the book, which I'll touch on) is the destruction and pain and damage that's caused by the ideological views and extremist actions of the Taliban. Places are run down, children are working, the elderly can't get proper care, there's no clean water.

(Dirty and smoggy)

(Both a child working and an old man who lost a leg in the wars)

(Broken windows, dirt, smog, a child working)

(This man doesn't even want to speak to Parvana and her mother, Fattema, for fear of retaliation from the Taliban)

(Shauzia and Parvana have a heart-to-heart on top of a fucking tank)

(These mfs can't even piss without thinking they're going to be blown up)

(Everyone here has to take dirty water from this same well in this dusty alcove)

(The general state of hawkers and beggars looks like this)

Of course the main aspect the movie shows us: women are not allowed to do… anything! It's to the point that women will get beaten just for being outside "uncovered".

(They whip her and she screams off-screen)

(Or even just without their mahram; we watch this unnamed Talib beat Fattema for being outside without a man)

(Looking away from Fattema's beating in shame)

(Here's a picture of a man in his element making candy, look at how happy he is :D What a cinnamon bun, we should all fangirl him instead)

We get glimpses of hope through the legends of Suleiman (same voice actor as Idrees for those who didn't know; means nothing, though; I'm not comparing the two, it's just trivia), and this hope is something that Parvana holds desperately onto. It's also what gives her the courage to stand and keep going at the end of the movie. I'll attempt to keep spoilers to a minimum.

Let's talk about the book, as it will come into play at least a few times, particularly when talking about Razaq. The book is somehow more depressing. There is no Suleiman legends to give us comfort and break up the tension. There is no hopeful ending (I'll try to keep spoilers to a minimum as well; it's a short book and I'd recommend just reading it). However, we get more glimpses of women going against the Taliban's laws; they make their own school, learn on their own, and are generally more cheeky, defiant, and independent (as much as they can be) in the book.

The book is based on the accounts of women living in Afghanistan at the time, and less so on the story of Parvana. This means the narrative is a bit more all over the place, and things happen without resolution, or things happen and are resolved quickly without Parvana's intervention. To be fair, that's more accurate to real life, but as a movie, The Breadwinner needed more cohesion, so there are things the book does that the movie doesn't (i.e., women in burqas begging on the streets "with babies sprawled in their laps"). And things the movie does that the book doesn't (i.e., Idrees isn't in the book). So let's talk about the victims of the Taliban. Which is every named character in the movie.

We'll start with Razaq. Razaq is like looking into Idrees' future. He's jaded, beaten down, depressed. He's an older man who lost his wife, whom he loved very much. He unfortunately cannot read his native language, and this infortmation is given to him by Parvana. It breaks him to know that his wife has been the casualty of war. He's generally seen as a kind man, so much in fact that Parvana has this to say about it: "Up until then, she had seen Talibs only as men who beat women and arrested her father. Could they have feelings of sorrow, like other human beings?"

Razaq is not named in the book. He also doesn't have a bigger role outside of this to the narrative. The movie does more with him, and gives him a chance to prove his kindness, how he's a veteran, with the Taliban out of feelings of necessity (see: indoctrination, a word which we'll use often) and religious duty. He is a man who loved his wife and risks himself to give Parvana her hope. The ending of the movie is made all the more powerful with him in the conclusion, rather than the book which took a more realistic but also narratively boring approach.

So why am I talking about Razaq when this question was about Idrees? Well, for one to prove that I was paying attention to the movie, and for two because there are parallels between Idrees and Razaq. That's why they were patrol partners. Why we saw Razaq trying to keep Idrees, young and full of himself with something to prove, on a leash. Not just to avoid hurting others, but also to avoid he himself getting hurt.

I think the movie shot itself in the foot by not giving us more of them as mentor and mentee, but then the movie has a lot of flaws (what happened to Shauzia in the end? We don't know) and I think they could've benefitted from a longer runtime and bigger budget. ANYWAY.

Idrees, like many young men at the time, was indoctrinated into this ideology, this totalitarian Emirate, this sexism and hatred, with the promise of power and freedom. Using his religion against him, he was made into an extremist, molded by the powers that be to do their bidding. As a young man, he cared only for what it gave him, and used said power to hurt his old teacher whom he perceived as wronging him.

There is no Idrees in the book. No one who fit the bill to be him, either, so unfortunately there's nothing in the source material I can draw from that will directly relate to him. There was also some supplementary material on him in the past that helped the viewer understand him more; however, I've been unable to find this (anyone who has it can let me know). Thank you to the wonderful, helpful commenter, @cmtoto1220, for gifting me the link to Idrees' bio! 😭 It's right here on Tumblr so I'll give you guys the link, but I'll also put Idrees' right here for easy viewing. Thank you so much!! https://44del.tumblr.com/post/671680841272967168/haha-hey-guys-just-a-reminder-to-read-the

(Now if you'll excuse me I'll be giggling, twirling my hair, and kicking my feet :3) Some spoilers for Idrees' character arc: At the end of his time in the movie, he's seen working for his uncle. It's bleak and dirty and black smoke spews from the factory. He and his uncle heckle Parvana and Shauzia (Aatish and Deliwar, respectively; in the book: Kaseem and Shafiq) and we see some of the culture around being a young boy in this time. It's not pretty and very physically violent. We can expect Idrees once had this same treatment and is now throwing his weight around.

When he discovers that Aatish is actually Parvana (the only man who realizes; apparently everyone else is fucking blind), Parvana retaliates in a very well-deserved moment. Let's take a look at it and laugh because it's honestly glorious. Even my fangirl ass loves it.

(He 100% deserved that)

(Decimated by that brick)

Idrees takes one his uncle's guns and the culmination of his character arc begins. The girls have wedged themselves into a crevice where Idrees can't reach them, and Idrees threatens them from outside. It's here we see that he's never actually used a gun (ummm y'all want him to go to war and you haven't taught him how to use a gun? ooookay). He fiddles with it as though trying to figure out how to use it from other men he's seen, all while talking some mad shit.

The gun discharges. The music stops. Idrees kneels there, breathing heavily, his nose bloodied, his eyes wide and fearful. Shit just got real. Too real. Everything he's been taught (see: indoctrinated into) has come to a head.

He scrambles back up the cliff without a word, being called off to war by his (now very angry) uncle. He doesn't speak a single word throughout the rest of the time we see him in this movie. His eyes are wide, he can't catch his breath, and he's carted away to war never to be seen again.

(Classic thousand-yard stare)

Let's be real: in reality, this man without any experience on the battlefield was one of the many, MANY casualties of war. He went out after this experience and died. Most men who go to war die, and most of the men that do are young men who have never seen combat before.

Idrees saw what young men before him had never seen. He saw the power of his gun, he saw that he could take life in an instant. And he didn't like it. That is not the face of a man who revels in violence. That is the face of a man who was traumatized by the very idea of violence. The thought that he could've killed those kids haunts him. Brief edit: Pay attention to the scene in which he gets Nurullah arrested. Before this, he was loud and full of bravado. But afterwards? The way he speaks to Parvana, he sounds so muted, he walks off somberly, as though what he's witnessed here has shaken him. Despite knowing there is no man around to protect this family, Idrees never returns. He never comes back to harass Parvana or her family. Is that regret I smell? Guilt? Fear at what he's become; fear of his own choices?

I didn't pay attention much to Idrees at first. Yes, I saw him, I saw he was an asshole, I remember thinking to myself "oh great this asshole again" when I saw him stalking Parvana and her father (whose name is Nurullah in case you missed it), but I didn't immediately think lemme smash. Even during his last act when he returned, I groaned when I heard his voice and saw him calling the girls over. I was done with this dude.

But then I saw what happened, the conclusion to his arc, and everything started to click for me. The victimization, the fear, the destruction, everything that the Taliban caused for ordinary citizens, applied within as well. Idrees was young and stupid, as most young people are, and thought he could have everything. He was promised everything. But in the end, he had nothing. Just like Parvana forced to endure the horrors of her home so she and her family wouldn't starve. Just like Razaq having lost the only people he cared about. Just like Nurullah rotting in Pul-e-Charkhi.

I have my own tastes. People suffering from guilt after doing horrific things. See: Ominis Gaunt, torturing Muggles and Muggle-borns as a child, filled with guilt, trying to make up for what he's done in every way possible. People with traumatic experiences that follow them everywhere they go. See: Thief King Bakura, witnessing his entire village of Kul Elna being destroyed, his family murdered for the sake of creating the Millennium Items, now on a quest for vengeance. See also: Jet from Avatar: The Last Airbender, witnessing the Fire Nation take everything from him, who then goes on an anarchist crusade against all Fire Nation peoples, regardless of who got in his way. And people who suffer from religious persecution, lies, and deceit. See: Idrees.

