That United States Coast Guard (USCG) unloaded a cache of cocaine at a Florida port this Friday valued at more than $22 million and from various confiscations in the Caribbean Sea.

“The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Robert Yered dumped more than $22 million worth of cocaine at the US Coast Guard station in Fort Lauderdale on Friday following multiple interdictions in the Caribbean,” the USCG said via Twitter.

Images shared by the Coast Guard showed the cache, which consisted of several bales of drug packages. Although the US uniform officials did not provide details of the seizures, the value they calculated indicates an approximate quantity of 1,000 kilograms of coca.

In April, the USCG seized near Puerto Rico a shipment of approximately 1,000 kilograms of cocaineestimated at approx 20 million dollars.

The crew of Coast Guard Cutter Donald Horsley and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agents unloaded the drug at the USCG San Juan Base.

A statement from the Maritime Corps said: “During a routine patrol, the crew of a Customs and Border Protection Service aircraft sighted a suspicious vessel near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. Coast Guard lookout posts in the San Juan sector distracted Coast Guard cutter Donald Horsley, who arrived on site and intercepted a 35-foot Go Fast boat.”

Two Dominican nationals were on the boat in which they were transporting several bales of alleged contraband. The check found that the 33 bales confiscated were positive for cocaine.

captain Gregory H MageeCommander of Sector San Juan, stated that the “case underscores the steadfast determination of the Coast Guard and our partners to disrupt drug smuggling ships at sea and protect the nation’s southernmost maritime border.”

Referring to working with the DEA, he noted that “these organizations are key to protecting our citizens in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands from drug trafficking and other smuggling threats in the Caribbean.”

In December 2021, the USCG seized large quantities of cocaine totaling $148 million, during three operations in the Caribbean. As a result, nine suspected drug traffickers of Colombian and Dominican nationality were arrested.

“The Coast Guard’s strong international alliances counter maritime threats, protect each of our countries from transnational organized crime and work to stabilize and promote good governance in the region,” he said at the time. Hansel PintoSpokesman for the Seventh Coast Guard District based in Miami.

Drug smuggling into the United States also occurs through other sea routes. In November 2021, the USCG seized a huge shipment of drugs. with an estimated value of $504 millionthis time in the eastern Pacific, off the coasts of Mexico, Central America and South America.

The operation was carried out in cooperation with Canadian authorities and the thousands of pounds of drugs came from contraband goods seized and seized in eight arrests from vessels identified as suspected smugglers.

As the USCG explained in its bulletin at the time, the fight against drug cartels in the Caribbean will require a concerted effort from detection, surveillance and ship interception to criminal prosecution by international partners and the United States Attorney’s Offices in districts across the country.

According to Ukrainian state nuclear power company Energoatom, the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant is no longer connected to an external power supply. As a justification, she refers to the bombing. The facility now draws power from its emergency diesel generators to meet its own needs. These started automatically. The nuclear power plant has been attacked several times in recent months. Kyiv and Moscow blame themselves for this.

supplies for ten days

According to the Ukrainian nuclear supervisory authority, existing diesel reserves are sufficient for the operation of emergency diesel generators for ten days, the Climate Ministry in Vienna told APA. Work is already underway to restore the external power supply. There is no increase in the measured values ​​at the nuclear power plant, which is about 1,300 km from Austria. In addition, no effects are expected in Austria. However, the radiation protection department of the Ministry of Climate Protection is following developments and will report on changes if necessary.

The founder of the cable company Videotron, André Chagnon, died on Friday night at the age of 94.

Born in Montreal in 1928, André Chagnon trained as an electrical engineer at the École technique de Montréal and worked for a number of years as a clerk. Then, at the age of 31, he decided to enter the business by founding ER Chagnon et Fils Ltée.

In 1964 he founded Videotron, a cable company that in less than three decades became a leader in the sector.

Mr. Chagnon has received numerous awards for his achievements, including the Great Quebec Builder of Information and Communications Technologies award from the Fédération de l’informatique du Québec in 2003. He was also inducted into a Telecommunications Hall of Fame in 2009.

The founder of Videotron has been involved in many charities to help the poorest. When Videotron was sold to Quebecor in 2000, he established the Lucie and André Chagnon Foundation.

Mr. Chagnon has been appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada and the Ordre national du Québec and has received honorary doctorates from McGill University and HEC Montréal.

