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7.5-magnitude quake triggers tsunami alert in Indonesia

https://www.rt.com/news/543109-quake-tsunami-warning-triggered/

Yet Another News Crew Just Got Robbed At Gunpoint In Oakland

An NBC Sports crew working on assignment in Oakland, Calif., was robbed at gunpoint Saturday morning, according to a report from The Mercury News.

The crew was on assignment in the Jack London Square area when three armed individuals took a camera from inside the crew’s vehicle, according to Oakland Police Department spokesperson Kim Armstead.

None of the crew members were holding the camera at the time and there were no injuries.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/yet-another-news-crew-just-got-robbed-gunpoint-oakland

Former Lehman Trader's $4BN Hedge Fund Books First Loss In A Decade On China Carnage

For the first time in its nearly decade-long history, BFAM Partners, a hedge fund firm with more than $4 billion under management, is on track to report its first annual loss largely thanks to the implosion of Evergrande.

According to Bloomberg, the BFAM Asian Opportunities Fund has lost more than 10% in the first 11 months of the year, dropping about 7.5% in October and another 3.3% in November.

Katarina Royds, who leads investor relations at BFAM, declined to comment. However, Bloomberg's inside sources revealed that the Asian Opportunities Fund suffered from selling pressure in Chinese real estate bonds. The firm was founded by former Lehman Brothers trader Benjamin Fuchs, but its credit strategies, including high-grade, high-yield, credit default swaps and special situations, are led by Eugene Fung.

Of course, one might expect a former Lehmanite to be somewhat more sensitive to ructions in overleveraged property markets.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/former-lehman-traders-4-billion-hedge-fund-books-first-loss-decade-china-bets-sour

Drone strike that killed children to go unpunished – Pentagon

No members of the US military involved in the Kabul drone strike that killed 10 civilians including 7 children during the retreat from Afghanistan will be penalized in any way, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reportedly decided.

The US Air Force’s inspector general investigated the August 29 drone strike and found no violations of law, but left the decision to discipline, reprimand or demote the people involved to the commanding officers. Austin agreed with the recommendations of Central Command Chief General Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr. and Commander of U.S. Special Operations Richard D. Clarke that no punishment was necessary, the New York Times reported on Monday.

Lieutenant General Sami Dia Said, who led the Air Force’s IG probe, told reporters at the Pentagon last month that just because he didn’t call anyone out over the botched strike, it didn’t mean the command would not.

“They can de-credential folks. They can retrain folks. They can fire folks. They can do a variety of different things,” Said said.

Initial report by the Times quoted a senior official speaking on the condition of anonymity. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby later confirmed that McKenzie and Clarke had not made any recommendations regarding accountability, only about improving procedures.

For two weeks after the strike, the US military maintained it had been “righteous” and killed a “facilitator” for Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), a terrorist group that took responsibility for the suicide bombing at the Kabul Airport that killed almost 200 people, including 13 US troops. On September 17, however, McKenzie acknowledged the strike “was a mistake” and offered condolences to the surviving family of Afghan charity worker Zemari Ahmadi and nine others, including seven children, who were killed.

Ahmadi worked for Nutrition & Education International, a California-based charity. His white Toyota wasn’t carrying explosives but rather water, and the children flocked to greet him when he returned to work.

“How can our military wrongly take the lives of 10 precious Afghan people, and hold no one accountable in any way?” NEI founder and president Steven Kwon told the Times, calling the decision “shocking.”

Kwon said he had been “beseeching” the US government for months to evacuate the NEI employees from Afghanistan, which apparently has not happened yet. Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said last week that the military has been “trying to get the necessary information in place” to both conduct the evacuations and send condolence payments to Ahmadi’s surviving relatives.

https://www.rt.com/usa/543091-pentagon-kabul-drone-punishment/

Aus msm Lead story

Dozens of explosive texts to Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff Mark Meadows revealed

Dozens of text messages sent to the White House show Donald Trump’s own son, among others, begging him to take urgent action.

The US congressional committee investigating the Capitol riot has revealed a series of desperate text messages that were sent to the White House during the violence, fruitlessly urging then-president Donald Trump to intervene.

We still know relatively little about Mr Trump’s actions during the riot on January 6, in which a mob of his supporters overran the Capitol in an attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election victory.

Rioters started to fight with law enforcement outside the Capitol at about 1:10pm, and breached police lines an hour later, entering the building by force. Mr Trump did not issue a statement urging them to leave until 4:17pm.

“I know your pain. I know you’re hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace,” he said in that video message.

