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Israel Participates in Dubai Defense Exhibition
The Israel Ministry of Defense will inaugurate the first-ever national pavilion in a defense exhibition in Dubai and will lead a delegation of Israeli defense industries participating in the event.
“The partnership between Israel and the UAE, which has been expanding since the signing of the Abraham Accords, is a strategic asset,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz (Blue and White) said.
“The participation of the Ministry of Defense in the exhibition reflects the deepening relations between our countries. I congratulate Sibat and all the Israeli industries for their participation in this important exhibition and am positive that this will serve as a launch board for further cooperation.”
Israel’s pavilion will be headed by the Directorate for International Defense Cooperation (SIBAT) in the Israel Ministry of Defense. Sibat will establish an Israeli pavilion at “Dubai Airshow,” with the national pavilion inaugurated by the Head of Sibat, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yair Kulas, along with senior members of Israel’s defense establishment and the managers of participating defense industries.
The defense industries participating in the exhibition include: Elbit Systems, IAI, Rafael, Tomer Astronautics, Nir Or, and UVision, the Defense Ministry said.
Head of Sibat Brig. Gen. (Res.) Yair Kulas noted, “The opening of an Israeli national pavilion in Dubai is a new and historic component in the strengthening relations between Israel and the UAE.
“We are thrilled to have an opportunity to participate in this important exhibition and to showcase the advanced technological capabilities of Israel’s defense industries. Within the framework of the exhibition, we plan to hold numerous meetings to discuss new areas of collaboration.”
American Released from Myanmar Prison
Danny Fenster hugged his parents on Tuesday morning at JFK Airport in New York. It had been six months since he was jailed by Myanmar’s military rulers and only one day after he was finally pardoned and released from prison.
“It feels incredible,” the 37-yearold journalist said.
Fenster arrived on U.S. shores with former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson, who helped facilitate his release.
“It’s a moment that I have been imagining so intensely for so long,” he told reporters. “It surpasses everything I imagined.”
Fenster was handed an 11-year sentence last week for incitement, unlawful association, and breaching visa rules.
He was freed on Monday, a day before he was to face terror and sedition charges that could have seen him jailed for life, and flew to the Qatari capital Doha.
Myanmar’s military has squeezed the press since taking power in a February coup, arresting dozens of journalists critical of its crackdown, which has killed more than 1,200 people, according to a local monitoring group.
Fenster had been working at Frontier Myanmar, a local outlet in the Southeast Asian country, for around a year and was arrested as he headed home to see his family in May.
The junta said Fenster was pardoned and released on “humanitarian grounds,” ending 176 days spent in a colonial-era prison where many of Myanmar’s most famous dissidents have been held. His release was secured following “face-to-face negotiations” between Richardson and junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.
Fenster was granted a pardon and
release with a “view to maintaining friendly relations between nations,” a report in state-run Global New Light of Myanmar said Tuesday.
More than 100 journalists have been arrested since the putsch, according to Reporting ASEAN, a monitoring group. At least 30 are still in detention.
Pentagon Demands Vaccines for National Guard
The U.S. Department of Defense on Saturday emphasized that it will stick to its vaccine mandate for members of the National Guard, despite Oklahoma’s new Adjutant General Thomas Mancino’s vow that he would not enforce it.
In his memo this week, Mancino noted, “No Oklahoma Guardsman be required to take the COVID-19 Vaccine.”
In August, the Department of Defense announced that all U.S. military members would be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccination.
In a statement, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, “We are aware of the memo issued by the Oklahoma Adjutant General regarding COVID vaccination for Guardsmen and the governor’s letter requesting exemption. We will respond to the governor appropriately.”
He added that U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also backed the mandate.
“That is why he has ordered mandatory vaccines for the total force, and that includes our National Guard, who contribute significantly to national missions at home and abroad,” Kirby added, according to the report.
Oklahoma’s previous Adjutant General, Mike Thompson, had been abruptly removed from his position on Wednesday – and learned of his replacement from Twitter. Thompson had backed the vaccine mandate.
