Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Makes Surprise Visit to Ukraine

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio made a surprise visit to Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv on Tuesday for talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russia flew two nuclear-capable strategic bombers over the Sea of Japan on Tuesday in an apparent gesture of disapproval.

Kishida’s trip was kept secret until the last minute when Japanese state television surprised audiences by showing the prime minister boarding a train in Poland to cross the Ukrainian border.

“It is rare for a Japanese leader to make an unannounced trip to a foreign nation,” Japan’s Kyodo News noted. It is normally necessary for the Japanese parliament, the Diet, to review and approve ministerial-level trips outside the country but, in this case, the Diet waived that requirement out of concern for Kishida’s safety.

Besides being unannounced, Kishida’s visit was significant for several reasons: Japan is the current holder of the rotating Group of Seven (G7) presidency; Kishida went to Ukraine immediately after meeting with Narendra Modi, president of India, an ally of the G7 and perhaps an aspirant to membership; and Kishida arrived in Kyiv while Chinese dictator Xi Jinping was visiting his ally Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Kishida’s visit, therefore, signaled a solidifying free-world alliance against the rising Chinese-Russian axis of tyranny. He invited Modi to attend the next G7 summit while in Delhi, and Modi responded by noting that since India currently chairs the G20, both of those important groups are headed by representatives of the “Global South.”

The Global South is India’s vision of developing nations emerging from the geopolitical constraints of the Cold War to chart their own course as a bloc of independent powers, led by huge India and advanced Japan. India sees the Global South emerging from the shadow of Western powers while remaining allied with them to counter the growing threat of China.

Japan and India are also both members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, commonly known as “the Quad,” an Indo-Pacific security alliance that also includes the United States and Australia.

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel played up the contrast between Kishida visiting Ukraine and Xi visiting Russia in a statement on Tuesday:

Today, the news tells of two very different European-Pacific partnerships. Prime Minister Kishida is making an historic visit to Ukraine to protect the Ukrainian people and promote the universal values enshrined in the U.N. Charter.

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/03/21/japanese-prime-minister-kishida-makes-surprise-visit-to-ukraine/

Russia bans SWIFT

Banks have been ordered to use the country’s domestic financial messaging systems for transactions

The Bank of Russia has forbidden Russian financial institutions to use the SWIFT messaging system for transactions inside the country, the regulator announced on Monday.

Starting from October, Russian banks will be obliged to only use domestic services for transferring messages on financial transactions. The use of SWIFT will be allowed only for international payments.

“This will ensure reliability, continuity and security of data exchange when conducting intra-Russian transactions,” the regulator said in a statement.

Information on such transactions will now need to be transmitted through the Bank of Russia’s own banking systems, services of third-party Russian companies, or through the Bank of Russia’s own financial messaging system, SPFS.

The SPFS was created by the regulator in 2018 as a substitute for SWIFT on the domestic market. While its coverage is still much smaller than that of SWIFT – which boasts 11,000 financial organizations globally – the spread of SPFS has been gaining momentum in recent months. In February, the Russian Central Bank announced that SPFS now has 469 participants, including 115 foreign entities from 14 nations.

Russia was forced to start seeking alternatives to SWIFT in dealing with foreign partners last year, after some of the country’s largest banks were disconnected from the system as part of Western sanctions.

At present, ten Russian banks are disconnected from SWIFT, including Sberbank, VTB, Otkrytie, Rosselkhozbank, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank, Rossiya, Sovcombank, VEB.RF, and MKB. Banks which have not been disconnected but are under blocking sanctions from Western countries may also face difficulties using the system.

https://www.rt.com/business/573298-russia-bans-swift-use/

Report: U.S. Intel Helped India Defeat China in December Border Clash

U.S. News and World Report on Monday quoted sources who said the U.S. military provided India with intelligence that helped it repel a Chinese incursion in the Himalayas in late 2022.