“We discovered that we are poor without knowing it,” says Richard Rodríguez, who was born in Valencia 50 years ago. Before the 2008 crisis, Rodríguez worked as an intercultural mediator (mediating conflicts between cultures and nationalities in neighborhoods) for the Madrid City Council. But the crisis took away their jobs, him and his wife, and they could no longer pay their rent in Vallecas. Since 2015, the family has lived in a bank apartment in the Villaverde district, which was empty after another family was the victim of foreclosures. “You live in fear, secretly, hidden… If you hear a siren in the distance, you think they’re coming to throw you out of the house,” he explains. They have asked the bank to sort out their situation, a social rent, the purchase of this precarious house that is now their home. Vain.

More information

Rodríguez’s case is one of those that Juan Diego Botto and his team used as inspiration for the film In the margins, which premiered in cinemas this Friday, with Penélope Cruz, Luis Tosar and Botto himself, who also directs and together with the journalist wrote the screenplay Olga Rodriguez. The film delves into the drama of precariousness, poverty and difficulties in accessing housing, which, as Botto says, are issues that are no longer new when they become a commonplace thing like this is happening. In 2021, according to the General Council of Justice (CGPJ), there were more than 100 evictions a day in Spain. However, humans are stubborn and have had a strong tendency not to sleep outdoors since the beginning of the species. The lack of a home is not like the lack of any other good, home is the foundation upon which existence is based and when that lack occurs everything else collapses

A preview of the film was held on September 28th at the Marcelino Camacho Auditorium of the Workers’ Commissions in central Madrid, in front of dozens of members of groups such as the Platform for People Affected by Mortgage or the Madrid Housing Coordinator. “The film was screened at the Venice and San Sebastian festivals, but for us this is the most important screening,” said the director. In that audience were the people, in whose homes, in their families, in their gatherings, in whose activism the filmmakers had deepened, only to later come out with a script that reflected the reality of those affected. Still, true stories are stranger than fiction.

When the world falls on you

“Penélope Cruz came to see me, we talked, she even got me to read her parts of the script,” says Angelines Díaz, 48, a camp girl (when she has a job). “I freaked out.” His problem began in 2012 when he could no longer pay the rent in social housing due to unemployment. Her husband worked in construction and the sector was paralyzed. “They sent me a letter saying I had to leave my house in a month… The world falls on you when you receive this letter, with a seven-year-old daughter and a two-year-old daughter,” he says. She attended the apartment meetings and became an activist there. Shown in the film with cameos of those truly affected, the collectives and living communities are not only a way to seek solutions, but also provide emotional support when everything falls apart.

“We are a family, if we see someone badly, we support them,” says Díaz. These organizations are machines to turn those affected into activists. There are men in it, but mostly women: the film focuses on the character of these fighting women. Díaz is still at home after years of struggle, meetings and confinement: he has received a rent that he can pay. “Of course I owe 32,000 euros for the house and a 9,000-euro fine for eviction incidents thanks to the gag law,” he says.

Juan Diego Botto poses with those affected and housing activists at the preview of “In the Margins”. Alvaro Garcia

Vanesa Fernández, 43, a shop assistant, domestic worker and practitioner of many others, especially black women, once attempted suicide. In 2013, he had access to an apartment of the Social Housing Agency (AVS) of the Autonomous Community of Madrid for people under 35 years old (at that time the AVS was called IVIMA). But shortly thereafter, this house in Madrid’s Las Suertes district was sold to investment fund Encasa Cibeles, majority-owned by Goldman Sachs. This year, the Autonomous Community of Madrid, chaired by Ignacio González, sold nearly 3,000 homes to the aforementioned fund. And his rent started to increase, from 140 to 409 euros, an amount that many could not afford.

In this situation, any unexpected expense was a stumbling block and it is difficult to pay for energy, water and food. “I wasn’t kicked out, but I received a lot of threats, they called me, a social worker came and invited me to go, they told me they weren’t an NGO, and I saw my neighbors getting kicked out,” says Fernández “So until the pressure got on me, I was very afraid of an eviction and preferred to go with my two children.” The victims left their apartment more gently.The new owners left the stairwell of the Fernández building without lights, without a TV antenna and the elevator unusable. “They wanted to make life impossible for us,” says the victim.

The whole process, along with pregnancy and childbirth, created a depression. Then she went from house to house, she tried to squat in a bank building but she didn’t succeed, the door was very strong and she didn’t know much about this discipline. “Sometimes you have to make radical decisions in order to survive,” explains Fernández, “but you have to know everything.” Until she ended up on the street, where her daughter’s father picked her up. In 2018, she had to put her son in a school due to economic problems because the situation in his studies harmed him. “It hit me twice already, the fact that my family was separated, and in December I couldn’t take it anymore: I tried to kill myself and ended up in a psychiatric hospital for eight days,” says Fernández. “I didn’t own my mind.” Now he lives in an apartment owned by an organization that fights for the right to housing.

