NightOwl

Unlike the United States' publicly documented military aid to Ukraine, it was impossible to get the full details of what the U.S. has shipped Israel since last Oct. 7, so the $17.9 billion for the year is a partial figure, the researchers said.

They cited Biden administration "efforts to hide the full amounts of aid and types of systems through bureaucratic maneuvering."

Historically, models of isolation and violence inflict deep harm on already targeted peoples: Indigenous, Black, racialized, disabled, criminalized people and drug users. Studies show that forcibly institutionalizing people creates worse outcomes than other forms of support. People already struggle to access voluntary treatment, counselling and bed-based services. This type of incarceration often reduces tolerance to substances, increasing the risk of fatal overdoses upon release, particularly when community-based supports are lacking.

Zelenskiy has been meeting allies in Europe this week to present a "victory plan" to end the war while also pressing to use long-range weapons that can strike deeper into Russian territory.

The details of his plan have not been divulged publicly. A U.S. official has previously described it as a repackaged request for more weapons and a lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range missiles.

A European diplomatic source also said that there appeared to be nothing especially new in the victory plan.

According to Ishiba, an Asian version of NATO, "must ensure deterrence against the nuclear alliance of China, Russia, and North Korea. The Asian version of NATO must also specifically consider America's sharing of nuclear weapons or the introduction of nuclear weapons into the region."

The move to giving Japan access to nuclear weapons is opposed by a large majority of the population, with a reported 75 percent wanting Japan to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

In order to bring about a Pacific Treaty Organization similar to NATO, Ishiba hopes to introduce major changes allowing further militarization of Japan. A first step would be to introduce a military charter, a “Basic Law on National Security” that Ishiba describes as “one of the pillars of my foreign and national security policy.”

Such a law would legalize military use of public and private facilities and resources under a ‘state of emergency’, expand military capacities further than what the current legislation permits. ‘National emergency’ legislation was created when Ishiba was the Defence Agency Minister in 2003 and, for the first time, enabled the government to give the US military access to Japanese non-military facilities in a ‘state of emergency,’ under which people’s constitutional rights, including the freedom of assembly, privacy, and even private property rights to lands and ports, are suspended. It seems reasonable to assume that the Basic Law on National Security would further restrict civil liberties and support authoritarian leaderships.

Federal authorities began probing TD's internal controls after agents discovered a Chinese criminal operation bribed employees and brought large bags of cash into branches to launder millions of dollars in fentanyl sales through TD branches in New York and New Jersey, a source confirmed.