The Hot Zone with Chuck Holton

Episode 191 - Chasing Dorian

Chuck lands in South Florida and starts chasing the hurricane.  Don't miss it!

Episode 190 - Game of Drones

There’s a new kind of war shaping up in the Middle East, and it’s taking to the skies.  We’ll learn more on today’s episode of the Hot Zone.

 

Hi folks, Well many of you know I’m a big drone enthusiast.  I have owned them for years, and the kind of footage you can get with these amazing flying cameras is really unlike anything else out there.  But whenever some new technology takes the world by storm, you can be sure bad guys out there will find a way to use it for nefarious purposes.  

 

We’re going to take a deep dive into that subject today, but before we get to that I just want to point out one small thing that isn’t worth a whole podcast, but are certainly interesting.  First, there were violent clashes in Tapachula Mexico a couple days ago, when African migrants were thwarted in their attempts to keep traveling north to the United States.  Mexican national police forces barred their way, because Mexico is trying to make a show of reducing the numbers entering the US from their country, since Donald Trump threatened sanctions on Mexico that would cost the country billions.  But these migrants, who we have been following from Africa to Ecuador then up through Central America, were really put out.  They are demanding not just food and water, but money and transportation to get to the US.  Just the kind of people we want in our country, right?  Well as I’ve said before, many of these men - and they are almost all military aged males - hail from countries that are essentially failed states.  That means they don’t really know how to handle being in a place that is governed by rule of law, and so when confronted with something like this their first response is to get violent.  

 

I’ve met a lot of these migrants, and while you have to empathize with their desire for a better life, the sense of entitlement many of them display is really off-putting.  They have expectations - that they will be able to travel from their countries halfway across the globe and that they will be fed and sheltered and given free transportation just by virtue of the fact that they call themselves immigrants.  They’ve traveled without papers, many of them receiving money from relatives and friends who are already in the states, and they expect to be allowed in because so many before them were allowed in.  But times are changing and all the countries along the route are feeling the effects of being part of this pipeline.  I would expect we’ll see even more of this violence as many of these men figure out they will not make it to the US and are now stuck in limbo in a country where they never intended to live.

 

Okay, let’s lighten things up a bit - In Spain the streets were running red this week - but not from blood. There’s a little-known tomato festival where thousands crowd the streets and pelt each other with the fruits, or vegetables or whatever they are.  Before long there was about six inches of tomato sauce that I’m sure had a little zing to it - tasted like bare Spanish feet - and everyone had a good time wrestling and swimming around in the muck.  Hey, whatever makes you happy.

 

Now, let’s look at the drone war that is happening in the Middle East.  We saw it starting back a few years ago when ISIS started using off the shelf drones to drop hand grenades on unsuspecting Iraqi troops in the fight for Mosul.  They also used them for reconnaissance to vector in car bombs, with very lethal effects.  The captured video of this stuff is chilling.  So because of these jackasses, my drone won’t even take off anymore anywhere inside Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan.  And the list of places you can’t fly grows almost every day.  Thanks a lot, ISIS.

 

The Houthi rebels in Yemen have been using drones for some time to hit targets inside the borders of their arch-enemy, Saudi Arabia.  

 

But now it’s getting more serious.  This week Israel says they thwarted a killer drone attack by Palestinian terrorists trained by Iran.  Then in one night Israel sent killer drones into some Hezbollah outposts in Beirut that were making propellant for drones and rockets destined to attack Israel.  And the same night the Israeli Air Force bombed targets near Damascus in Syria, which it says were drone launching bases that Iran was planning to use against them.  

 

Last week some ammunition dumps in Iraq mysteriously went up in flames, the sites belonged to the Iranian-backed militias that have been operating in Iraq for years.  Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but everyone is pretty sure they were carried out by Israeli drones.

 

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, got up and made a speech about it after the attacks on Beirut:  He said ""If we remain silent on this breach, it will create a very dangerous road for Lebanon where every couple of days or three days an explosive drone or suicide drone will target a certain building, farm, field, mosque, compound and no one knows from where it comes, repeating of what is going on in Iraq now.”

 

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, 

 

"While we are building our future there is someone who wants to destroy everything that we are building and return us to a dark past. I heard Nasrallah's remarks. I suggest that Nasrallah relax. He knows very well that the State of Israel knows how to defend itself and how to pay back its enemies. I want to tell him and the Lebanese state, which is sheltering this organization that aspires to destroy us, and I also say this to Qassem Soleimani: Be careful with your words and be even more careful with your actions."