“So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”

In the three hours between the start of the violence and that message, he posted two tweets urging his supporters to “stay peaceful”, but did not tell them to leave.

Beyond that, we do not know of any steps the president took to calm the situation.

Today the committee tasked with investigating the riot read out text messages that were sent to Mr Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, during the period in question.

Conservative media figures, members of Congress, Trump administration officials and one of Mr Trump’s own children were among those begging the president to do something.

“He’s got to condemn this s*** ASAP. The Capitol Police tweet is not enough,” wrote Mr Trump’s eldest son, Donald Jr.

He was referring to a tweet posted at 2:38pm, which read: “Please support our Capitol Police and law enforcement. They are truly on the side of our country. Stay peaceful!”

Mr Meadows replied to Donald Jr: “I’m pushing it hard. I agree.”

According to the committee, Donald Jr subsequently texted “again and again” to “urge action by the president”.

“We need an Oval (Office) address. He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand,” he said.

Congressman Liz Cheney, one of the nine-person committee’s two Republican members, also read out a series of texts from unnamed members of Congress.

“We are under siege up here at the Capitol,” wrote one such person.

“They have breached the Capitol,” said another.

“Mark, protesters are literally storming the Capitol. Breaking windows on doors. Rushing in. Is Trump going to say something?” asked a third.

“There’s an armed standoff at the House Chamber door,” said another.

“We are all helpless,” a fifth person wrote.

“POTUS has to come out firmly and tell (the) protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed,” warned a sixth.

“Mark, he needs to stop this. Now,” said another.

“POTUS needs to calm this s*** down,” another person said.

And one, in all caps, simply said: “TELL THEM TO GO HOME.”

Ms Cheney argued the texts left “no doubt” that “the White House knew exactly what was happening at the Capitol”.

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/us-politics/dozens-of-explosive-texts-to-donald-trumps-white-house-chief-of-staff-mark-meadows-revealed/news-story/db58c5dd878d1c7ef129c671ecf05d04

London gold medallist Yannick Agnel ‘admits’ to sex with 13-year-old, prosecutors allege

A two-time Olympic gold medallist swimmer has been arrested on suspicion of rape. Prosecutors say he admitted to having sex with his coach’s teenage daughter.

French swimmer Yannick Agnel, who won two gold medals at the 2012 Olympics, has admitted to having sex with a minor – one of his coach’s daughters, a prosecutor said on Monday.

The 29-year-old was arrested on Thursday at his home in Paris on suspicion of rape and sexual assault and placed in police custody in Mulhouse, eastern France.

Agnel “recognises the substance of the allegations against him,” Mulhouse public prosecutor Edwige Roux-Morizot told a press conference, adding the swimmer did not “sense that there was coercion”.

The prosecutor said the facts constituted “rape or sexual assault as there is a big gap in age” between him and the plaintiff, who she named as Naome Horter, one of the daughters of Agnel’s coach Lionel Horter.

The girl was 13 in 2016 when Agnel – who was 24 at the time – is alleged to have had sex with her, the prosecutor said.

Meanwhile, the French Swimming Federation (FFN) announced on Monday it would launch a civil action in the case.

“The Federation has been informed of the admission by Mr. Agnel of ‘the substance of the allegations of which he is accused’. The decision was officially taken today to become a civil party before the judicial court of Mulhouse in this case, which the Federation deeply deplores.”

Agnel came to international prominence at the 2010 European championships winning 400-metre freestyle gold and setting a new French and championships record.

Two years later he starred at the London Olympics when he took gold in the 200m freestyle and 4x100m freestyle relay.

He collected gold in the same two events in the 2013 world championships.

Agnel went to Rio in 2016 to defend his 200m freestyle title but failed to advance through the heats, announcing his retirement from swimming soon after.

https://www.news.com.au/sport/olympics/swimming/london-gold-medallist-yannick-agnel-admits-to-sex-with-13yearold-prosecutors-allege/news-story/3b335c195a2dfad45f4700fbdd8e2485

Operators of notorious dark web service jailed

A German court has jailed the team behind the CyberBunker darknet service provider that operated from a Cold War-era NATO bunker, finding them guilty of aiding nearly 250,000 illegal transactions, primarily linked to drug trade.

The court found eight defendants guilty of enabling the illicit transactions, vast part of which was related to drug trade. The now-defunct web-hosting service is said to have also been involved in illicit dealings linked to child abuse, contract killings and money laundering.

The sentences were handed out by a regional court in the western German city of Trier on Monday.