So where do I, a fangirl with an interest in Arabic culture, religious trauma and guilt, traumatic experiences, PTSD, redemption arcs, and writing go from here? Well, clearly I write a continuation of Idrees' story. One where he doesn't die in the wars, and is instead haunted by survivor's guilt on top of everything else. Where he develops a mentor and mentee relationship with Razaq, sees through the lies and deception, and makes bold decisions that result in him running from the death that would follow being an apostate. He has to live with what he's done, what he's seen, what he didn't do. He takes great pains to ensure he's never like his past self ever again, never like his father or his uncle or any other Talib.

What he's seen and experienced and didn't do has traumatized him to the point he's trapped, suffocating under the weight of his actions, of feeling like at any point that part of him could come back which manifests in obsessive handwashing and other OCD rituals, flashbacks, panic attacks, anxiety, and self-imposed isolation.

I've done nothing as bad as Idrees. But I also suffer from panic attacks, anxiety, c-PTSD, guilt, intrusive thoughts. I love stories wherein a person is attempting to overcome their past despite drowning in self-hatred and hopelessness. Idrees is the perfect amalgamation of all of these things, the perfect vessel with which to explore these topics.

Plus, he's pretty hot. :)

(Lemme smash)

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Amazing what you can get done when you're not golfing everyday.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 1, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 02, 2024

“This is a very good afternoon,” President Joe Biden said today. “[A] very good afternoon.”

“Today, we’re bringing home Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir—three American citizens and one American green-card holder. 

“All four have been imprisoned unjustly in Russia…. Russian authorities arrested them, convicted them in show trials, and sentenced them to long prison terms with absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever. None.” 

In a complicated prisoner swap involving the U.S., Russia, and at least seven other countries, Americans Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva and British-Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who openly opposed the invasion of Ukraine, came home from Russia. Four German citizens who had also been wrongfully detained—meaning they had not broken laws but were being held as political bargaining chips—were also part of the exchange, along with a fifth who was released from Belarus. 

Also in the swap were seven Russian citizens who had been detained as political prisoners, four of whom worked with Alexei Navalny, the political opposition leader who died in February in a Russian prison. They have left Russia and will make their way to other countries. It is extraordinary that the U.S. government managed to force Putin to release his own citizens, and Biden called it out. “It says a lot about the United States that we work relentlessly to free Americans who are unjustly held around the world,” he said. “It also says a lot about us that this deal includes the release of Russian political prisoners. They stood up for democracy and human rights. Their own leaders threw them in prison. The United States helped secure their release as well. That’s who we are in the United States.

“We stand for freedom, for liberty, for justice—not only for our own people but for others as well. And that’s why all Americans can take pride in what we’ve achieved today.” 

In exchange, Russian president Vladimir Putin got the prisoner he wanted most, hit man Vadim Krasikov, back from Germany. In addition, the U.S. released three Russians, Slovenia released two, and Norway and Poland each released one. All told, eight Russians went home. 

Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that “a group of brave journalists and democracy activists are being exchanged for a group of brutal spies.” The exchange included no money or sanctions relief. 

The U.S. had been calling for the freedom of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as part of the negotiations when he died abruptly in Russian custody in February 2024. His death briefly derailed the negotiations that had been going on since shortly after Biden took office. Even before he took office, he had asked his national security team to dig into all the cases of hostages being wrongfully detained, which they were inheriting from the previous administration. “I wanted to make sure we’d hit the ground running,” Biden said today, “and we did.” 

He noted that with today’s releases, his administration “has brought home over 70 Americans who were wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad, many since before I took office.” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan later noted that the administration has reclaimed U.S. citizens from “Afghanistan, Burma, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Rwanda, and elsewhere.”

Asking Germany to release Krasikov was a big ask, but the government was willing to exchange him for Navalny. After Navalny’s death, it seemed likely the deal could not be revived. But Sullivan believed he saw a way forward, and Biden called German chancellor Olaf Scholz and asked him to continue to move forward. “For you, I will do this,” Scholz said. The president told Sullivan to get it done. In April President Biden sent a formal request to Scholz asking him to make the complicated swap that transpired today. When a reporter today asked Biden what Scholz had demanded in return, Biden answered: “Nothing.”

In his remarks today, Biden emphasized that the deal was “a feat of diplomacy and friendship—friendship. Multiple countries helped get this done. They joined difficult, complex negotiations at my request. And I personally thank them all again.  And I’ve thanked them personally, and I’ll thank them again.”

“This deal would not have been made possible without our allies Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey. They all stepped up, and they stood with us. They stood with us, and they made bold and brave decisions, released prisoners being held in their countries who were justifiably being held, and provided logistical support to get the Americans home. So, for anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do. They matter. 

“And today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world—friends you can trust, work with, and depend upon, especially on matters of great consequence and sensitivity like this. 

“Our alliances make our people safer.”  

Sullivan was clear about where specific praise was due. “Today’s exchange is a feat of diplomacy that honestly could only be achieved by a leader like Joe Biden,” he said at a press conference this afternoon.” He directed the team and was personally engaged in the diplomacy necessary. “There is no more singular or concrete demonstration that the alliances that the president has reinvigorated around the world matter to Americans—to the individual safety of Americans and to the collective security of Americans,” Sullivan said. “And honestly, guys, I can just say this was vintage Joe Biden, rallying…American allies to save American citizens and Russian freedom fighters and doing it with intricate statecraft, pulling his whole team together to drive this across the finish line.” 

Tearing up, Sullivan added, “Today…was a very good day.”

This deal was in the works during the weeks when the press was hounding the president and suggesting he was not fit to do the work of the office. In fact, a senior administration official briefing reporters this morning pointed out that on July 20, an hour before he announced to the nation that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, Biden “was on the phone with his Slovenian counterpart, urging them to make the final arrangements and to get this deal over the finish line.” 

This is the largest prisoner swap since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The administration warned journalists that no one should think that there has been a breakthrough in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia or that tensions have eased. Putin’s continuing attacks on Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and our European partners, as well as his growing defense relationship with China, North Korea, and Iran, all mean that “you will not see a policy change from President Biden or the administration when it comes to standing up to Putin’s aggression as a result of this,” an official said. 

But the deal does suggest that Putin might be finding it in his own interest to look like he might be willing to negotiate on different issues going forward, a reflection of the damage the Ukraine war has inflicted on his own society. Russia has recently pulled its ships from the Sea of Azov, Russian mercenaries just suffered big losses in Mali, and today, Russian media reported that the country’s largest oil refinery was on fire. Putin might also be seeing that Trump’s path to the White House has gotten dramatically steeper in the past couple of weeks. 

Indeed, Putin’s decision to go ahead with the swap was a blow to Trump. Gershkovich was a Wall Street Journal reporter when he was taken into custody in March 2023, and the Wall Street Journal covered the negotiations in quite some depth today. Reporters Joe Parkinson, Drew Hinshaw, Bojan Pancevski, and Aruna Viswanatha noted that Trump got wind that a deal was coming together and began to insist at his rallies and in interviews that Putin would free Gershkovich only for him.

Putin has proven Trump wrong. 

That did not, however, stop Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance from claiming that Trump deserved credit for the swap despite Trump’s insistence that Gershkovich would be released only after Trump was reelected. For his part, Trump didn’t express any joy at all in the deal, simply claiming that Biden got fleeced and saying “[o]ur ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us!”  

And from the Department of Poor Timing, MAGA representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina tweeted this morning: “Biden is MIA. Why is no one talking about it?”

At today’s White House announcement, a reporter noted that former president Trump “has said repeatedly that he could have gotten the hostages out without giving anything in exchange,” and asked President Biden: “What do you say to that?”

“Why didn’t he do it when he was president?” Biden answered.  

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[darkmaga-retard]

The American man who allegedly tried to assassinate Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had visited Kiev and offered his services to Ukraine, but was rejected, the Ukrainian military said on Monday.

Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested on Sunday after the US Secret Service spotted him at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. His social media posts and a self-published book claimed involvement with the Ukrainian military.

On Monday, the Ukrainian Land Forces Command confirmed to CNN that Routh had been in touch with them, but described his ideas as “delusional” and denied having accepted his services at any point.

“He was offering us large numbers of recruits from different countries but it was obvious to us his offers were not realistic,” Aleksandr Shaguri, a military spokesman, told CNN. “We didn’t even answer, there was nothing to answer to. He was never part of the Legion and didn’t cooperate with us in any way.”

Routh espoused multiple “delusional ideas,” Shaguri told the outlet.

In the summer of 2022, Routh visited Ukraine and gave multiple interviews to Western media outlets, presenting himself as a liaison to the government in Kiev and seeking to enlist pro-US fighters from Afghanistan for the Ukrainian cause. In one such interview, Routh told Newsweek Romania journalist Remus Cernea he was recruiting people for the International Legion of Ukraine.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Michael Kosnar and Ryan J. Reilly at NBC News:

WASHINGTON — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange plans to plead guilty to a conspiracy charge this week as part of a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department that will allow him to go free after having spent five years in a British prison, according to court documents. Assange was charged by criminal information — which typically signifies a plea deal — with conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense information, the court documents say. A letter from Justice Department official Matthew McKenzie to U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona of the Northern Mariana Islands District said that Assange would appear in court at 9 a.m. local time Wednesday (7 p.m. ET Tuesday) to plead guilty and that the Justice Department expects Assange will return to Australia, his country of citizenship, after the proceedings.