The intel helped India shift its forces along the border to push the Chinese back without loss of life, unlike a similar incursion in June 2020 that ended with dozens of fatalities on both sides.

According to U.S. News, the American military gave India “real-time details” of “Chinese positions and force strength” in the Arunachal Pradesh region, including satellite photos. The intel was “more detailed and delivered more quickly than anything the U.S. had previously shared with the Indian military,” the report noted.

American military analysts were clued into China’s intentions by watching the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conduct the sort of exercises it generally runs through before making one of its periodic attempts to grab Indian land.

U.S. News quoted intelligence assessments that said the Chinese were angered by recent U.S.-Indian military exercises and might have felt the urge to make another push along the border in response. In fact, some analysts thought the U.S. exercises and attendant ceremonial events — including a high-altitude rock concert — were “designed to annoy the Chinese” and provoke precisely the response that occurred.

Thanks to the intel India received from the United States, Chinese troops found an overwhelming Indian defensive line waiting for them when they pushed into Arunachal Pradesh. A brawl still took place — both sides generally eschew firearms in such confrontations to avoid escalation, so the combatants largely employed sticks, stones, and tasers — but there were no known fatalities.

U.S. News archly noted that the clearest sign this particular skirmish did not go China’s way was that Chinese state media and public officials “have remained fairly quiet about the embarrassing encounter.”

“[The Indians] were waiting. And that’s because the U.S. had given India everything to be fully prepared for this. It demonstrates a test case of the success of how the two militaries are now cooperating and sharing intelligence,” the source said.

U.S. News spoke to “several current and former analysts and officials” who confirmed the substance of the report, although none were willing to go on the record. All concurred with the notion that America’s military cooperation with India has grown considerably tighter as the threat posed by China increased.

The White House on Monday refused to confirm or deny the U.S. News report.

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/03/21/report-u-s-intel-helped-india-defeat-china-in-december-border-clash/

U.S. Border Agents Apprehend 5000 Chinese Migrants in Five Months — Exceeds Prior 3-Year Total

Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 5,000 Chinese migrants who crossed between ports of entry during the first five and one-half months. The apprehensions so far this fiscal year exceed the total apprehension of Chinese migrants during the past three fiscal years combined.

The February CBP Nationwide Encounters report reveals that Border Patrol agents apprehended 4,293 Chinese nationals between October 1, 2022, and February 28, 2023. Since that time, Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez reported the apprehension of nearly 680 more Chinese migrants just in her sector in March.

The apprehension of nearly 5,000 Chinese migrants in five and one-half months shatters the record of any year’s total dating back to FY07, according to Border Patrol Nationwide Apprehension by Citizenship reports reviewed by Breitbart Texas. The previous yearly record was 2,439 in FY16.

Of the nearly 5,000 Chinese nationals apprehended this fiscal year to date, agents classified nearly 3,800 as single adults. There were also more than 500 family units and four unaccompanied children, the report states.

The five Texas-based Border Patrol Sectors account for 1,800 of the nearly 5,000 Chinese migrant apprehensions, the report shows. Of those, nearly 1,100 were classified as single adults.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2023/03/21/u-s-border-agents-apprehend-5000-chinese-migrants-in-five-months-exceeds-prior-3-year-total/

‘It’s All Over for the iPhone’ – Russian Officials Told to Get Rid of American Cellphones

Reports suggest Russian officials have been told to get rid of their iPhones by the end of March, amid the sanctions war with the West over Ukraine and increasing tensions over competitor states’ using each other’s tech more broadly.

Mobile phones manufactured by Apple will no longer be allowed at the Presidential Administration, according to a report by Russian daily newspaper Kommersant [Businessman] which has also been picked up by the likes of POLITICO and Newsweek.

Sergei Kiriyenko, first deputy chief of staff at the administration, is said to have issued the order at a seminar, with an attendee quoted by Kommersant saying: “It’s all over for the iPhone: Either throw it away or give it to the children. Everyone will have to do it in March.”