Only one of the defendants received a one-year suspended sentence, while others got real jail terms. The longest sentence of five years and six months was handed out to the main defendant, a 62-year old Dutch national, while his son will have to serve four years and three months in jail.

While the defendants’ identities were not disclosed in accordance with German law, the jailed ‘ringleader’ is apparently Herman Johan Verwoert-Derksen. The Dutch national had operated the CyberBunker darknet hosting from the late 1990s before it was raided by police several years ago. The service provider touted itself as the one that hosts "services to any Web site 'except child pornography and anything related to terrorism."

While the CyberBunker initially hosted almost exclusively adult websites, its clientele grew over the years. The organization is believed to have hosted the infamous torrent tracker Pirate Bay, some mirrors of WikiLeaks, as well as the “Wall Street Market” and “Fraudsters” – major, currently-defunct darknet marketplaces.

The group originally operated from a defunct Cold War-era bunker in the Netherlands, but was ultimately forced to move to Germany – buying an old bunker there as well.

The former NATO fortification, located in the German village of Traben-Trarbach, was raided by a massive force of some 600 police officers back in 2019, with the operation putting the CyberBunker, as well as some of its darknet clients out of business.

https://www.rt.com/news/543097-darknet-cyber-bunker-jailed/

Mass protests against Covid-19 restrictions hit eastern Germany

Thousands of people took the streets of multiple cities in the former East Germany to express their dismay at coronavirus restrictions and vaccine mandates introduced amid the Omicron variant spread.

Some 3,500 demonstrators turned out for a protest against the restrictions in Magdeburg, the capital of Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state on Monday. Protesters marched down the city center chanting “Resistance!” and other slogans against the sweeping measures imposed on account of the rapid spread of the new Covid-19 strain in Europe.

Some 30 separate demonstrations, the majority of them against the government’s coronavirus policy, were held in Saxony-Anhalt on Monday alone. About 1,500 people took to the streets in Halberstadt, a town of just over 40,000 people.

Smaller demonstrations took place in Naumburg, Querfurt, Schönebeck, Aschersleben, and Dessau, among others.

“Significantly more people took part in the protests [this week] than last week,” local media reported, citing police estimates. The protest sentiment has been on the rise in the eastern German state.

Responding to the protests, a local representative of the anti-establishment AfD (Alternative for Germany) party expressed “full solidarity” with the opponents of strict coronavirus measures, calling them “completely normal peaceful people” who are demanding their “civil liberties.”

The protests proceeded incident-free, and there have been no reports of arrests or scuffles between anti-mandate demonstrators and a counter-protest that drew in several dozen people in Magdeburg.

A wave of demonstrations has engulfed Germany as Berlin rolled out new restrictions amid Omicron fears, such as a new law making Covid-19 vaccines mandatory for healthcare staff.

Despite growing public discontent over the restrictions, Germany’s new Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed the notion that the country was split on the issue, vowing to be the chancellor for both the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Stolz added that the latter should be persuaded to get the Covid-19 vaccine, saying that he “would still like to convince them that vaccinations make sense.”

https://www.rt.com/news/543102-protests-covid-restrictions-mandate/

European country bans booze to tackle Omicron

Norway has banned the sale of alcohol in bars and restaurants in an effort to curb the spread of the Covid-19 Omicron variant, which continues to push infections in the country on a sharp rise.

New Covid-19 rules will prohibit the sale of alcohol at bars, restaurants, and other service-based venues from Wednesday, while Norwegians are also being urged to work from home if possible.

“Infection rates in Norway are increasing sharply, and we have now gained new knowledge about the omicron variant and how fast it can spread. We are in a more serious situation,” declared Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who claimed that the “stricter measures” were necessary “to maintain control of the pandemic.”

Støre said there was “no doubt the new variant changes the rules,” before acknowledging that the new rules “will feel like a lockdown” for many, “if not of society then of their lives and of their livelihoods.”

Norway’s previous rules – put into place just days before the latest measures, which were announced on Monday – allowed alcohol to be served at bars and restaurants until midnight, though only at tables and only if the venue had enough socially-distanced seating to accommodate all customers.

Covid-19 cases in Norway have experienced a sharp rise since October – recording its highest daily numbers since the start of the pandemic. Last week, Norway recorded 21,457 confirmed cases and 33 deaths.

Other countries have had a different response to the rise of the Omicron variant. On Friday, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern hinted that relaxed Covid-19 restrictions could allow for orgies of up to 25 people.

https://www.rt.com/news/543107-european-country-bans-booze/