New York Times: How Russia's intelligence services turned Brazil into a ‘spy factory'
Ambush is really the word that defines a lot of the South African front pages today. Daily News saying as much on its front page after that calamitous meeting between Cyril Ramaphosa and Donald Trump. The Sowetan says Ramaphosa "survived the ambush". The paper impressed that he staged "a pushback against lies of a white genocide in South Africa".
In its analysis, the New York Times says Trump cast himself as a protector of persecuted white people. He publicly dressed down the South African president based on a fringe conspiracy theory.
The US daily also reports that Brazil is trying to dismantle a network of Russian spies in the country. This fascinating investigative report looks at how Russia used Brazil as a sort of assembly line for producing Russian spies. The goal was not to spy on Brazil but for its spies to become Brazilian with passports. Brazil's painstaking investigative work, which began after the war in Ukraine, involved dismantling the network, piece by piece. It dealt a devastating blow to Putin's spy program. Times takes us through Operation East which was led by the same counterintelligence agents who investigated former president Jair Bolsonaro. They combed through millions of Brazilian identity records in search of patterns. It began in 2022 with the arrest of Victor Muller Ferreira aka Sergey Cherkasov. Authorities discovered his real birth Brazilian certificate citing a deceased Brazilian woman as his mother. Yet, upon further investigation – they discovered she never had children. Consequently, this network of ghosts began to unravel.
In Ireland, a controversial rapper has been charged with a terror offence. The Belfast Telegraph reports that Mo Chara, rapper of the Irish language rap group Kneecap, was charged with a terror offence. It dates back to last November when the group displayed a flag in support of Hezbollah during a concert. Videos also emerged of the band allegedly calling for deaths of MPs. They later denied support for the groups and apologized. In the UK, Hezbollah and Hamas are declared terrorist organisations, which means it's illegal to express support for them. Irish news site Breaking News reports that it's not the group's first run-in with the law. Last month at Coachella, Kneecap ended their set with three messages on a screen accusing Israel of genocide and war crimes which sparked outrage in the US. They also commissioned a mural in Belfast of a burning Land Rover, the vehicle used in policing in Northern Ireland, which some say glorified terrorism.
Finally, Taiwan has a new rock star envoy to Finland. Freddy Lim founded the Taiwanese heavy metal band Chthonic which is known as the Black Sabbath of Asia. He has now been named envoy to Finland. And his nomination is apt – the band is well known in Finland having recorded four albums with a Finnish label. As the Brooklyn based website Metal Injection notes, Finland has the most metal bands per capita – 80 for every 100k citizens. So where better than Finland to appoint a heavy metal singing ambassador!
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