Kommersant noted that the Kremlin has been discussing ” a sovereign mobile ecosystem in Russia… based on technologies independent of Western IT giants” since late last year, motivated chiefly by security concerns. Part of the motivation for the move is “information security”, in other words the perceived ease with which the U.S. can snoop on iPhone users remotely.

The anti-iPhone move, which has not been officially confirmed by the Kremlin as of the time of publication, comes as their is increasing tension over the use of competitor states’ technology not just in Russia but in the West as well — though there concerns tend to focus on Russia’s allies in Communist China.

Tech giant Huawei, in particular, has become a focus of much debate, with even the likes of Britain — traditionally keen to abase itself before Peking (Beijing) in hopes of securing Chinese investment — beginning to baulk at its involvement in key infrastructure such as the 5G network after the Wuhan virus pandemic accelerated the souring of Sino-Western relations.

There are also concerns over Chinese-made surveillance cameras in Britain turning out to have hidden microphones in them, and to be linked to suspected human rights abuses in Xinjiang (East Turkestan).

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States even expressed concern that Chinese telecoms equipment may be capable of intercepting and even disrupting military communications last summer.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/03/21/its-all-over-iphone-russian-officials-told-ditch-american-cells-march/

Biologist Richard Dawkins Declares There Are ‘Only Two Sexes’, Decries Woke ‘Bullying’ of J.K. Rowling

British evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist Richard Dawkins lashed out at modern leftist concepts on gender and the woke “bullying” of women such as Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for her feminist critique of the transgender movement in the West.

Appearing on Piers Morgan’s programme on TalkTV on Monday evening, University of Oxford emeritus fellow Richard Dawkins decried the state of modern discourse, particularly surrounding issues of transgederism and on college campuses in general.

“It’s bullying. We’ve seen the way JK Rowling has been bullied, Kathleen Stock has been bullied. They’ve stood up to it, but it’s very upsetting the way this tiny minority of people has managed to capture the discourse to talk errant nonsense,” Dawkins said.

The God Delusion author went on to plant himself on the side of “science” in the debate, saying: “There are two sexes. You could talk about gender if you wish and that’s a subjective [statement].

When pressed by Morgan on his response to people who say that there are “100 genders”, Dawkins replied: “I’m not interested in that. As a biologist, there are two sexes and that’s all there is to it.”

For challenging woke orthodoxy surrounding gender, J.K. Rowling has revealed that she has been subjected to “many death threats” and has had her family home doxed by leftist activists.

Continuing her strident stance against what she claims is an anti-woman movement, Rowling said last week: “I believe, absolutely, that there is something dangerous about this movement, and it must be challenged.”

In response to the statements from Dawkins, Christian author Larry Taunton said: “I’ve crossed swords with Richard Dawkins many times and disagree with him on much—the existence of God most of all—but I appreciate him not bowing to the woke mob on male-female biology. Bravo, Richard.”

However, the left has begun to strike back at Dawkins for his wrong-think, with fellow atheist activist Hemant Mehta writing: “It’s so damn sad that Dawkins, who wrote some wonderful books explaining evolution, chose this particular hill to die on.”

Commenting on the shift in his world of academia on open debates, Richard Dawkins went on to say: “I think it’s very sad. Universities are places where you should be free to speak your mind, and listen, even to something that you don’t like, and it’s very tragic they have bought into the idea that if you don’t like what you think you’re going to hear from someone, you should shut them up.”

“They want to feel safe and [the] university is the one place you should not feel safe. You want to be physically safe but intellectually, you should be challenged.”

“There are people for whom the word discuss doesn’t mean discuss, it means you’ve taken a position,” he concluded.

