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Tag: shocked

  • Shocked by total collapse of law & order in UP: Mamata

    Shocked by total collapse of law & order in UP: Mamata

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    Kolkata: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday expressed her shock at what she termed as collapse of law and order in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state.

    The chief minister was reacting to the killing of gangster-politician Atiq Ahmad and his brother Ashraf Ahmad at Prayagraj in U.P by gunmen while they were being escorted by a strong police posse for medical examination.

    Banerjee claimed that criminals are now taking the law into their own hands, unfazed by the presence of police and media and termed it as a “shameful” act.

    MS Education Academy

    “I am shocked by the brazen anarchy and total collapse of law and order in Uttar Pradesh. It is shameful that criminals are now taking the law into their own hands, unfazed by the police and media presence,” Banerjee tweeted.

    While the CPI(M) and Congress’s Bengal unit came out with similar statements, the BJP attacked the chief minister asking her to look into her government’s own records.

    WBPCC President Adhir Choudhury, termed the shooting as a “cold-blooded murder”.

    Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge had earlier in the day said in a tweet there are courts to ensure that criminals get the harshest punishment but “playing with law and order only gives birth to anarchy”.

    In a statement, CPI(M) similarly said the killing of the duo, while in police custody and in front of the media, shows that Uttar Pradesh has become a completely “lawless state”.

    “The manner in which two men were murdered in the presence of heavy police escort points towards official connivance. This must be seen in the background of the repeated spate of encounter killings which are nothing but extra judicial murders,” the party said.

    Countering Banerjee, BJP state spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya said “TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee should hold the mirror to herself and introspect about the track record of the ruling party and administration in protecting lives of those who criticise their regime”.

    “Rather than turning to UP, let Mamata Banerjee explain why 55 BJP activists had been killed by TMC miscreants in past two years after she (Mamata Banerjee) returned to power,” Bhattacharya claimed.

    About the U.P incident, he said the BJP government there has already taken steps to address the situation and the assailants have been apprehended.

    The two brothers were shot dead at point-blank range by men posing as journalists in the middle of an impromptu media interaction on Saturday night while police personnel were escorting them to a medical college here for a check-up.

    Police patrolling was intensified on Sunday in Prayagraj’s Chakiya area where gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmad’s house is located even as the Uttar Pradesh police tightened security across the state.



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    #Shocked #total #collapse #law #order #Mamata

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • ‘I’m sick to my stomach’: Pentagon officials shocked by intel leaks

    ‘I’m sick to my stomach’: Pentagon officials shocked by intel leaks

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    Inside the Defense Department, officials described feelings of shock and distress as the scope of the leak emerged over the weekend.

    “The mood is anger,” said one DoD official, who like others quoted for this story was granted anonymity to discuss internal reactions to the leak. “It’s a massive betrayal.”

    “I’m sick to my stomach,” said a second DoD official.

    The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into the breach, and the Pentagon is leading an interagency effort to determine the impact on national security. DoD is also now reviewing its processes for handling classified information, including how the information is distributed and to whom, Pentagon press secretary Chris Meagher told reporters Monday.

    But DoD is still trying to get a handle on the scope of the breach. The department is continuing to assess “what might be out there,” Meagher said.

    “The Department of Defense’s highest priority is the defense of our nation and our national security,” he said. “We of course condemn any unauthorized disclosure of classified information, and we’re taking this very seriously.”

    National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby also acknowledged that more classified materials may be out there. Asked whether the leak has been contained, he responded: “We don’t know. We truly don’t.”

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was informed of the leak during his morning briefing on April 6, after an initial tranche of five images surfaced on mainstream social media platforms, according to Meagher. On the morning of April 7, Austin began daily meetings with senior leaders to discuss the issue.

    At the secretary’s direction, DoD set up a “cross-department effort” to assess the potential impacts of the leak, engage allies and lawmakers, and determine the way ahead, Meagher said.

    The breach has set off a diplomatic crisis, with Biden administration officials seeking to reassure concerned international counterparts.

    Officials were initially concerned about the intelligence breach but believed the information would be of limited use to Russia because it showed a snapshot in time, said the first defense official. For example, one slide was labeled “Status of the Conflict as of 1 Mar,” and depicted a map of troop positions. The documents also appeared to be heavily doctored, the official said.

    But by the afternoon of April 7, it was clear that the leak was much bigger than the officials imagined. A tranche of over 100 documents has been circulating since at least early March, when they were first posted online on Discord, a social media platform popular with gamers.

    The documents appear to be photographs of printouts that were folded up and then smoothed out again. A number of items appear underneath the paper documents, including “Gorilla” brand super glue gel and a rifle scope from hunting company “Creative XP.”

    The leak has prompted conversations about whether DoD should further restrict the number of people who have access to sensitive information. The first DoD official described seeing classified information, both in paper form and on electronic tablets, “all over the Pentagon.”

    “Anytime that there are documents like this with the sensitivities that they contain, the highest levels of this building is going to be concerned,” said a third DoD official.

    Experts said the disclosure could be even more damaging than the leak by Edward Snowden 10 years ago, particularly because the information is so recent. The documents related to Ukraine, for example, date from late February to early March, and show battlefield information that is still relevant to the conflict.