U.S. charges against Assange stem from one of the largest publications of classified information in American history, which took place during President Barack Obama's first term. Starting in late 2009, according to the government, Assange conspired with Chelsea Manning, a military intelligence analyst, to use his WikiLeaks website to disclose tens of thousands of activity reports about the war in Afghanistan, hundreds of thousands of reports about the war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands of State Department cables and assessment briefs of detainees at the U.S. detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Court documents revealing Assange's plea deal were filed Monday evening in U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean. Assange was expected to appear in that court and to be sentenced to 62 months, with credit for time served in British prison, meaning he would be free to return to Australia, where he was born. “This was an independent decision made by the Department of Justice and there was no White House involvement in the plea deal decision,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement Monday evening.

Assange has been held in the high-security Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London for five years, and he previously spent seven years in self-exile at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London — where he reportedly fathered two children — until his asylum was withdrawn and he was forcibly carried out of the embassy and arrested in April 2019. A superseding indictment was returned more than five years ago, in May 2019, and a second superseding indictment was returned in June 2020.

Assange has been fighting extradition for more than a decade: first in connection with a sex crimes case in Sweden, then in connection with the case against him in the United States. In March, the High Court in London gave him permission for a full hearing on his appeal as he sought assurances that he could rely upon the First Amendment at a trial in the U.S. In May, two judges on the High Court said he could have a full hearing on whether he would be discriminated against in the U.S. because he is a foreign national. A hearing on the issue of Assange's free speech rights had been scheduled for July 9-10. WikiLeaks also published hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee that upended the 2016 presidential race. Russian intelligence officers were subsequently indicted in connection with the hacking in 2018 in a case brought by then-special counsel Robert Mueller. At a joint news conference with then-President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin days later, Trump contradicted the indictment and the intelligence community, saying Putin was "extremely strong and powerful in his denial" that Russians interfered in the 2016 election to help him win.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will return to Australia after he reached a plea deal with the US by pleading guilty.

[leftistfeminista]

In the beginning, there were three giants, punishing a woman for a crime she didn’t commit. They remove her veil and take her to a room where a pipe and broom are in one corner. She had nothing with her except her body, but now she had no control over even that one body anymore. The Taliban use a pipe, broom, their teeth, and body parts for the sexual torture of this woman. They intended to kill her through torture, but she didn’t die; she survived to narrate what had happened to her. This woman is one of the dozens who have had a horrifying and inhumane experience at the hands of the Taliban. In over two years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, women have witnessed various forms of violence. During these two years, women have been detained and imprisoned by the Taliban on various charges. The exact situation these women are going through is not clear. The unsafe environment, especially homes and streets created by the Taliban for women raises the question: How will women fare in surveillance houses and prisons—closed spaces accessible only to the fighters of this group?

A Narrative of Torture in Prison; Women Made into Footballs

After coming to power, the Taliban subjected women to torture in various ways in the streets, security zones, and prisons. They also engaged in rape and sexual harassment. The exact number of women who have suffered sexual harassment by the Taliban and those who have been tortured is unclear due to reasons such as the Taliban’s strict control over the leakage of this information, incidents occurring in closed rooms, cultural norms, and fear of the Taliban if the truth is spoken. Especially in provinces where women are under the Taliban’s captivity and the chains of traditions, many incidents remain hidden due to their cultural “honor norms,” and few are willing to speak about it. Nevertheless, reports and findings indicate that women have experienced sexual and physical violence as well as verbal abuse by the Taliban. The testimonies of those interviewed to document this report confirm this.

Radhika, in an interview with the Hasht-e Subh Daily, said, “Every Taliban militant who passed by us would strike us with fists and kicks. They made footballs out of us.” After Radhika was transferred to the intelligence headquarters of this group, interrogation of her began. An interrogation where each question was accompanied by a beating. When Radhika’s words angered the Taliban, they would strike her head with rifle butts and subject her entire body to beating until evening. She suffered injuries to her head and back, injuries that still haunt her.

Furthermore, Sarah, a young girl falsely imprisoned by the Taliban, speaks of the days she spent in prison: “Every day was torture and agony. I remained silent and never spoke out. One day they told me to come out, and there a man dressed in white and clean clothes asked me to marry him as a condition for my release. But I refused.” At the command of that same man in white clothes, they tied Radhika to a pole and whipped her.

Torture of Sexual Organs and Sexual Assault Against Women

The Taliban do not stop at torture, humiliation, and insult; they also subject women to sexual torture. Once a person is arrested, they no longer have any rights over their body and life. The Taliban consider the individual’s body as their own conquered territory and, gleeful from the spoils obtained, they impose whatever they desire upon them. They unload their entire twenty-year complex of war, terror, explosions, and self-immolation, which they claim to have carried out to preserve the hijab of women and establish Islamic law, onto a woman’s body in captivity.

According to findings from the Hasht-e Subh Daily from Takhar province in the past six months, eight cases of sexual assault against women by the Taliban have occurred. Among these, one incident took place in August last year, where the Taliban security commander, Mawlawi Nasrullah Hazifa, abducted a girl detained in a detention center, transferred her to an undisclosed location, and subjected her to rape. A source speaking to the Hasht-e Subh Daily says, “Takhar security zones are not safe places for girls. A detained woman is either beaten or sexually harassed. If she is more unfortunate or has fallen victim to a specific complex, it gets even worse for her.” “It gets even worse” means sexual assault.

Taliban have private prisons in Kunduz province. Although the number of these prisons is not clear, it is noteworthy that the Taliban have detained several women and transferred them to their private prisons. One of the interviewees had a horrific and heartbreaking experience of sexual harassment in one of these prisons.

Maryam is subjected to sexual harassment by the Taliban in a group setting. They create the situation of Maryam so dire that when her husband sees her, he tells her, “I don’t want you anymore.” Taliban militants go in pairs to the room where Maryam is and torture her. The torture inflicted upon Mayam is so egregious that it shames the writer from even putting it into words, leaving them feeling embarrassed and ashamed.

In a corner of the room where Maryam was, they had placed a hand broom. With that broom and later a pipe, they subjected Maryam to a condition where even speaking, hearing, and writing about it is painful and torturous. However, Maryam endured all this torture in a single day of her life. She recalls that painful moment as follows: “First, they took the broom and hit my breasts and buttocks with it. It’s hard to describe what they did to me, and it’s difficult to say. One of them told the other to take the same pipe and thrust it into her vagina and anus. Then they laughed.” Three Taliban torturers showed Maryam their long robes, saying, “Did you want to defile our robes?” They intended to sexually assault Maryam, she says, “While my resistance was taken away from me, one of them was pulling my breasts while telling the other to thrust the broom into my vagina.”

She remembers only three or four of those who sexually assaulted her. She had been tortured to the extent that the intensity of pain, anger, and torment had robbed her of the ability to see, and she did not want to see what they were doing to her. After extensive torture, new individuals arrive in the evening; they beat Maryam so severely with a pipe that she faints. She doesn’t know how long she was unconscious, but she guesses it was for about an hour. Maryam didn’t know what condition she was in while unconscious, but the signs were evident on her body. “When I opened my eyes, there was a woman in the room; they called her ‘Moor, Moor.’ [In Pashto it means mother, mother!] I didn’t know what she had to do with them.”

After being released, Maryam is brought home. “At my home, when my husband saw my body, my body was a mess, my chest, shoulders, and back were bruised, they had made my entire body black and blue. I couldn’t sit down, and the inner parts of my legs hurt.” After that incident, Maryam’s husband decides to divorce her, but he eventually backs down from this decision. Maryam sells her paternal inheritance and flees to a neighboring country with her husband through smuggling routes.

[mixotrophics]

book: How to Blow Up a Pipeline, Andreas Malm

Malm unpicks the dynamics in activism in the climate movement.

A bulk of activists now days are staunchly nonviolent, saying that nonviolence gives them a "moral high ground".

Malm counters: the "nonviolent" movements of the past were effective from a 'positive radical flank effect': [radicals] stoke up the crisis to a breaking point, [moderates] offer a way out. Nonviolence is reified by the likes of Maria Stephan, then a lead officer of the US Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations in Afghanistan, seeking to protect US interests. Nonviolence can be ignored, until there is a looming threat of radicals/militants which makes capitulating with the nonviolent wing the preferable option. Nonviolence may be a lie and a creation of privilege. Extinction Rebellion (XR) preaches nonviolence, instead opting to get arrested on purpose to create a lot of extra work for the legal system, no wonder XR is so white, to get arrested to flippantly. Such a model is adopted due to the moral high ground and the "wide accessibility" , ignoring that it excludes folks who cannot safely interact with the police. Nonviolent capitulation -- of admitting defeat -- similarly so ... "I am the destruction. It's an aesthetic experience. I may as well laugh at it," says Timothy Morton, "compulsive luxury emitter." Violent/militant resistance works in tandem with moderate wings ... even if, and maybe especially so, if they don't agree and vocalize that disagreement. Do not fetishize a tactic. Strike with diverse strategies.

then: How might we perform direct action for the climate? With precision, planning, clarity of intent. Another XR example: activists stopped a train in the Canning Town tube station in London. It is one of the poorest areas in the UK. Immediate questions: why block public transport, part of the solution to the climate crisis? And why here? A video of the incident, you can hear someone say "I have to get to work. I have to feed my kids." the commuters try to pull the activists down from the train, and an activist kicks one in the face -- a white man, holding up a train in a poor part of a city, kicking a black man in the face. XR went on to call the action "peaceful" and "non-violent". Herein lays the falseness of nonviolence. This cannot happen again. Attack the fcking perpetrators of the climate crisis. There is a difference between "luxury emissions" and "subsistence emissions" and the priority, the clear target right now, is the luxury emissions. Even if subsistence emissions contribute, there is absolute cruelty in demanding the poor stop heating their homes with firewood while allowing the rich to have superyachts ... and the state, if not forced to do otherwise, will tend to crack down on the former before the latter. The statistics Malm provides are staggering. The climate movement has other grim specters to shake off, to study so repeating their mistakes can be avoided. Again, a lack of clarity/specificity. Earth First!, Animal Liberation Front, and Earth Liberation Front all drew from Deep Ecology, that humans are the problem, blames overpopulation and prescribes decreasing the population size, and implicates technology (wind, solar, agriculture, etc included) as part of the problem ... while human-harm was seldom and accidental, the actions were sometimes poorly informed, such as liberating [sic] American mink from farms in the UK and Sweden , massively boosting the issue of that species being invasive in those areas. Works such as Deep Green Resistance read like greenwashed fascist genocide fantasies. these are white-supremacist ideas that run foundational to many parts of the green/eco movement. Be wary, and may your planning for direct action -- whatever it may be -- take such a history into account.

anyways it's short. Read it. Yay :] though if you're feeling Not Great / manic, approach with caution at the moment, I was in fact told to take a break from reading it when I was manic due to the potential for me to do some unplanned, unclear, drastic action in emotional fury. We are worth more to the movement alive than dead, free than in jail.

[bullet-prooflove]

Real: Vostinik Sabatino x Reader

Tagging: @thiashazzywriting @words-and-seeds @novamariestark @whateversomethingbruh @reneejett4 @trublu2u @stelacole

It’s Joelle that sends everything into flux.

The revelation that her entire relationship with Callen was a lie, that she was actually a CIA officer who’d been tasked with keeping an eye on him. Nik sees how much it rocks you, until then Callen had been infallible and now…

He wants to say It’s irreprehensible but the truth is he’s done the same thing. It’s how the two of you met. He’d been cultivating a relationship as Roger Adams when you’d arrested him for murder.

He sees the moment it hits you, the realisation that if Callen can be manipulated for that long then so can you. Your gaze flicks up to meet his from across the room and he sees the instant your world comes crashing down. You look away, your jaw clenching and he knows that you’re doubting his intentions.

Up until then, you had believed everything he’d told you about taking down a rogue organisation within the CIA,  not knowing that NCIS was the target. Now he can see you questioning it, going back over your relationship, looking for signs of deception.

When he disappears later on that day, leaving nothing but a pair of handcuffs in his midst you take it as a sign. The mission’s over, there’s no reason for him to stick around.

You’re numb when you get home, so fucking numb you can barely function. You find yourself sitting on the couch in front of the TV, seeing but not watching. You replay it all from the very beginning, that first kiss during the Sidrorov case to Afghanistan and then everything after. You can see the workings of the ruse going back over two years, drawing you in with personal details, developing intimacy. You wish you’d never let your guard down. You wish you’d never met him.

You don’t expect him to turn up at your door. He’s wearing his civvies, worn jeans he’s had since his days in the band, and a black t-shirt that’s seen better days. The cut on his forehead is held together with butterfly stitches, the black eye that Deeks had given him becoming more pronounced.

This conversation, it’s too sensitive to have on the doorstep so you allow him inside. He follows you into the kitchen, leaning against the work surface as he watches you turn on the kettle.

“I’m not Joelle.” He says, breaking the silence between the two of you. “Everything I feel for you it’s real, it’s…”

He trails off struggling to find the words. He doesn’t know what the right thing to do is here, how to fix this. The two of you were solid before all of this shit and now you’re looking at him like he’s a stranger.

“You are the only person that knows me, the real me.” He tells you, his voice breaking as he looks away. “You don’t understand that you saved me Alana, really you don’t.”

He was a dead man walking when he met you. Owned by the CIA, controlled by them, numb to everything outside of the mission. It was sitting in the car during the stakeout that changed everything, being with you, laughing with you, kissing you. It had been the first time he felt alive in years.

“If I didn’t make my feelings clear enough, if I haven’t shown you how much you mean to me, that’s my fault. You need to know that this is real, that what we have means everything to me…”

He steps forward, his hands cradling your face as he looks into your eyes.

“I love you.” He tells you, his voice filled with sincerity. “I have since the moment we met.”  

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[dzthenerd490]

News Post

Palestine

Palestinian killed in attacks by Israeli settlers in occupied West Bank | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Man Arrested For Raising Palestine Flag On Independence Day In Bhopal: Cops (ndtv.com)

Malaysia, in solidarity ‘with people of Palestine’, welcomes wounded fleeing Israel-Gaza war | South China Morning Post (scmp.com)

Why Arab regimes' betrayal of Palestine may come back to haunt them | Middle East Eye

Ukraine

Ukraine war live updates: Kursk attack will force Russia to negotiate, says Zelensky aide - BBC News

Disarray in Putin’s military command exposed by Ukraine’s attack in Russia, says Zelensky’s chief adviser | The Independent

Russia-Ukraine war live news: Ukrainian unit with NATO weapons destroyed | News | Al Jazeera

Why Ukraine’s swift push into Kursk shocked Russia | AP News

Sudan

A just and sustainable peace in Sudan is possible | Conflict | Al Jazeera

South Sudan's security bill allowing warrantless arrests becomes law - ABC News (go.com)

Sudan ceasefire talks collapse - GZERO Media

Sudan government to reopen Adre border crossing amid hunger crisis | CNN

Other

US, Qatar and Egypt say mediators will work to finalise Gaza ceasefire deal | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera

Mpox has killed 548 people in DR Congo since start of 2024, says government (lemonde.fr)

Hundreds of cases of femicide recorded in Afghanistan since Taliban takeover are ‘tip of the iceberg’ | Afghanistan | The Guardian

The Taliban are celebrating 3 years in power, but they’re not talking about Afghans | AP News

Ethiopia, Egypt And South Africa: Pursuing Relationships Within And Beyond BRICS – Analysis – Eurasia Review

China's foreign minister meets with Myanmar's military boss as civil war strains their relations | AP News

Rights group claims Myanmar’s Rohingya being targeted in ethnic cleansing   (voanews.com)

What does China really want from Myanmar? - Nikkei Asia

Mauritania-Mali: a new point of conflict in the Sahelian hornet's nest (atalayar.com)

[mariacallous]

Concerns in Central Europe are mounting over the increased availability of opioids and an associated rise in deaths. Better monitoring is key to preventing a US-style epidemic, say experts.

“Fentanyl, Duch, Zuromin – these are word symbols… of this poison of the 21st century that is fentanyl and other narcotics, which are taking a deadly toll around the world and are starting to do so in Poland also,” Donald Tusk said in a video posted on the X platform on June 25.

“Nobody who is involved in this accursed business of narcotics will be safe. We will get them. I guarantee you that,” the Polish prime minister vowed.

Tusk’s video followed the arrest of five people, including a notorious drug dealer nicknamed Duch (“The Spirit”), in the small town of Zuromin in Mazowsze county, central Poland.

Interviewed by Polish media like Gazeta Wyborcza, locals in Zuromin would only speak on condition of anonymity about Duch, the drug dealer who had been active in the community for the past 15-20 years, allegedly with the knowledge or even complicity of the local police.

The town of 8,500 had, in the previous months, become a symbol of Polish society’s problems with illegal drugs, after a 36-year-old man died in February of an overdose, with his family claiming the synthetic opioid fentanyl was the culprit. After the death of the 36-year-old man, police from other cities in Mazowsze were brought in to help deal with the situation in Zuromin, leading to two arrests in May and these further five on June 25.