Demonstrating the validity of the comments from Dawkins, House of Lords Peer, Baroness Claire Fox revealed this week that she was barred from appearing at a debate at Royal Holloway, University of London for retweeting a supposedly transgender joke from comedian Ricky Gervais.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/03/21/biologist-richard-dawkins-declares-there-are-only-two-sexes-decries-woke-bullying-of-j-k-rowling/

Texas Man Allegedly Purchased Firearm Used in Kidnapping of Four Americans in Mexico

U.S. authorities arrested a Texas man accused of buying firearms for the Gulf Cartel, including one used in the kidnapping of four Americans in Matamoros. Two died in the incident.

On Monday, Roberto Lugardo Moreno went before U.S. Magistrate Judge Ronald Morgan in Brownsville, Texas, where he was notified of the charges against him and was ordered to be held without bond.

According to a criminal complaint filed by an agent with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, on March 14, authorities received the serial number for a Diamondback AR-type pistol that was seized in Matamoros.

Agents were able to discover that the weapon had been purchased in 2019 allegedly by Lugardo Moreno. He was arrested on March 17, court documents revealed. During an interview, the man allegedly told agents he would buy weapons for a member of the Gulf Cartel. He received $100 for purchasing this particular weapon.

Authorities claim the firearm was used by Gulf Cartel gunmen on March 3, when they chased, shot, and kidnapped Latavia “Tay” McGee, Shaeed Woodard, Zindell Brown and Eric James Williams in Matamoros. The gunmen took their victims to a hospital in Matamoros and moved them around the city using government ambulances. By the time Mexican authorities found the victims in a stash house, two had died. Soon after, the Gulf Cartel surrendered five of their gunmen — claiming they acted on their own.

In the aftermath, Breitbart Texas exposed one of the city officials overseeing EMS services a prior enforcer for the Gulf Cartel. City officials quietly removed Pedro “El Polaris” Hernandez Quiroga and two others. An investigation continues into how the cartel had access to government ambulances.

https://www.breitbart.com/border/2023/03/21/texas-man-allegedly-purchased-firearm-used-in-kidnapping-of-four-americans-in-mexico/

Kim Jong-un Oversees Simulated Nuclear Attack on U.S. and South Korea

North Korean state media on Monday said dictator Kim Jong-un personally oversaw drills on Saturday and Sunday that simulated his regime’s “war deterrence and nuclear counterattack capability,” meaning a nuclear attack on the United States and South Korea.

The drill included the troubling launch of an alleged solid-fueled ballistic missile from a hidden underground silo.

“The drill also aimed to demonstrate our tougher will to make an actual war response and send a stronger warning to the enemy who expand their war drills for aggression,” said North Korea’s KCNA news service.

This was a reference to the joint U.S.-South Korea military drills in progress over the weekend, including aerial exercises that paired South Korean fighters with American B-1B long-range bombers. North Korea consistently denounces such training exercises as “provocations.”

The North Korean missile launched on Sunday reportedly carried a mock nuclear warhead and flew about 500 miles, which would be good enough to hit South Korea in a real engagement. North Korean state media described the weapon as a solid-fueled KN-23 short-range ballistic missile and displayed photos of it rising from an underground silo.

Solid-fueled missiles can be prepared for launch much more quickly than those using liquid fuel, and an underground launch silo would mean preparations for launch could be conducted in secrecy. Defense analysts believe North Korea has constructed several underground silos, although their readiness for launch is unknown.

The test launch was convincing enough for the U.S., South Korea, and Japan to condemn it as a threat to peace on the peninsula. The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command issued a statement on Saturday that said Pyongyang’s recent missile launches “highlight the destabilizing impact of its unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.”

North Korean state media pictured Kim attending the missile launch with his daughter Kim Ju-ae, believed to be roughly ten years old. Kim Ju-ae made her public debut in November after a lifetime of secrecy and has become a fixture at her father’s public appearances, including military events. This has led to speculation that Kim will name her as his successor, which would make her the first female leader in the history of the North Korean dictatorship.

KCNA published a story on Saturday claiming that over 800,000 “working young people” have eagerly volunteered to fight the United States in a “campaign to defend the country and annihilate the enemy.”