    Mick Mulroy, a former top Pentagon official and retired CIA officer, said the investigation needs to move quickly not just to identify the source of the leak but to prevent any further disclosures.

    “We need to rethink how we store and hold classified information and who has access to that information,” Mulroy said.

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    #sick #stomach #Pentagon #officials #shocked #intel #leaks
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • No One Should Be That Shocked by What’s Happening in Tennessee

    No One Should Be That Shocked by What’s Happening in Tennessee

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    When I covered the Tennessee Capitol from 2018 to 2021, the family-values espousing Republican House speaker had to explain why his text message trail included discussions of pole-dancing women and his chief of staff’s sexual encounters in the bathroom of a hot chicken restaurant.

    After a Republican lawmaker was accused of sexually assaulting 15- and 16-year-old girls he had taught and coached, he was made chairman of the House education committee.

    Protesters filled the halls week after week, year after year, calling for the removal of the bust of the Ku Klux Klan’s first Grand Wizard, a piece of art featured prominently between the House and Senate chambers. Democrats pushed for its removal, while Republicans resisted.

    A Democrat who declined to support the current speaker’s reelection had her office moved into a small, windowless room. In a twist of fate, that same Democrat, Rep. Gloria Johnson, a white woman, narrowly escaped expulsion on Thursday. (Reps. Justin Jones and Justin Pearce fared differently.)

    And then, of course, there was the famous peeing incident, where a legislator’s office chair was urinated on in an act of intraparty retribution over shitposting. The actual identity of the Republican urinator is a closely-held secret among a small group of operatives who have bragged about witnessing it. But it’s generally accepted that former state Rep. Rick Tillis, a Republican and the brother of U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, did indeed have his chair peed on in the Cordell Hull legislative office building.

    It wasn’t always quite like this.

    There was a time before when one-upmanship wasn’t the organizing principle inside the Tennessee statehouse. Not so long ago, there was more balance in power and, with that, more comity in the chamber. But as Republicans have made bigger gains, they’ve also become more politically confrontational.

    The modern Tennessee Republican Party was forged by Howard Baker and others in the 1960s and 70s by tapping into a bipartisan coalition of voters — bringing the GOP from near irrelevance within the state to soon producing some of the nation’s top Republican talent.

    “This kind of scene Thursday was the last thing they would have wanted to see happen,” said Keel Hunt, an author of books on Tennessee politics who worked as an aide to then-Gov. Lamar Alexander, a Republican.

    I’m reminded of an evening I was sitting in the House press corps box in April 2021, when the House honored Alexander — a Republican and champion of civility, now remembered for his moderate flavor of politics — after his recent retirement from the Senate. Moments later, Republican leadership brought far-right conservative commentator and MAGA firebrand Candace Owens onto the floor, describing her as one of the party’s leading thought leaders of the day, fighting against “creeping socialism and leftist political tyranny.” The Tennessee House passed a resolution thanking her for moving to the state.

    The state party knows that it’s drifting. Some openly and proudly admit it. It’s also evidenced by Sen. Bob Corker’s decision not to seek reelection in 2018, and Gov. Bill Haslam’s opting out of running for Alexander’s open seat in 2020. Both Corker and Haslam know they were unlikely to have survived a primary in the state, had they stayed true to their own brands of more moderate conservatism. Corker’s Senate seat ended up going to Marsha Blackburn, a Trump loyalist, and Bill Hagerty, now in Alexander’s seat, handily won the GOP primary after securing his own endorsement from Trump.

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    #Shocked #Whats #Happening #Tennessee
    ( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

  • Scientists shocked after huge piece of Sun breaks off

    Scientists shocked after huge piece of Sun breaks off

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    The Sun’s North Pole was surrounded by a tornado-like whirl when a large chunk of its surface broke off. Even though researchers are working to understand how it happened, the video of the event has shocked the space community.

    The extraordinary occurrence was captured by NASA’s James Webb telescope and announced last week on Twitter by space weather forecaster Dr. Tamitha Skov. Scientists are particularly concerned about the most recent development since the Sun continues to release solar flares (also known as prominences) that can occasionally interfere with communications on Earth.

    “Talk about Polar Vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our Star. Implications for understanding the Sun’s atmospheric dynamics above 55 degrees here cannot be overstated!” Dr Skov said in a tweet last week.

    The prominence, as defined by NASA, is a big luminous feature extending from the Sun’s surface. Although there have been other incidents of this kind, the scientific community is baffled by this one.

    “Additional measurements of the #SolarPolarVortex show that material travelled around the pole at a latitude of about 60 degrees in about 8 hours. This suggests that 96 kilometres per second, or 60 miles per second, is the upper bound for the assessment of the horizontal wind speed in this occurrence.” Dr. Skov stated in a later tweet.

    A chunk of the prominence broke off and was whipped into the solar atmosphere, causing a “vortex” that had never been seen before, according to solar physicist Scott McIntosh of the US National Centre for Atmospheric Research, who has been watching the Sun for decades.

    Now that the weird occurrence has occurred, space experts are investigating it to learn more about it and paint a clearer picture. Despite being constantly watched, our favourite star continues to surprise us with unexpected events like the numerous strong flares this month that interfered with contact on Earth.

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    #Scientists #shocked #huge #piece #Sun #breaks

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )