Thread by @LookNoFurther4

Russia fortifying Kaliningrad; Why?
British “treasure”
Japan bear attacks
Robbery on Putin’s Doomsday plane
Venice floodgate failure
Mexico's Mayan Train enjoined
Commercial shipping-environmental risk to Arctic Ocean
Former WWII POW Nicholas Katzenbach
look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

1. Thieves have pried open the cargo hatch of one of Putin’s four Ilyushin-80 airplanes, the strategic command and control aircraft that would protect Putin during a nuclear war and enable him to maintain command of Russian military forces--> look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

2.The robbery occurred as the plane was undergoing routine maintenance at the Taganrog Aviation Scientific & Technical Complex located on the northeast coast of the Sea of Azov.The Taganrog facility recently received more than $300,000 in government funds to upgrade its security.

3. Thirty-nine pieces of radio equipment plus five radio boards were taken from the plane. A Russian television station reported that the robbers’ shoe and fingerprints have been found. The thieves have not been apprehended-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

4. These photos of Putin were taken during his birthday trip to Siberia. We have more info on the GREAT PLANE ROBBERY in our report-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

5. On Monday, the head of Russia’s Baltic Fleet, Admiral Alexander Nosatov, said the Russian naval installation in Kaliningrad would be heavily reinforced with new motorized rifle, artillery and tank regiments-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…
[Putin in Mongolia]

6. Admiral Nosatov said the reinforcement of the Russian naval installation was in response to a NATO deployment of an armored tank unit and other tactical strike units nearby.
[Putin's visit to Mongolia]

7. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has also made claims of recent NATO force deployments. In August, he said that NATO tanks and planes had been deployed to strategic locations in Lithuania, just fifteen minutes from the Belarus border.

8. Putin has joined the chorus. Last week, he claimed that Belarus was facing unprecedented “external pressure and outside interference.”

NATO spokesmen have denied these claims.

Our report-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…
[Putin has 2 daughters]

9. Rifle, artillery and tank units are an unlikely way to strengthen Russian port defenses.

We believe their placement in Kaliningrad may instead be the first steps in a Russian invasion of Belarus. More-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

10. The civil unrest in Belarus has continued for eighteen weeks, despite violent repression by Lukashenko’s militarizedpolice.If the democratic uprising succeeds, Belarus will no longer be a supplicant Russian client state, but will become a pro-Western, democratic government.

11. Kaliningrad became geographically isolated from the rest of Russia when the USSR collapsed in 1991. This geographic isolation is often presented as a problem for Russia which was amplified when Kaliningrad’s neighbors, Lithuania and Poland, became members of NATO and the EU.

12. Rather than a problem, Kaliningrad is a Russian forward operating base in the heart of eastern NATO countries. When Russia brings new land-based military units to its naval station in Kaliningrad, they are there to provide a land-based offensive capability nearby.

13. Will Putin mount a “peace enforcement action” in Belarus, as he did in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014?

Some analysts say “yes” and some say “no.”

We will soon know the answer.

more in our report-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

14. Nicholas Katzenbach came to national prominence as an unwavering and effective advocate for civil rights legislation and enforcement in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

[phtot: June 11, 1963 standoff at the Univ of Alabama]

Our report-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

15. Rising to the position of Attorney General, Katzenbach resigned in 1966 after repeated clashes with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover over a mail-opening operation and unauthorized wiretaps directed at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

16. Katzenbach’s service to the nation began in 1941, when he left Princeton in his junior year to enlist following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He joined the Army Air Corp and was assigned as a navigator in a bombing group stationed in North Africa.

17. While on a bombing mission in February 1943, Katzenbach’s plane, a B-25 Mitchell Bomber, was shot down over the Mediterranean. He spent the next two years as a prisoner in Italian and German POW camps, including Stalag Luft III, the site of the “Great Escape.”

18. Katzenbach did not take part in the Great Escape, but screened the Hollywood film, “You Can’t Take It With You,” for Nazi prison officials to cover the sounds coming from the prisoners’ escape tunnel.

19. As the Vietnam war dragged on, Katzenbach, who took 2 fact finding trips there for LBJ, grew disillusioned with the war and advocated a negotiated wind-down of US military operations.

20. In Vietnam strategy sessions at the White House, Katzenbach increasingly found himself at odds with Walt Rostow, a proponent of the “domino theory” and strategic bombing of Vietcong and North Vietnamese targets.

21. Katzenbach summed up the difference between Walt Rostow, the war hawk, and himself, this way: “I was the navigator who was shot down, and Walt was the guy picking my targets.”

He died in 2012 at the age of 90.

More in our report-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…

22.They were doing so well…
The years of bureaucratic delays/ cost overruns were behind them at last and the worry caused by last year’s devastating floods was gone. The long-sought Venetian flood barrier system, called “Mose,” had been installed early in 2020...

23. In October, as another high tide threatened the city, Mose performed superbly once more, keeping the water level in the lagoon low and the floor in St. Mark’s Basilica bone dry. The Venetian mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, was thrilled and posted happy photos on social media.

24.But on Tuesday morning, the shopkeepers, hoteliers and keepers of St. Mark’s declared Venice was “back to square one” as five feet [1.5 meters] of flood waters filled the city. It was not Mose that had failed. It was an erroneous weather forecast that was to blame.

25. Weather bulletins had predictedTueshigh tides would only reach 1.2 meters while Mose protocols call for the floodgates to be raised when high tides are predicted to reach 1.3 meters. By the time the unexpectedly high tidewater entered the Venetian lagoon, it was too late.

26. Mayor Brugnaro said the command-and-control rules for Mose would be re-evaluated in light of this failure.

We have more in our report. Please consider signing up for a subscription-->look.substack.com/p/eight-things…