KCNA portrayed this ostensible rush to enlistment as a necessary show of strength against “moves to provoke a nuclear war by America and the South Korean puppets.”

https://www.breitbart.com/asia/2023/03/20/kim-jong-un-oversees-simulated-nuclear-attack-u-s-south-korea/

Rome approves extradition of Russian governor’s son to US

Artem Uss was arrested in Italy at the request of Washington for allegedly evading sanctions

A court in Italy approved the extradition of Artem Uss, the son of Krasnoyarsk Governor Alexander Uss, to the United States on Tuesday after he was arrested on accusations of evading sanctions and money laundering.

The 40-year-old was detained in Italy in October at the Milan Malpensa Airport on the orders of the US, which has charged him, as well as five other Russian nationals, with helping Moscow to evade Western sanctions. The accused allegedly purchased US military technology, selling it to sanctioned Russian entities as well as smuggling oil from Venezuela to customers in China and Russia.

Uss, who is now under house arrest near Milan, has repeatedly denied the allegations and his lawyer has told TASS news agency that they intend to appeal the US extradition decision. He noted that the Italian court had approved the extradition on two of four counts against his client and that an appeal will be filed within 15 days with the cassation court.

In October, a Russian court also ordered the arrest of Uss and placed him on the federal wanted list for a money laundering scheme of an especially large scale. Moscow has since demanded that Uss be extradited to Russia.

Uss has formally objected to being deported to the United States, which he says he last visited when he was just 14 years old. He has, however, officially asked to be extradited to Russia. His lawyers have also questioned the potential conditions of the businessman’s detention in the US and pointed out that the Russian could face discrimination in an American prison.

The final decision on extradition will be made by the Italian justice minister, and will be carried out only after all the relevant documents are signed. Under Italian law, the minister is allowed to override the court’s decision in such cases.

Governor Alexander Uss has claimed that the charges brought against his son as well as his arrest bear “obvious” political overtones. His son’s lawyers, meanwhile, have suggested that the US interest in extraditing the Russian is dictated by the desire to later use him in prisoner exchanges with Moscow, possibly hoping to swap him for Paul Whelan, who was convicted on charges of espionage in Russia in 2020.

https://www.rt.com/news/573384-italy-russian-us-extradition/

China’s Greatest Weapon: TikTok Pushes Suicide Videos on 13-Year-Olds

It only takes ten minutes after creating an account on China’s TikTok app for the platform’s algorithm to begin pushing suicide videos to 13-year-old children.

The Chinese app’s recommendation algorithm is so advanced that within ten minutes, it will start pushing suicide videos if the young TikTok user suggests he is sexually frustrated, according to research published Tuesday by corporate accountability group Ekō and shared with VICE News.

The researchers set up nine different new TikTok accounts, and listed their age as 13 — the youngest age users can join the platform — then they mimicked who they referred to as “incels” or “involuntary celibates,” which is an online community of “young men who formed a bond around their lack of sexual success with women,” according to VICE News.

Minutes later, the researchers found that after viewing just ten videos having to do with “incel”-related topics, the TikTok accounts’ “For You” pages were all filled with similar content.

One test account was shown a video that featured a clip of Jake Gyllenhaal — whose films have reportedly been popular among the “incel community” — and in the video, the actor was seen with a rifle in his mouth saying, “Shoot me. Shoot me in the fucking face.”

The video also included text, which read, “Get shot or see her with someone else?”

Additionally, the majority of the commenters were in support of the suggested suicide. Other commenters lamented about their loneliness, with many saying they felt “dead inside.” One commenter even suggested his own suicide within the next four hours.

The Jake Gyllenhaal clip, which has since been deleted, had garnered over 440,000 likes, over 2.1 million views, 7,200 comments, and more than 11,000 shares.

“Ten minutes and a few clicks on TikTok is all that is needed to fall into the rabbit hole of some of the darkest and most harmful content online,” Maen Hammad, Ekō campaigner and co-author of the research, told VICE News.

