Namibia has recorded a drastic drop in rhino and elephant poaching cases in the past three years because of improved response mechanisms, the government said yesterday. Minister of environment Pohamba Shifeta said the country has seen a reduction in rhino poaching numbers from 78 cases in 2018, 49 in 2019 and 17 so far this year. For elephants, the minister detailed a reduction from 27 in 2018, 13 in 2019 and two so far this year.

A Nigerian influencer who posted photos of his life of luxury amassing 2.5 million Instagram followers was kidnapped by the FBI from Dubai, his lawyer has claimed. In June Ramon Olorunwa Abbas – known to his followers as Ray Hushpuppi – and another man – Jacob Ponle (aka Mr Woodberry) – were both arrested in Dubai under suspicion of a £350 million cyberscam. The FBI and Dubai police stormed the 37-year-old’s apartment in the city seizing more than £30 million in cash, before the pair appeared in a Chicago court on July 3. However, the United Arab Emirates has no extradition treaty with the United States, and Mr Abbas’ lawyer – Gal Pissetzky – has said that the FBI and U.S. government acted illegally in transporting him from Dubai. ‘In my opinion, the FBI and the government here acted illegally when they kidnapped him from Dubai without any legal process to do so,’ Mr Pissetzky said to the BBC. ‘There was no extradition, there were no legal steps taken, there were no court documents filed, it was simply a call to the FBI. He is not a citizen of the United States, the U.S. had absolutely no authority to take him.’

Big masses of snow have turned pink in the Italian Alps, creating a “watermelon” colour in parts of the Presena Glacier, located in the Italian mountain region of Trentino-Alto Adige. Numerous photos from the area show a light-pink shade of snow, visible even on satellite photos. According to Italian scientists, the strange phenomenon is likely a result of Chlamydomonas Nivalis algae growth, which is not dangerous by itself but may accelerate ice melting, as it makes snow darker.

A French man could be executed by a firing squared in Indonesia after being accused of molesting more than 300 children and beating those who refused to have sex with him. Police said they arrested pensioner Francois Abello Camille, 65, last month at a hotel in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta, where they discovered two underaged girls in his room. Camille faces death by firing squad or life in prison if convicted on the raft of charges – including accusations he filmed the illicit encounters – under Indonesia’s child protection laws. Investigators say they found videos on Camille’s laptop computer that showed him performing illegal sex acts on hundreds of children aged between 10 and 17. ‘He would approach children and lure them by offering them work as models,’ Jakarta police chief Nana Sudjana told reporters. ‘The ones who agreed to have sex with him would get paid between 250,000 and one million rupiah ($17-70).

Former New York corrections deputy warden warns feds can’t keep Ghislaine Maxwell safe at Metropolitan Detention Center.

Outside of the Wall Street executives that did business with child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, his first lieutenant, Ghislaine Maxwell, knows more about his Wall Street secrets than any other living person. Maxwell was arrested and indicted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (part of the U.S. Justice Department) on July 2, less than two weeks after the head of that office, Geoffrey Berman, was abruptly fired from his job by Attorney General William Barr. Berman’s former Deputy, Audrey Strauss, conducted the press conference regarding the Maxwell arrest. We immediately noticed a peculiarity about the indictment document provided by Strauss. It covered only a brief 4-year period, running from 1994 through 1997. One of the main accusers of Maxwell, Virginia (Roberts) Giuffre, has credibly indicated in previous court filings that Epstein and Maxwell sexually abused her “between 1999 and 2002.” That should lengthen the scope of the indictment by five additional years. The Southern District of New York, home to some of the biggest and most powerful Wall Street banks and their attorneys, who cycle in and out of jobs in that office, might have a strong reason to want to keep Giuffre’s claims out of this case. Giuffre has stated the following in a previous court filing against Epstein: “In addition to being continually exploited to satisfy Defendant’s every sexual whim, Plaintiff was also required to be sexually exploited by Defendant’s adult male peers, including royalty, politicians, academicians, businessmen, and/or other professional and personal acquaintances…most of these acts of abuse occurred during a time when Defendant knew that Plaintiff was approximately 15, 16 and 17 years old…” The youth-focused charity said it paid honoraria to Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, amounting to C$250,000 (US$184,000) for speaking at about 28 events, while his brother Alexandre spoke at eight events and received about C$32,000 (US$23,540). The events took place between 2016 and 2020.

Canadian charity in Justin Trudeau ethics probe paid over US$200,000 to PM’s mother and brother. Prime minister under investigation for conflict of interest after government awarded US$660 million contract to WE Charity.Organisation said last week it would no longer be administering the student grant programme for which the contract was awarded. The Canadian charity at the heart of a conflict-of-interest investigation into Justin Trudeau disclosed on Thursday that it had paid the Canadian prime minister’s mother and brother a total of more than C$280,000 (US$206,000) to speak at events it organised. The WE Charity Canada statement confirmed earlier reports by news site Canadaland, as well as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).The youth-focused charity said it paid honoraria to Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, amounting to C$250,000 (US$184,000) for speaking at about 28 events, while his brother Alexandre spoke at eight events and received about C$32,000 (US$23,540). The events took place between 2016 and 2020.