For years, Adam Ejnik, a local teacher and journalist, has been documenting deaths associated with narcotics in the small town, with his count, quoted widely by Polish media, reaching 100 to date.

The spread of fentanyl on Poland’s illegal drug market has been observed for months, with the first death attributed to its abuse, that of a 19-year old woman, occurring in November in the western city Poznan. The Main Sanitary Inspectorate has counted 48 cases of overdosing with the substance this year alone.

That’s tiny compared to America’s epidemic of powerful synthetic opioids that is killing 75,000 people a year and devastating communities. Yet experts and government officials in Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia warn that the number in this part of Europe is likely to keep rising as heroin supplies dwindle and fentanyl’s relative cheapness, strength and increasing availability takes its toll.

“While the estimated death rate from drug overdose is around 15 times less in Europe compared to the US, we should not leave any signals unseen or unreacted to,” warns Isabelle Giraudon, principal scientist at the EU Drugs Agency (formerly the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction).

Smack, bang, wallop

The arrests in Poland followed a report by the EU Drugs Agency, published on June 11, which warned that while synthetic opioids like fentanyl currently play a relatively small role in the drug market in Europe overall, “they are a significant problem in some countries and there are signals that they could have the potential to play a larger role in Europe’s drug problems in the future.”

The agency noted that in 2023 seven new synthetic opioids were detected by the EU Early Warning System on new psychoactive substances in at least 16 EU member states, Norway and Turkey, with six of them belonging to the highly potent group of nitazene opioids. Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin, but nitazenes can be 40 times more potent than fentanyl. In 2023, outbreaks of poisonings and overdoses involving nitazenes were reported in five European countries.

Much of the mounting concern centres on the reduced availability of heroin in Europe as a result of the Taliban’s ban on opium production in Afghanistan, which could create the conditions for greater availability and use of synthetic opioids as either a substitute for heroin or for cutting it with heroin. Latest figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for 2023 show an estimated 95 per cent decline both in cultivation and in illicit opium production in Afghanistan compared to 2022.

“Fentanyl can be added to heroin due to reduced opium poppy production in Afghanistan,” explains Dominika Jasekova from the Slovak civic association Odyseus, noting that she has already encountered one such death due to a fentanyl overdose.

For now at least, there still seems to be a steady supply of heroin into Europe despite the Taliban’s poppy ban. Max Daly, a journalist and author specialising in writing about drugs and crime tells BIRN that is due to the existence of large amounts of stockpiled opium and heroin, mainly in Afghanistan.

Daly says another reason why drug trafficking gangs who supply Europe’s heroin markets have so far refused to follow the Mexican cartels in swapping out heroin for cheaper synthetic opioids is the nature of the drugs market in Europe, which is dominated by ethnic groups and clans based in the Balkans who have been smuggling drugs for generations. By contrast, heroin supplies to North America have typically been more sporadic, coming via the Mexican cartels or Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle 6,000 miles away.

“For the Mexicans, fentanyl or its precursors are easy to ship from China. For Europe’s traffickers, all the heroin they need comes into Turkey, which sits on the edge of Europe,” Daly says.

Furthermore, there are few signs that synthetic opioid production laboratories are being set up in a major way in Europe. Fentanyl for the US market is made in Mexico using precursor chemicals imported from China via a network of brokers. And while the Economist reported recently that “Mexican cooks versed in fentanyl production have set up in Europe”, there is little sign of that happening in Central Europe.

A new movie called Fentasy, based on a book by the former Slovak police investigator and writer Michal Cierny, depicts the story of a fentanyl manufacturer in Bratislava, but the last bust of a fentanyl laboratory in Slovakia was back in 2011, when police seized 4.3 kilos of fentanyl valued at 240,000 euros. There have so far been no reports of labs operating in Czechia or Poland.

However, Daly says it seems that some localised suppliers in Europe rather than organised crime groups are trying out synthetic opioids in their product, “so you get occasional local rises of synthetic opioids found in heroin and sometimes in black market opioids or benzo pills, and this is noticed via a rise in ODs, sometimes deaths.”

“Synthetic opioids – plus ‘benzo dope’, which is a mix of benzodiazepines such as xylazine plus opioids – have been popping up more often in Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, France, Ireland and the UK,” he adds.

The EU Drugs Agency said that at least 163 deaths were associated with fentanyl and its derivatives in Europe in 2022, but most of them were associated with fentanyl diverted from medical use as opposed to fentanyl produced for the illicit drug market.

Patched up

When the Polish police arrested Duch and his accomplices on June 25, they seized 300 medical fentanyl patches.

Those patches, like other forms of medical fentanyl, are only available on prescription, and are normally meant for oncological patients in palliative care. In their case, the high addictiveness of fentanyl is considered worth the benefit of the pain relief. But in most other cases, doctors do not think the addiction risk warrants prescribing the drug.

Fentanyl users typically boil the patches and inject the extract. In early March, the youth-oriented Slovak website refresher.sk featured an interview with a man named Marek who had tried fentanyl with a friend. They mixed the extract from a fentanyl patch with marijuana and smoked it using a bong.

“I’d say that the heavy body was separated from the consciousness, which was like on a cloud,” Marek recounted, adding that his friend then got into his car and crashed it. “The effects lasted several hours.”

In 2019, the Slovak authorities dismantled an organised group that had two doctors prescribing fentanyl patches in excessive amounts. In Czechia, too, fentanyl patches have long been found on the black market. “These [fentanyl] patches come from pharmaceutical distribution,” explained Jakub Frydrych, head of the national anti-drug centre. “It is either a resale from authorised patients, or a leak from the sales chain.”

It is also apparent that one of the main avenues for procuring opioids in Poland is by abusing the system of issuing online prescriptions that developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For example, in June the police arrested an oncologist working at one of the main hospitals in Poznan, whom authorities found had issued 800 prescription for synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, to one of her patients who had never used them. Along with the doctor, the police arrested a man that allegedly bought the prescriptions from her and later used them to obtain the drugs at the pharmacy.

The media and other observers in Poland have for years been warning about how online receptomaty (“prescription vending machines”) are issuing prescriptions for opioids or benzodiazepines (depressants) without any doctor properly checking the medical history of the patients or doing any physical exam. Typically, a user in Poland can easily find such an online clinic that requires only filling in a questionnaire and, in some cases a short phone call, to issue such prescriptions.

Polish doctors also too readily prescribe large quantities of such drugs at the request of patients, who end up using them for much longer than advisable or even sharing them with others.

“When the regular Pole thinks about fentanyl, they think about the black market, dealers and organised crime,” Eryk Matuszkiewicz, a toxicologist from a Poznan hospital, told oko.press. “But I see another problem: in Poland, fentanyl is available practically to anyone.”

“Among us doctors, there are also black sheep who would do anything for money,” he added. “If the patient insists, they’ll write up a prescription, going beyond what is recommended.”

The media have also reported cases where users can purchase opioids, including fentanyl, on websites or social media channels, with pickups possible at specific locations and without physical contact with the dealer.

According to the EU Drugs Agency, in March 2023 Polish police and several US law enforcement agencies shut down an operation based in Poland that supplied wholesale quantities of psychoactive medicines, including fentanyl and oxycodone, to the US and the UK. “These medicines were traded on the surface web. The vendor obtained legitimate products and then repackaged them for sale online,” the agency said. “Over 25,000 tablets were estimated to have been traded, and authorities seized over 12,500 tablets ready to be shipped.

In mid-June, Polish Health Minister Izabela Leszczyna announced that the authorities would intensify controls over all prescriptions for opioids, including fentanyl, issued in Poland.

Lack of data

While it’s clear the illicit trade in fentanyl patches and other synthetic opioid pills in Central Europe is a growing problem, there seems to be little understanding, even among experts, as to whether their use as an illicit drug is just marginal in these countries or, whether, on the contrary, the publicised cases represent just the tip of the iceberg.

A lack of official data is hampering efforts to combat it. David Pesek, head of the Czech drug addiction prevention non-profit Sananim, said there is no official data available, but fentanyl is estimated to claim a few dozen lives every year. In 2022, Czech police launched 15 criminal proceedings for distribution or possession of the synthetic opioid.

“For Poland, there is only one source of data used, the general mortality register, and no other data is reported from other sources such as forensic or police laboratories,” Giraudon, the principal scientist at the EU Drugs Agency, tells BIRN, meaning it is difficult to assess whether the information is complete or whether the number of drug-related deaths is being underestimated.

The Polish police did not respond to a BIRN request about the number of fentanyl-related deaths and arrests countrywide.

“It is crucial to build a better system of monitoring and early warning, using multiple sources of information, so as to be able to anticipate and react fast when there are signals of a serious health threat related to drugs,” Giraudon says. “A crisis related to fentanyl or another potent opioid can develop very quickly.”