“The algorithm forces you into a spiral of depression, hopelessness, and self harm, and it’s terribly difficult to get out of that spiral once the algorithm thinks it knows what you want to see,” Hammad added. “It’s extremely alarming to see how easy it is for children to fall into this spiral.”

TikTok, which has replaced Instagram and Facebook as the de facto social media platform for teenagers in the United States, is known for pushing content harmful to children and young adults — which in some cases, even result in injury and death.

Earlier this month, the University of Massachusetts had to warn its students about a new drinking trend on TikTok, which has resulted in 28 ambulances being called to off-campus parties in the area. The trend involves students creating a “blackout rage gallon” of alcohol, flavoring, and other ingredients.

Earlier this year, a 12-year-old girl in Argentina died after participating in the deadly “choking challenge” first popularized on the Chinese app. The girl’s death was even filmed in a video call while her classmates watched as she attempted the deadly challenge.

Last summer, a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old in the UK allegedly died due to attempting the same TikTok challenge.

Last September, the FDA warned parents of a deadly new TikTok challenge that involves children cooking chicken in NyQuil, “presumably to eat.”

Another TikTok challenge in 2020 involved urging users to take large doses of the allergy medication Benadryl (diphenhydramine) to induce hallucinations. The challenge resulted in reports of teens being rushed to the hospital, and in some cases, dying.

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2023/03/21/chinas-greatest-weapon-tiktok-pushes-suicide-videos-on-13-year-olds/

Bill Gates wants global ‘fire department’ for pandemics

The software tycoon has called for funding for the WHO’s Global Health Emergency Corps

Preventing another pandemic like Covid-19 requires setting up a planetary response network of “firefighters,” led by the World Health Organization, billionaire Bill Gates has argued. He added that recognized experts and national public health officials should lead this effort.

“We need to prepare to fight disease outbreaks just as we prepare to fight fires,” Gates wrote in a New York Times opinion piece published on Sunday. This means “a well-funded system that is ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice when danger emerges.”

He endorsed the WHO’s effort to create a network of “top health emergency leaders,” called the Global Health Emergency Corps. This “corps of professionals from every country and region” needs to be well-funded and able to deploy in response to “transnational threats,” Gates wrote.

Such an organization was proposed in his 2022 book, ‘How to Prevent the Next Pandemic’, though Gates called it Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization (GERM) and specified its size and funding at 3,000 people and an additional $1 billion in the WHO budget.

“To be successful, the Emergency Corps must build on existing networks of experts and be led by people like the heads of national public health agencies and their leads for epidemic response,” Gates insisted, even though the existing public health establishment was responsible for the Covid-19 response he himself described as inadequate.

According to Gates, the 2020 pandemic was a “collective failure to prepare for pandemics despite many warnings.” His own foundation hosted a pandemic preparedness exercise in October 2019, dubbed ‘Event 201’ and revolving around a novel coronavirus going global. Johns Hopkins University, which co-hosted the event, was later compelled to clarify that the exercise had nothing to do with the actual coronavirus pandemic.

“The world must take action now to make sure Covid-19 becomes the last pandemic, and one of the biggest moves we can make is to support the world’s principal health experts – the WHO – and invest in the Global Health Emergency Corps so it can live up to its full potential,” Gates argued in the Times.

The Microsoft co-founder has invested his software fortune into the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spending millions on promoting vaccination campaigns and pandemic preparedness. Gates has also spent millions to acquire agricultural land in the US, and to push for green energy and alternate food sources. In an interview last month, he criticized SpaceX mogul Elon Musk for funding a space program to colonize Mars, saying the money would be better spent on vaccines.

His wife Melinda filed for divorce in 2021, citing a number of things that have piled up over the years, including Bill’s ties to accused pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. They continue to manage the foundation together, however.

https://www.rt.com/news/573289-bill-gates-pandemic-emergency/