At least $4 million in PPP loans went to a real estate company at the center of a federal bribery investigation involving a Los Angeles city councilman. Shenzhen New World Group, owned by Chinese billionaire Wei Huang, received two PPP loans for hotels it operates in Los Angeles. Charging documents against Huizar make it clear that the real estate company in question is Shenzhen New World Group, which is working on a 77-story skyscraper project in Huizar’s district. The Trump administration loaned between $4 million and $10 million in coronavirus relief funds to a real estate company whose chairman allegedly bribed a Los Angeles city councilman with nearly $260,000 in poker chips, escort services and $600,000 in payments to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit. Jose Huizar, the city councilman, was arrested on charges that he accepted $1.5 million in bribes to help the developers of various real estate projects in downtown L.A.

Attorney General Bill Barr should transfer Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged ‘madam’ to Rikers Island while her case plays out, as the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn is ill-equipped to handle the high-profile inmate. “I don’t think the feds can handle these prisoners, such high-profile prisoners like Maxwell or Epstein,” former NYC Department of Corrections Deputy Warden Ed Gavin told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Wednesday. “If I were William Barr, what I would do is, I would seek to obtain a substitute jail order and I would try to have Ms. Maxwell placed on Rikers Island with the New York City Department of Corrections.” “In 2011, there was a female corrections officer there, she had sex on duty with eight employees,” he said. “Two of them were superior officers. She also had sex with two inmates … We [also] have a lieutenant and two corrections officers recently who were convicted of sexually abusing over 10 women … So I don’t think that that facility is capable of handling it [Maxwell], there’s just too much that’s gone on there recently, and I don’t think any female inmate should be housed there”.

A small fragment of fossilized dinosaur jawbone has been discovered by scientists in Alaska, granting further insight into the fauna of that region millions of years ago. According to phys.org, the bone fragment belonged to a “juvenile” dinosaur from the “dromaeosaurid” family of predatory dinosaurs “closely related to birds”, some of whose better-known members include Velociraptors, a breed popularized by the movie “Jurassic Park”. As the media outlet points out, while these dinosaurs “lived all over the world”, their bones are fairly delicate and “rarely preserve well in the fossil record”, thus hampering researchers’ efforts to study how they moved between continents.

Customs officers in Russia’s major eastern port city of Vladivostok have seized a civilian helicopter from Germany that recorded 55 times the permissible levels of radiation, a spokeswoman for the city’s customs service said on Tuesday. “A civilian helicopter (Bo 105) with 55 times the permissible levels of radiation was discovered by customs officers at the Vladivostok sea checkpoint. The hazardous radioactive object had arrived from Germany in a container bound for a Russian company,” the spokeswoman, Asya Berezhnaya, told reporters. According to Maksim Shesternin, the head of the regional customs control division for radioactive materials, a reading of more than five microsieverts per hour was observed when the helicopter was examined. Since the beginning of 2020, customs officers in Vladivostok have identified 14 separate objects bound for Russia that have exceeded the permitted levels of radiation.

Astronomers in Australia have discovered four unexplained circular objects, each with an unusual glow, that defies current understanding and may represent a new type of phenomenon hitherto unseen by humanity. The brightly-edged, ring-shaped objects, dubbed odd radio circles, or ORCs for short, were discovered by astrophysicist Professor Ray Norris using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope. He happened upon the unexplained phenomena while mapping the night sky as part of the Evolutionary Map of the Universe (EMU) project. The ORCs represent a new type of object found in radioastronomy images,” Norris says in a yet to be peer-reviewed paper. The professor theorized that they represent a “spherical shock wave” from an “transient event” in another galaxy. Another possible answer is that they are a new category of a known phenomenon seen from a fresh angle. “Such as the jets of a radio galaxy or blazar when seen end-on, down the ‘barrel’ of the jet,” Norris explained. Three of the four were spotted in 2019 while the remaining one was discovered in data from 2013 collected by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India.

In the United States, two-thirds of police cars are Fords. Now, some Ford employees want to put a stop to that, with a number of black and white workers penning a letter demanding that the car manufacturer backs out of the police market. The internal letter is made out to Ford’s CEO Jim Hackett, it states that throughout the company’s history “the vehicles that Ford employees design and build have been used as accessories to police brutality and oppression” and that the car maker has exacerbated “racist policing practices that plague our society.”

A survey of hundreds of Russian medics has revealed that almost 60% do not believe official figures on the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic in Russia to be accurate. The poll, carried out for pan-European researchers ESOMAR, found that almost half of the 502 respondents (49%) think the authorities have underestimated cases of coronavirus infection. 47% expressed the view that the number of deaths from the disease are higher than reported. The official sickness and death figures are trusted by 23% and 21% of doctors respectively, while nine and 11% of respondents actually think that the authorities are overstating the numbers. More than half of the medics questioned have experience working with patients with Covid-19 symptoms. 16% of them worked directly with those infected by the coronavirus.

Retired Admiral and former Navy SEAL McRaven, best known for organizing and executing Operation Neptune Spear, the 2011 special ops raid to kill al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has stepped up his criticism of the US education system, this time focusing on kindergarten to grade 12. “When I was chancellor [of the University of Texas] I would have a lot of town hall meetings, or meetings with our alumni, and that question [of K-12 education] always came up,” McRaven said, speaking at the online Aspen Ideas Festival conference last week. “They would always ask…’What’s your Number 1 national security issue?’ I think my answer always surprised them. I said ‘K through 12 education’… I stand by that. And it wasn’t because I was chancellor. It was because I recognize that unless we are giving opportunity and a quality education to the young men and women in the United States, then we won’t have the right people to be able to make the right decisions about our national security. They won’t have an understanding of different cultures, they won’t have an understanding of different ideas. They won’t be critical thinkers.”

South Korean police said on Thursday they are searching for the mayor of Seoul, Park Won-soon, after his daughter reported him missing. The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said officers were searching for him around Sungbuk-dong, a district in northern Seoul, where his phone signal was last detected. His daughter reported him missing at 5:17 p.m. (0817 UTC) and said his phone was off. Park left the official residence at around 10:40 a.m., wearing a black hat and a backpack, having cancelled a policy meeting that was scheduled for Thursday morning, according to multiple local reports. Update – Longtime Seoul City Mayor Park Won-soon was found dead. The mayor’s body was found at Mt Bugak in northern Seoul around midnight, near where his phone signal had last been detected, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said. The agency did not give a cause of death.

Ghislaine Maxwell will use her secret copies of the late financier’s sex tapes to avoid prison, her former friend told the Daily Mail. “She has copies of everything Epstein had. They could implicate some twisted movers and shakers,” adding that “Ghislaine has always been as cunning as they come. She wasn’t going to be with Epstein all those years and not have some insurance.” The friend also stressed that “Not only did Epstein like to capture himself with underage girls on camera – he wanted to make sure he had something to hold over the rich and powerful men who took advantage of his sick largesse,” adding that “I’ll bet anything that once it comes out that Ghislaine has those tapes these men will be quaking in their Italian leather boots. Ghislaine made sure that she socked away thumb drives of it all. She knows where all the bodies are buried and she’ll use whatever she had to save her[self].” Ghislaine Maxwell who certainly has many lurid secrets to tell.

They have their own governments, passports, citizens and even currency in some cases. But for various complicated reasons, a number of countries around the world do not officially exist, some are even left off maps. Guilherme Canever, a Brazilian author traveled to 16 unrecognized nations between 2009 and 2014 and recounts his experiences in his latest book “Unrecognized Nations: Travels To Countries That Do Not Exist,” which is released this month. Those that aren’t recognized by the UN are not formally acknowledged as countries, even if they’re recognized by other nations, and can face many struggles as a result. Canever became fascinated with disputed countries after visiting Somaliland, an aspiring country located in the Horn of Africa that has sought independence from Somalia since 1991. Others are Transnistria, Repubblic of Artsakh and Abcasia.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has tested positive for COVID-19, said on Facebook Thursday that he was “very well” and again advocated the use of the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine. Bolsonaro, 65, appeared in his weekly Facebook Live post at his official residence. He appeared to be in good shape and was not accompanied, as is often the case, by ministers or senior officials, and the usual sign language interpreter was not present. Since the beginning of the crisis, the far-right president has dismissed the seriousness of the epidemic and criticized containment measures ordered by governors in Brazilian states.

On July 3rd, Comet NEOWISE passed by the sun near the orbit of Mercury. The oversized nucleus helped it survive the encounter, which some comets would have found too hot to handle. Now NEOWISE’s sun-heated core is spewing massive amounts of dust and gas, creating a worldwide sensation.

“This morning, July 11th, I got a great view of Comet NEOWISE,” says Vincent Phillips of Hale village near Liverpool UK. “It was very easy to spot in the NNE before sunrise.”

Observing tips: Wake up about 90 minutes before sunrise, find a place with a clear horizon, and look northeast. The comet is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch with a tail. Binoculars are recommended for full effect.

Plasma filaments are becoming more active, including an eruption off the NW limb. The sun is solidly entering Solar Cycle 25 here in 2020 (it takes 6-18 months to ramp back up to solar flaring).

July 11 2020

Europe – M4.3 Azores Islands, Portugal

North America – M4.0 Idaho

Central America – M4.2 Mexico

South America – M5.3 South Sanwich Islands

Asia – M4.9 Iran, North Philippines

Pacific – M5.0 Tonga

Deepest EQ – M4.3 623 km Fiji

This image shows the situation of the last 12 hours of movements towards Europe. The oldest earthquake is the M4.9 in Iran, around 10 UTC on July 10. There are two deep shocks, just over 200 km, of M4.1 and M4.3 in northern Afghanistan which occurred around 4 UTC today. Shortly before or at the same time there is also a ‘train’ of earthquakes in Turkey which has its head in the shock east of Crete in Greece of M4.2. A twin shock hit the Azores Islands in the late UTC morning. We will see if there will be the filling of the intermediate points with the most probable areas Italy and of the border area between Algeria and Tunisia, up to high M3 possible in both zones.