Bannon Charged with Contempt of Congress
Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Sunday praised the U.S. Justice Department’s decision to charge Steve Bannon with contempt of Congress.
According to Schiff, the decision will “without a doubt” influence others to cooperate with the January 6 select committee’s subpoenas.
Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Schiff said, “And indeed even before the Justice Department acted, it influenced other witnesses who were not going to be Steve Bannon.”
He added, “Now that witnesses see that if they don’t cooperate, if they don’t fulfill their lawful duty when subpoenaed, that they too may be prosecuted, it will have a very strong focusing effect on their decision-making,” he said. “So it’s very positive. I view this as an early test of whether democracy was recovering. If our law is to mean anything, it has to be applied equally. And so I’m very glad that Justice Department has moved forward in this fashion.”
On Friday, the Department of Justice charged Bannon with two counts of contempt of Congress, after he refused to provide documents and testimony to investigators examining the January 6 Capitol riot.
On Monday, Bannon surrendered to the FBI.
“This is going to be the misdemeanor from [a really bad place],” Bannon told reporters later outside federal court after making a brief appearance on Monday. “They took on the wrong guy.”
Did an FBI Raid Violate the First Amendment?
An FBI raid last weekend against Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and similar raids on some of his associates have raised questions
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– JAN 30 regarding the Biden administration’s commitment to the First Amendment, according to Politico.
The investigation was prompted by the alleged theft of the diary of U.S. President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley. The diary reached O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, which did not publish anything on the issue and turned the document over to the police.
However, last Saturday, the FBI raided O’Keefe’s home at 6:00a.m., seizing his cell phones pursuant to a court order. O’Keefe said he stood in the hallway handcuffed and in his underwear, as the agents searched for the phones.
There were nearly a dozen agents conducting the search, he said, and one carried a battering ram.
O’Keefe’s lawyers complained to a federal judge this week. O’Keefe’s lawyer Paul Calli wrote to prosecutors, “The Department of Justice’s use of a search warrant to seize a reporter’s notes and work product violates decades of established Supreme Court precedent.”
O’Keefe’s lawyers are demanding the court appoint a special master to supervise the review of the information on his phones.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres issued a onepage order giving prosecutors one day to confirm they have “paused [their] extraction and review of the contents” of O’Keefe’s cell phones. Torres has not yet ruled on O’Keefe’s request for a special master.
In a Monday letter to O’Keefe’s lawyers, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan wrote, “The Government hereby confirms that it has complied with all applicable regulations and policies regarding potential members of the news media in the course of this investigation, including with respect to the search warrant at issue.”
Court papers indicate that the devices were taken as part of an investigation into potential conspiracy to traffic stolen goods across state lines, misprision of a felony, and accessory-after-the-fact. However, under the First Amendment, media outlets cannot be held liable for publishing information that may have been obtained illegally, as long as they themselves obtained the material legally.
Calli, Project Veritas’ lawyer, acknowledged that the group “agreed to pay money for the right to publish” the Biden diary, but told the court in a letter that sources told Project Veritas that the diary was obtained after Ashley Biden abandoned it in Florida.
Bank Robber Found – Decades Later
In July 1969, Theodore John Conrad came to work as a bank teller in Cleveland – and walked off with $215,000 stuffed into a paper bag at the end of his shift.
After making off with the funds, Conrad, then 20, simply vanished.
According to the U.S. Marshals Service, the bank robbery was one of the biggest in the city. The sum would be worth $1.7 million today.
On Friday, the federal law enforcement agency announced that it had identified Conrad and that the bank robber – who changed his name to Thomas Randele – had been living in Boston since 1970.
The U.S. Marshals Service said, “A year before the Cleveland bank robbery, Conrad became obsessed with the 1968 Steve McQueen film. The movie was based on the bank robbery for sport by a millionaire businessman, and Conrad ... bragged to his friends about how easy it would be to take money from the bank.”
The case was finally solved after decades of investigation, when federal authorities traveled to Massachu-