A member of the mortgage victims platform is detained by police after entering Bankia headquarters Daniel Ochoa De Olza (AP)

Social awareness goes down

The movement against evictions has gained strength and glory in the previous crisis and in the heat of the 15M movement, but while the problems remain and even worsen, it seems that the way of looking at them is different is. “The situation in the media has changed a lot,” says Rodríguez. “Previously, when people talked about the housing problem, they talked about evictions, speculation, banks, vulture funds; Now they only talk about the cast on TV to scare us. Those of us who squat are not criminals, we are mostly families without resources.” As they say, the housing movement is not at its best. “People don’t get involved like they used to,” says Diaz, “there’s less social awareness.”

The diagnoses and possible solutions of all those affected are the same: In Spain there is a lack of social housing, as can be seen in comparison with the neighboring countries, Sareb (the “Bad Bank”) is to give up more apartments for social rent, housing has become an object of speculation and no constitutional right, effective housing law is needed and to stop evictions etc. These groups fight for such things and turn the vernissage into a party with slogans, speeches and songs. “It’s a great recognition for us that this film will be released,” says Rodríguez. “I really enjoyed filming, except when I got my ninth eviction notice on set. I couldn’t stop crying, from shame, from helplessness.”

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Russian Colonel-General Andrei Kartapolov admitted in a recent appearance on Russian state television that the Kremlin’s military in Ukraine is facing a grim situation.

Kartapolov’s admission comes more than seven months after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Kremlin officials initially hoped for a quick defeat against their Eastern European neighbors. However, the “military special operation” revealed several weaknesses in their military, including challenges in recruiting and maintaining motivated troops, and leadership issues.

These weaknesses, coupled with Kiev’s stronger-than-expected response and Western military aid, have allowed Ukraine to launch its own counter-offensives in recent weeks to retake Russian-held territory. Ukraine has said it has reclaimed thousands of square miles of land in eastern Ukraine near Kharkiv – inflicting a massive loss on Moscow that has forced Putin to order a partial mobilization of troops.

Kartapolov, also chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, admitted that Russia faced several challenges in Ukraine during the TV appearance covered by journalist Julia Davis, founder of Russian Media Monitor and columnist for The Daily Beast.

“The lying has to stop,” he said.

The head of the State Duma’s defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, told a disappointed propagandist, Vladimir Solovyov, that apart from not having enough uniforms and equipment for its armed forces, Russia may not have enough ammunition to cover all of Ukraine’s infrastructure destroy. pic.twitter.com/o3VGOAFgFJ

— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) October 8, 2022

He slammed the Defense Ministry for not commenting on Russia’s fighting in Ukraine – including the fact that Ukraine is now “on our soil”. He added that the Russian people learn about Ukrainian successes “through the Telegram channels, our war correspondents and from no one else.” He warned that officials who are not honest about the situation in Ukraine “could lead to a loss of confidence”.

“Our people are not stupid, far from it,” he said. “They see that they are being disregarded – that they are being told not even the whole truth, but even part of the truth.”

Kartapolov said that Russia calling for more troops for service in Ukraine will make no difference as long as they struggle to “supply and equip” troops already fighting.

His comments appeared to refer to Putin’s partial mobilization ordered in September, which could see 300,000 reservists sent to Ukraine’s front lines. The order has caused hundreds of thousands of Russians to flee the country to avoid conscription, and experts have suggested it may not solve all of Russia’s problems in Ukraine.

Pictured above are Ukrainian soldiers in the village of Shurove, Ukraine, on Saturday. Speaking on state television, Russian Colonel-General Andrey Valeryevich admitted that Russia is facing a grim situation in Ukraine, which has been making progress in recent weeks. YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP via Getty Images

Kartapolov said Russia’s “main problem” is the lack of intelligence – and not the troop issue.

“Not the armed forces, but the reconnaissance means that could allow us to fully uncover enemy objects. There are many objects, they exist, but each object requires power and a certain amount and type of ammunition. Maybe there’s ‘ Today they are not enough to complete all the tasks,’ he said.

Hosts and guests of Russian state television have defended Putin’s war and often parroted Kremlin talks. They have also adopted firmly anti-West and anti-NATO rhetoric, sometimes even issuing nuclear threats, as tensions between Russia and the West remain tense.

Michael McFaul, former US Ambassador to Russia, responded to the clip on Twitter on Saturday, tweeting: “Wow. There is no better proof that Russia is losing its war in Ukraine than this.”

Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry for comment.