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Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday said that cocaine is only illegal because it is produced in Latin America and suggested that legalizing it could diminish criminal organisations' profits.

Petro during a cabinet roundtable compared cocaine to whisky and and said is "not worse than whisky." "That is what scientists are analyzing. What indeed is affecting the US is fentanyl, which is killing them," he said.

He suggested that criminal syndicates' operations could be effectively eliminated through worldwide cocaine legalisation. "It could be sold like wine," he said, suggesting that regulated sales could prevent youth consumption.

Stewart was already pretty focused on the episode because of his lifelong appreciation for Warner's work, but as a member of Amnesty International for years before coming to "Star Trek," he was even more concerned about making sure the torture aspects of the episode were accurate and respectful to torture survivors.

In the episode, Picard is tortured by Gul Madred in a number of ways, including isolation, stripping him naked, starvation, and causing him intense physical pain, all ending in a sick game where Madred shows Picard four lights and threatens him with excruciating pain if he doesn't agree with Madred saying there are actually five lights. In addition to working directly with Amnesty International on the episode, inviting them to Los Angeles to help with the torture scenes, Patrick Stewart also watched tapes that included statements from torture survivors and even a long interview with a torturer who shared his experiences hurting other people.

In addition to his rather uncomfortable research, Stewart also insisted on being completely nude during the scene where Picard is tortured by being stripped naked, because he wanted to fully honor the experiences of those who had endured similar torture in the real world. (Generally, nude scenes are done with some kind of skin-toned undergarment or even a little sock, but Stewart wanted to be as exposed as Picard.) Stewart's experience researching and filming the torture scenes might have been pretty unpleasant, but it helped lead to one of the very best episodes of "The Next Generation."

For non-Brits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jammie_Dodgers

North Korea sends its troops to Russia to further participate in the war against Ukraine in exchange for money and nuclear technology.

Kyrylo Budanov, Chief of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, stated this in a comment to The Economist.

It is noted that North Korea does not give its people or weapons to Russia for free. Moscow pays money and transfers technology for this.

According to Budanov, Russia is helping North Korea to circumvent sanctions and “strengthen” its nuclear capabilities. In particular, it shares some technologies for tactical nuclear weapons and submarine-launched missile systems.

The expanded cooperation between the two countries in the military sphere is not happening out of the blue but is the result of a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement signed by Putin and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un in June of this year.

Ukraine is seriously considering the possibility of restoring nuclear weapons. This is reported by Bild with reference to a source.

“We have the materials, we have the knowledge. If there is an order, it will only take us a few weeks to get the first bomb,” said a Ukrainian official.

And Western countries should think less about Russia’s red lines and much more about Ukraine’s red lines.

According to analyst Julian Repke, a condition for restoring the nuclear weapons Ukraine has surrendered could be a second attempt by the Russian Federation to go after Kyiv.

Western officials believe they have evidence that Chinese companies have secretly supplied weapons to Russia in what could amount to a significant escalation of Beijing’s involvement in the Ukraine war.

A new report obtained by allies points to a Chinese company sending a range of purpose-built military drones to Russia for testing, with the ultimate destination being Ukraine, The Times understands.

The deal occurred last year, according to a western official, who was unable to disclose the name of the company. However, they said there was “clear evidence now that Chinese companies are supplying Russia with deadly weapons for use in Ukraine”.

“While the Chinese government might not admit it, they are going to struggle to keep their increasing support under wraps,” added the official, appearing to accuse Beijing of being involved or aware of the delivery.

They also confirmed a Reuters report from earlier in the week that Russia is believed to have established a weapons programme in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine.

Open-source seismic recordings published on Wednesday and Thursday, among them by the Norwegian seismic monitoring group NORSAR, picked up 13 explosions around Toropets taking place during or in the hours after the Ukrainian attack. Each “seismic event” registered at between 2.0-2.8 magnitude, with energy comparable to a small earthquake, news reports said.

Outlying homes in three villages located a half kilometer or less from the north fence of the facility were damaged, according to news reports. Some local social media reported the village Tsikarevo, less than 300 meters from Toropets’ northeastern security fence, was completely destroyed. The local television news platform RBC-TV reported fires had surrounded and consumed several villages and towns, forcing hundreds of people to flee their homes.

Social media recorded smoke and fires burning throughout the day, and explosions continuing for hours as individual munitions cooked off. Some video showed people identifying themselves as residents of Tsikarevo and stating they had no way to escape the conflagration but by boat via a nearby lake, because explosions at Toropets had flattened nearby forests and made all roads impassable.

In this review of the Audiolab 8000CDM CD transport, which produces only a digital signal from the digital data on a CD, the guy compares it to other transports and says:

High end Japanese designs such as the Esoteric P30 – admittedly three or four times the £850 price of the Audiolab – had a slightly more powerful bass and a whisker more detail and depth

sremoved**

I stopped reading at that point :-)

Japan's Defense Ministry reported that it scrambled fighter jets after two Russian patrol aircraft were detected flying in circles around the country.

Although the Russian planes did not enter Japanese airspace, their proximity raised significant concerns. This incident marks the first such military activity around Japan since 2019, when Russian bombers breached Japanese airspace.

The Russian Tu-142 aircraft were tracked traveling from the sea between Japan and South Korea towards the southern Okinawa region, according to Digi24.

They then proceeded north over the Pacific Ocean, reaching the northern island of Hokkaido. In response, the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force launched an urgent interception of the Russian planes.

The Russian aircraft also flew over the disputed Kuril Islands, known as the "Northern Territories" in Japan.

On September 12, Russian forces continued their counterattacks across the Ukrainian bulge in the Kursk region but achieved only minor successes. The limited progress is likely due to ongoing Ukrainian offensive operations and defensive counterattacks in the area, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia, with a decision understood to have already been made in private.

Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had “from day one” been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. “We will continue to do this,” he emphasised.

Blinken said he and Lammy would report back to their “bosses” – Joe Biden and Keir Starmer – after their talks on Wednesday with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The foreign secretary suggested Iran’s dispatch of ballistic missiles to Moscow – revealed this week – had changed strategic thinking in London and Washington. It was a “significant and dangerous escalation”, he said.

He added: “The escalator here is Putin. Putin has escalated with the shipment of missiles from Iran. We see a new axis of Russia, Iran and North Korea.” Lammy urged China “not to throw in its lot” with what he called “a group of renegades”.

British government sources indicated that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced on Friday when Starmer meets Biden in Washington DC.

The two leaders are planning to discuss the war in Ukraine, and how it could be ended, as part of a wide-ranging foreign policy discussion, though they will avoid an intense focus on any individual weapons system, as the aim of the conversation is strategic.