Although an opioid epidemic like in the US is less likely because the context in Europe is different in so many ways, the journalist and writer Max Daly says there is still a chance it could happen if a major supplier decides to swap out heroin for synthetic opioids, maybe with the help of Mexican chemists, regardless of what happens in Afghanistan.

“The key thing is to have very good monitoring in Europe, testing drugs seized and in the body post mortem, so we know what’s going on,” he says.

[sunshinerapmonster]

The Saregeant's Daughter - Chapter 11 Jay

"I feel like it's going to be different"

Chicago PD S7 EP 14: Center Mass

Exiting Goodwin Office after talking with the suspect about how the suspected shooter wasn't carrying a gun at all but a leaf blower.

"I saw you throwing googly eyes at Voight's niece," Antonio said as the elevator door closed.

"I wasn't, you're just seeing things" I lied as I scratched my neck.

"Lair, do you got a thing for her?"

"Not really, she is cute though," I said as we exited the elevator and walked towards the emergency room when I knew deep down that I had a thing for her.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," he said chuckling.

I saw Madeline glaring at Will like she was killing him with her eyes, she talked with him before leaving him shocked.

"Antonio I will be back," I said walking away from him without waiting for a response.

I tapped Madeline's shoulder and she turned around to face me, "Yeah, how can I hel-oh Jay hey," she said lowering the iPad from her face.

"Hey, sorry about that horrible hello," I said chucking.

"Oh no, it's fine don't worry about it we were both busy"

"I just wanted to make sure we were both cool," I said shoving my hands into my jeans pockets.

"Yeah, we are good. I didn't know you were a detective" she said pointing over at at my badge.

"Well you never asked what I did for work," I said smirking.

She smiled at me, "Well Detective Halstead is there anything else you need?"

"Actually, yeah," I said pulling out his phone, "Can I get your number?"

"Ask Dr.Halstead for it. I bet he won't mind" she said winking at me and walking away from me.

I nodded my head and smirked at her as she walked away from me swinging her hips a bit, I went to look for Antonio and saw him talking with Will.

"Hey man," Will said greeting me with a side hug.

"Hey," I said, "I have a question for you"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"I was wondering if I could have Dr. Sanchez's number," I said handing him my phone.

Antonio hit my shoulder, "Now remember Halstead she is your sergeant's niece, remember what happened last time with Erin" he said.

"I feel like it's going to be different" I mumbled.

"Yeah, here you go," He said handing me back my phone, "Now just so you know Madeline is rich she is getting close to Rhodes who is also rich"

"Like the ones who own that big fancy shop or whatever?" Antonio said.

"Bingo"

-

"Jay, we gotta go," Hailey said standing in front of my desk.

"Oh yeah, sorry," I said getting up from my desk and grabbing my jacket.

"You good?"

"Yeah I'm good"

I pulled up to the homeless shelter where Vanessa was waiting for us.

"I talked to Platt. She was going through Roberto's priors. He got jammed up last week here. Outside this church" she said.

"Why wasn't that in his file?" Hailey asked as we walked up the steps.

"It was just a contact card. Responding officers didn't arrest him. I mean, this could be where he's been living" she said.

"Excuse us, Hey Chicago PD. You serve?" I said walking up to a blue tent.

"Iraq, four tours," the homeless man said.

"I did two tours in Afghanistan. This is, uh, Officer Rojas, Detective Upton. I'm Detective Halstead" I said pointing at each of them.

He stood up from his seat, "Alex" he threw his glove onto the chair he was sitting on.

"We're looking for information on Roberto Peña," I said showing him a picture on my phone.

"Yeah, I know Roberto"

"He stays here?"

"On and off. Not like you need a key" he said.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Hailey asked.

"I don't know. Maybe two weeks ago?"

"Did he get into trouble around here?"

"Nah, he was all right. He was a big talker. Serious dope fiend. What'd he do?"

"He was murdered," Vanessa said staring him down.

"Damn, what happened?"

"We don't know yet? Does he have any friends around here?" I asked as I looked at him.

"He, uh, usually hung out with Sammy the T"

"Who's that?" Vanessa said.

He pointed up and we all turned to look up at the second-floor balcony.

-

"Sarge!" Hailey said from her desk.

I got up from my desk and walked towards her desk.

"What do we get?"

"I followed up on the T-shirt guy's story about going to an AA meeting with Roberto, so this is security footage from the community center, and this is from an auto shop down the block" Hailey said pointing at the screen that showed the CCTV footage.

"Blue pickup," Voight said.

"Imma run that plate," I said rushing over to my desk to run the plate.

"Zero, one, X-Ray, nine, four, king, two" Antonio said reading the plate to me.

I ran down the plate as everyone watched the video, "Drivers got a gun on him" Voight said.

"Sammy was telling the truth," Hailey said looking over at Hank.

"Time stamps say 7:12. That's a few hours before Roberto was killed," Adam said.

As I ran the plates a profile popped up on my screen, "All right, here we go. Blue 2011 Ford. Belongs to Joe Mason. Convicted felon, recently paroled out of stateville on an attempted murder beef. LKA's a house in Elsdon" I said reading the information off my screen to everyone.

"Okay, Jay, you and Hailey get over there. Stand by for a warrant" Hank said.

-

Hailey and I sat in my car looking at the building where the suspect might be hiding.

"Okay, Jay what's up with you? And don't lie" she said.

"It's Madeline the woman I told you about and how I found out she is Voight niece"

"What about her?" She asked.

"Well, you know how that shooting happened this morning?"

"Yeah, you and Antonio went down to Med to talk with Goodwin"

"Well after talking with Will and Antonio. He mentioned how things went last time with Erin" I said.

"Explain"

"Well me and Erin dated for a while. Then she left for the FBI and you officially became my partner, but anyway Erin was like a daughter to Hank and officially Madeline is blood-related to him also do you think it would be wried if I ended up dating her you think  she knew about it." I said turning to face her.

She took a deep breath, "Listen, Jay, maybe things will work with Madeline and maybe she did know about you both or she didn't depending on how close they were, or maybe there are certain things they kept from each other, and one of them happened to be your relationship between you guys " she said looking at her watch.

"Really. There our truck" I said as it pulled up.

"You ready?"

"Yeah, let's go"

We got out of the car and made us towards the suspect.

"Joe Mason? Chicago PD. You got a second?" I asked him.

He opened the fence gate and booked it, "5021 Henry. Got an offender fleeing on foot. Male, black, 5'10, black jacket, blue jeans" Hailey said over the radio.

I followed right behind the suspect as he ran from us, he jumped a fence that managed to slow him down, and I tackled him down by the legs.

"Put your arms up," I said as I tried to put handcuffs.

Hailey then ran towards us with her gun out, "Keep your hands where I can see them"

"I didn't do anything, man," he said.

"Yeah, where's the fire, Joe?" I said.

"5021 Henry. Advise units to disregard. Offender in custody"

"What's is this? What is this?" I said showing him a bag of heroin from his jean pants.

"It's not mine, dog"

"Yeah? Unless it's sugar, you're coming in. Put your hands behind your back.

-

"Saw the sneaker that we found at the church?" Adam said hanging up the picture of the bloody shoes onto the board.

"Yeah?"

"They're identical to Sammy's. And the sole pattern and size are an exact match to the prints we found at the demo house" I said.

"All right, where we at in Joe Mason's alibi?" Hank said.

"We got three witnesses—put him at a party same time as the murder," Antonio said with his arms crossed against his chest as sat on Adam's desk.

"Sammy Logan's starting to look good for this" Hank said looking over at Vanessa who was standing right by Hailey's desk.

"Yeah, problem is, we can't him anywhere. We've been circulating photos of him all over the neighborhood. No one's seen him" Hailey said.

"We've been checking city shelter logs, he's been in and out of a few for the last two years never stays," Vanessa said looking over at Hank.

"Well, Sammy got some kind of file or a case worker?"

"Yeah, over in Lincoln Park"

"All right, get a subpoena for his medical records, talk to the case worker, and see what can you find"

-

I opened the door holding the iPad in my right hand, "Hey, I just off the phone with CPIC. Some guy tried to cash an SSI check in our homicide victim's name. Roberto Peña " I said.

"What? Someone's pretending to be him?" Hailey said looking at the iPad.

"When was this?" Hank asked.

"This is 45 minutes ago at a currency exchange in Homan Square," I said showing them the CCTV footage.

"I'll be damned. Pause that" Hailey said as I paused it for her.

"That matches the guy Sammy just described," Vanessa said looking at all of us.

"And it's a clear image too, bet you a bourbon we get a hit on facial rec," I said.

-

"Eduardo Salazar. Been in the run from Miami, Florida since 2015" Antonio said placing pictures on the board.

"What's he running from?" Hank asked sitting on Kim's desk.

"Double murder, he killed a cop. He, uh, robbed a bank in Dade County. Killed the clerk, then he killed the responding officer" Adam said.

"FBI has been looking for that dude for a long time," Kevin said.

"Notice how Salazar and Roberto look similar?" Hailey said sitting on top of her desk.

"Salazar hands around the homeless. He's looking for the right physical match. He finds Roberto, and makes sure he doesn't have any family or close friends" Vanessa said standing right by Hailey.

Ever since Vanessa joined the Unit, Hailey and Vanessa have been next to each other and become close friends Vanessa even stays with Hailey.

"And then slits his throat and steals his identity"

"We talk to the feds?" Hank asked the girls.

"I spoke to the SAC in the Miami field office. She's sending over files" Adam said.

"They got any leads?"

"There is an anonymous tip that Salazar was spotted in Homan Square, but it came up dry," Antonio said.

"Not dry anymore," I said.

"This guy killed the police, let's find his ass," Hank said.

-

"Chicago PD" I yelled out as I used a ram to break down the door.

I followed Adam into the house and we cleared the house.

"The girls got the girlfriend out in the backyard," Kevin said.

"She lawyered up and spit in my face for good measure," Hailey said walking up to us.

"All right, anything on her phone?" Hank asked.

"Salazar texted her a few hours ago, and then he shuts his phone off. The texts said chasing more Roberto paper. We're almost there, baby. Punta Mita soon" I said looking at the phone.

"Punta Mita?"

"It's a beach town in Mexico," I said answering Hailey's question.

"Sounds like he's getting his new identity in order then making a run to the border," Vanessa said.

"All right, so keep monitoring the phone. Let's get a couple of cars down here in case comes home. And check all nearby businesses, anywhere he could be setting up a new identity. I know it's a needle in a haystack, but it's worth a shot" Hank said.

Jay Master List

intro 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Book Two

[queersatanic]

"Lucien Greaves" on the Oklahoma City Bombing and bad PR

Via The.Satanic.Wiki

On Sept. 11, 2003, future co-owner of The Satanic Temple Doug “Lucien Greaves” Misicko, his friend and collaborator Shane Bugbee, and Shane Bugbee’s wife Amy Stocky hosted a 24-hour Internet radio stream with guests and callers to mark the release of their new edition of the proto-fascist manifesto Might Is Right. This is an excerpt from that recording.

CW: terrorism, praise of white nationalist violence, misogyny

Full transcript:

Shane Bugbee: Yeah, no, but that Waco- that Waco chunk was given to us by a guy in Waco. One of the survivors had half his body burned off, that we just played. And that's something that a doc, a gentleman doing a documentary had done. And he couldn't get it released, couldn't get it played anywhere. Nothing. And he basically just gave it to those- the fine folks at the Branch Davidian. And, um... that was it. They distributed to who they thought was trustworthy and such, and I wanted to disseminate that information for you. I'd like to hear if anyone is listening. Get on the chat boards at RadioFreeSatan.com. Leave a voicemail message at RadioFreeSatan.com. I think the number is... I'll get you the number in a second.

Amy Bugbee: A major person who did help pass around Day 51 was Tim McVeigh.

Shane Bugbee: Yeah, exactly. That was one of the people that gave it to and we're trying to live to- some people call McVeigh a terrorist and American terrorist. I call him an American hero. Okay?

Amy Bugbee: That's right. And I just finished reading American Terrorist, Timothy McVeigh story, and it's... fascinating. It's really a shame and the major- the thing that he was most upset about what the Oklahoma City bombing was the fact that the children dying outshined what the message was he was trying to convey by blowing up the building. And it's a real shame. He said, if he would have known that there were- there was a daycare center in there, he would have picked a different target because of that.

Doug Misicko: All right, that was the biggest mistake. And of course, it was easy for the media to take that away.

Shane Bugbee: What was the biggest mistake?

Doug Misicko: The fact that there was kids in there.

Shane Bugbee: That was your... you consider that a mistake?

Doug Misicko: Well, it's a PR mistake.

Shane Bugbee: Who gives a fuck? They're cops' kids. The only thing that would be better is if the cops were inside that building as the kids in the fucking wives got to watch their fucking husbands burn like pigs.

Doug Misicko: True, but he didn't generate any support.

Shane Bugbee: He wouldn't have no matter what he does he could fire a gun up in the air, he's gonna get arrested and treated like an asshole.

Doug Misicko: Nonetheless, anytime a cunt like Janet Reno runs amok and pulls a Waco, you're gonna produce hundreds of more McVeigh's or people that McVeigh mindset it's like they say about Iraq now. Or Afghanistan. You know, whereas you might have had one Osama bin Laden, now you have legions.

Shane Bugbee: Now when you talk about "bad PR", the real powerful folk don't give a fuck about bad PR. You think the- the Bush folks or people that go into Ruby Ridge and slaughter a pregnant woman, slaughter 14-year-old kid, shooting them two times in the back, all that bullshit? They didn't give a fuck about mowing down those kids at Waco. They did that shit so incredibly intense. Man, we saw this video where they've got- they've got infrared cameras above Waco and they're showing guys with M-16s sharpshooting in where the kids and women are running out. The fucking cop- and the army guys are shooting at these kids and- they don't give a fuck. They don't give a fuck about bad PR, do they?

Doug Misicko: Yeah, they figured they can cover the PR. You look at...

Shane Bugbee: Nah, it's about fear. They fucking scared everyone in the fucking listening again.

Doug Misicko: People don't believe it'll happen. Why do you think Junior's crew now is trying to buy out radio?

[radiomonkeys2]

Courtesy of Salvamakoto

Drugatsko is a terrifically ultraviolent person in her own right, persisting in a skullthrone she built herself. Drugatsko's skullthrone is decorated extensively in blood and gore, rotting and disgusting and replenished often. She crushes the skulls of any passerby with her bare hands and feasts on his brains. You even have Drugatsko's Sea— a massive body of blood and water. A sea formed from the blood of opponents Drugatsko herself slaughtered, so deep and mighty that it has its own weather where thunderstorms of blood wash the lands. Warriors are baptized in these bloody storms. Drugatsko's Sea has altered the climate of the surrounding area since it regularly rains and storms blood. There's blood condensation. There are tornadoes of blood! And perhaps most disturbingly, Drugatsko's Sea is just the first of multiple seas of blood she's left; it's merely the primary one she claims ownership over. Not to mention that she eagerly commands the Devastators to create their own seas of blood and mountains of corpses and skeletons, and they are more than happy to live up to that wish.

She is the archetypal Chaotic Yaban, one who lives for the thirst of blood and battle day-in and day-out, except with the added trait that she’s a god-empress of a planet of war freaks. In fact, Drugatsko did the impossible and cultivated a world even more war-obsessed than Kollidor, if that’s even possible— and did it out of HUMANS no less. Humans are warlike, to be fair, but we have a variety of traits that keep us from crossing over into becoming the Space Orcs we believe ourselves to be. There are far more warlike races in the cosmos. There are more warlike races on Earth if you want to be technical, including felines, ants, and chimpanzees. Human violence is exaggerated due to our technology and stupidly-large social groups. Yabans are still exponentially more violent than humans will ever be. Still, the Devastators show just how brutal humans could be if we were purposed for war as an innate value. They live as if Khorne has released their Chaotic bloodlust, in a world where Khorne doesn't even exist.

At a good bit over 400 years old, Drugatsko lives Yulaan's dream. Yulaan has dreamt often about turning Earth into a Mezara-like martial dystopia, a world where warriors are celebrated, honored, and rule, where hatreds drive conflict and war is an ever-present fact of life. Yulaan would love nothing more than to break Earth into ever-warring factions and ignite that human warrior spirit. But she is restricted by the rules of her arrest and has taken herself to respect what humans want and found a compromise: don't mess with the global order.  Contrast this existence with Drugatsko, who eagerly conquered Mezara as soon as she landed upon it and indulged gleefully in her Yaban battle tendencies to their maximal extent. And now, 400+ years later, she is living the Yaban dream, crushing skulls casually, killing thousands daily, and vanishing planets with powerful qi to the cheers of her bloodthirsty subjects, this ten trillion-man horde of insane warriors who call her their Ultra Khan. This hypermasculine mass of men wild with aggression and adrenaline living every day for war and combat.  Vicious martial barbarians clad in road warrior death armor, freaking out on adrenaline-fueled internecine aggression, with proto-nexcidious berserker tendencies galore. Drugatsko is a classic Yeren bolloi, vicious and overwhelming, and she has pre-empted the New Libertines movement on Kollidor just by way of circumstance. She is allowed to endlessly indulge in her own base Yaban impulses nowadays thanks to her few centuries of planning and coordination, transforming Mezara from what was essentially Planet Afghanistan into a Mad Max Sparta in Space. She lives the high life by Yaban standards, one of pure slaughter, combat, and conquest. And it's an extraordinarily hypermasculine existence, with all that brings with it. (Warning: this next part gets a bit gender studies-y) In that first Drugatsko post, I put it in no unclear terms that Devastators are a society ruled by male supremacy. So much so that they're unisexual— there is no such thing as a "female Devastator." And that's because Drugatsko herself killed them all when she first came to Mezara, long before they became the Devastators.  When Yulaan returns to Earth to tell of her bloodsoaked adventures on Gorta, her description of Devastator society seems to run horribly at odds with the fact they have a female god-emperor. Drugatsko is, after all, a bolloi. And yet Devastators seem to be as hot-bloodedly macho as they come, even showing clear disdain and hatred for Drugatsko on the basis of her sex. Heck, the whole reason Yulaan even gets employed by Drugatsko is because a warlord named Yasimbata defected from Drugatsko's empire precisely because of his hatred over her rule and just so happened to set up camp on Planet Gorta.  What confuses the Earthlings even more is why Yulaan agrees with Drugatsko's methods and ideology. But the answer comes back to the cold fact that Drugatsko is, again, a bolloi. She is a Yaban, a creature of war and conflict. Misogynistic hatred of herself is a form of conflict, one that she adores and always breeds hatreds and bloody desires. Devastators only ever get to enjoy the feel of the female body in battle and conquest (in horrible ways that need no description here) because Drugatsko took theirs from them long ago and, as a bolloi, refuses to offer herself as recompense. For those who aren't gay in this barbarian-BDSM-looking society, it's just frustrating to be under the bootheel of a not-unattractive dame forever closed and forever stronger than yourself while also being told that you, as a man, are superior to those weak pathetic females of the cosmos and should always indulge in your manly fighting spirit. It's a deliberate tactic by Drugatsko to keep the blood running hot at all times.

The raw, powerful misogyny Drugatsko spread often blows back against her as many of her own subjects despise her for being female. They are raised to hate femininity and desire to dominate it in all manners. They are told from birth that they, as men and as warriors of power, are superior to the weak pathetic females who once infested this planet and arrested their collective manly fighting spirit. That females are to be penetrated, violated, dominated, mastered, and discarded when used up. That females are creatures of peace and passivity, kind and gentle sensitivity, of romance and delicate emotions, of sass and spice, of submission and vulnerability— and they are men of might and glory, physical force and war, of creative destruction and matters of steel. Let no king rule you forever. Plunge your sword into his neck when he looks the other way. Bang your fist against his skull and blind him from the impact. Seek power at all times. This is the rule of Male Supremacy! Scream it loud unto the heavens. Let the gods tremble before the men of war. Fight, feast, and fuck all you can, you mighty men! Seek and destroy, all ye mighty!!

Oh, and your brutalitarian god-khan is female. And not even an ugly mannish one, besides her battle scars and muscles. Drugatsko is a she and she never hides this fact. In fact, she might very well be the manliest person on Mezara because of that, because she had to overcome her femalehood to achieve a brutalitarian iron fisted rule.

On a planet that's basically "What if 1980s hypermasculine action movies, but in a timeline where the Fascists and Futurists won," her manly subjects despise her on principle. They must learn to disrespect and disregard her voice, put back into their place only by her use of bellicose force and her powerful will. 

But she and Yulaan both understand why that's the point. It's something humans might not be able to understand. A bolloi facing misogyny, a bolloi being disrespected and told to get back in the kitchen, is exactly what she wants. Of course she's not going to do it. Tell a bolloi to get back in the kitchen when she isn't intending on cooking anything and you're going to get punched in the throat. But it's not because she demands to be respected or wants equal rights with you— Yabans don't understand the concept anyhow. She openly welcomes your disrespect and hatred. It's what she craves. She is a bolloi, a Yaban, a monkey of war and battle. Your hatred and disgust of her has bred conflict, and Yabans adore conflict more than life itself. By delivering a bitchslap to a bolloi in your attempt to make her submit like a woman, you've only ignited her fighting spirit. (And let's be fair here, you're going to do the same with most women, though perhaps not to the same extent of battlelusted conflict). Silvio Sabatini suffered a psychotic break over things like realizing this: that a bolloi will never respond to threats of violence by submitting or displaying vulnerability and, in fact, misogynistic threats of violence aren't understood as anything but an opponent ready to throw fists— like a man. To men who only understand how to control women via threats of violence, bollois are walking Antichrists. And Drugatsko is no different. 

So for Drugatsko, this mass misogynistic hatred of her and widespread desire to turn her into just another nameless slut by many sexually-obsessed Devastators, scratches that ever-pulsating itch of warlust. Yulaan agrees with the sentiment. People in the 2020s and 1960s alike don't get why she likes being the victim of misogyny, especially when she strikes back. They think she has internalized misogyny or that she isn't being honest about her desire to have equal rights with men and other males. But that's not it. Misogyny, hatred for her form, appeals to her need for war and conflict.  She wants to be hated because hate breeds conflict, and conflict is everything to a Yaban, especially a Titanist vroda. Drugatsko gets it. Drugatsko lives it. 

All in all, Drugatsko is a pure Yaban warrior, one who lives for endless carnage. She came to Mezara by accident, conquered it in blood and destruction, and remade it the way she wanted it to be in the absolute most brutal manner possible, a reign of blood so thick and murderous that it could only exist in fantasy. She's everything old-school Saiyans were promised to be, which probably makes it fitting that her design stems back to Knife Lady. Except as a Yaban, she's even worse. She's the OG Saiyajins with even more bloodlust.

What's terrifying is that she is not the deadliest Yaban to ever live. Not even close. For example, Batzor is said to have killed so many as to have formed an entire stellar system of planets, planetoids, and whatnot made of blood and bodies of those he killed just for fun. To kill so many requires a long time, but Batzor lived a very long time, much longer than Drugatsko currently has lived. The Ultra-Khan Rahal dwarfs even Batzor, having left multiple galaxies dead. Galaxies that had quintillions of civilizations each at that. And Yabans also do the infiltration baby thing that Saiyans do, meaning that plenty of un-noteworthy Yabans have been sent out to the stars to slaughter entire planets without remorse or affect, often as children.

Still, Drugatsko's bloodlust and devastating brutality (no pun intended) is beyond human comprehension, into levels that one could describe as "beyond Biblical." We're talking so much death, so much blood, so much savagery at her hands alone that it genuinely can be hard to fathom. And that's just her, not including her underlings. There are Devastators that have been born just to die by her hands, but there are so many Devastator humans that she has only ever killed a fraction of them. A very big fraction admittedly, but a fraction nonetheless (though to be fair, innumerable trillions, if not quadrillions of Devastators have been born/created, so assuming she herself has killed half of them...) And their sole purpose is to fight and kill. And as a result, many have become really, really good at fighting and killing.I figured it'd be as obvious as the picture on your screen, but she absolutely is supposed to look like Knife Lady from DBZ Episode 20 as I've been cripping Yaban designs from interesting-looking background Saiyans lately, especially the ones who look the most 80s and space-piratey and, thus, least likely to be represented in nü Dragon Ball with its Bart Simpson-haired monkeys galore.

Just in case anyone argues that I didn't ripoff the look for whatever esoteric reason, here's Knife Lady and Drugatsko back to back.

I know a few people thought that Yulaan was based off this character, and the "ancient Saiyajin" look definitely did stem from there. Hence why I went with straight up taking Knife Lady to use for Drugatsko directly since Drugatsko represents who Yulaan could have been under better (read: worse) circumstances. I mean for Christ's sake, the first ever image of Yulaan was of her eating a man's leg!

Also, I reused Knife Lady's look for another character (the Kokozarene Princess and hybrid Getabaru-Yaban Saiyan Daikonege) and Djuggesh's look is also heavily based on her, so I've gotten a lot of mileage out of it. It's just a very "Saiyan" look, the best female Saiyan design I've ever seen. All wasted on a character who only appeared for a total of 5 seconds.

[realasslesbian]

I’m just saying, y’all had plenty of chances to get upset about bad prisoner swaps. Where was all y’all when Donald Trump released 5000 Taliban terrorists as part of a prisoner swap? Taliban terrorists that in fact then went on to actually overthrow Afghanistan and bring the Taliban back to power? No one batted an eyelid at that. Where was all y’all when Peter Whelan was arrested in Russia during Donald Trump’s presidency, and then left to rot in a Russian prison for the proceeding two years of Donald Trump’s reign? No one had anything to say about him then. And yet we’re supposed to believe this sudden mass hysteria about Viktor Bout being released for anyone but Peter Whelen is genuinely about that? We’re supposed to believe this old man, who was housed in medium security, for ten years, is really gonna single-handedly invade Ukraine? Y’all really gonna take some flop movie called ‘Merchant of Death’ as an actual serious account of Viktor Bout’s life? Like, y’all are transparent af and this orchestrated outrage is about nothing other than Brittany Griner being a black, gender non-conforming, lesbian woman. Anyone tryna argue otherwise is a liar, and a bad one at that.