 

So tensions are high, and the UN is asking that everyone just take a breather before things really get out of hand.

 

Jonathan Spyer, Director of Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis agreed and says this could get hot in a hurry.

 

Jon Gambrell, News Director for the Gulf and Iran at the Associated Press, says this is part of a growing trend.

 

 

So you can expect to see drones being used more and more by both sides, and the market for drone countermeasures is going to be a hot growth item in the years ahead.  And it won’t surprise me if at some point you won’t be able to fly your recreational drone anywhere but your own backyard, and that’s a real shame.

 

That’s all for today’s podcast folks.  Have a great weekend and I’ll see you back here on Monday.  I’m Chuck Holton and this has been the Hot Zone.

 

 

Episode 189 - Puerto Rico - How politicians Weaponise Disaster

This morning Puerto Rico is already going into recovery mode after the passage of tropical storm Dorian,  the first major storm to strike the island since Hurricane Maria in 2017, which hit with 175 mph winds. Maria knocked down 80 percent of the island’s power lines, leaving 3.4 million Americans without power in the largest blackout in US history, and led to the untimely deaths of almost 3,000 people.  Keep in mind most of those deaths happened months or even more than a year after Maria hit the island - from a lack of medicines and sub-standard medical care being offered by the island's hospitals. 

 

But as always, the politicians never miss an opportunity to use these crises to bash their rivals.  In the last few days, for example, Donald Trump took to twitter to bash Carmen Yulin Cruz, the mayor of San Juan.  His tweet said "Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. Their political system is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt. Congress approved Billions of Dollars last time, more than anyplace else has ever gotten, and it is sent to Crooked Pols. No good!...."  He went on to tweet: "We are tracking closely tropical storm Dorian as it heads, as usual, to Puerto Rico. FEMA and all others are ready,  and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it, and give them a big Thank You - Not like last time. That includes from the incompetent Mayor of San Juan!"

 

Sigh.  Well, leave it to our President to tell the truth about Puerto Rico, but to do it in the most abrasive and boorish way possible.  It's true Puerto Rico's politicians are incredibly corrupt.  It's true their system is broken.  And it's true the FEMA is ready to help.  What's not helpful is for the President to spend any time at all tweeting at his enemies.  He only feeds the anti-trump hysteria which needs no help, you can be sure. 

 

For her part, Carmen Yulin Cruz went on CNN and blamed Trump for the 3000 deaths that resulted from Hurricane Maria. 

 

This is just as childish as Trump's twitter habit, but it's a mirror image. Whereas Trump tells the truth in the worst possible way, Cruz is twisting the truth into a lie to fit her narrative for her own political gain.  And of course, CNN laps it up. 

 

Take a look at this package I made after i spent two weeks on the ground in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.  It shows how Cruz and the left-wing media tortured the truth to score political points for their side.  Don't let it escape you, either, that when Cruz is making her impassioned speeches at Trump about puerto ricans dying, she is doing it while standing in front of tons of aid that was sent by the federal government.  Much of that aid never got to it's intended recipients because of the failures of Cruz and her administration to prepare for the upcoming storm.

 

Now the good news is that Puerto Rico is much better prepared for this storm than they were for Maria.  In a news conference the new governor Wanda Vázquez said they have now have in stock 5-6 times the spare parts of posts, cables and transformers that they had back then.  But some 30,000 homes in Puerto Rico still have blue tarps as roofs and where the 3 million inhabitants depend on a shaky power grid that Maria destroyed and remains prone to outages even in the slightest of rain storms.  Government officials on the island warned of possible landslides, flash flooding and power outages, with Puerto Rico's health secretary urging those with certain health conditions such as diabetes to be prepared.

The island's transportation secretary acknowledged that crews are still rebuilding roads damaged or blocked by Maria. He said more than 1,000 roads are still blocked by that storm's landslides.  Remember that storm happened almost two years ago.  Unbelievable.  Dorian already caused power outages and downed trees in Barbados and St. Lucia, and while we're still not sure where it will go, the long-term track showed the storm near Florida over the weekend as a possible category 2 storm.

 

So there are likely to be lots of real people who need help in the aftermath of this storm, and there are plenty of resources out there to help.  But politicians slinging mud around - well that's not helping anybody.  In reality, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria may very well influence the 2020 presidential elections because over 200,000 puerto ricans have left and moved to Florida, which as you probably know is an important swing state.  Puerto ricans typically vote Democrat, so if you wanted to form a conspiracy theory about how democrat leaders in Puerto rico purposely botched the response to the hurricane so that they could help elect a democrat in 2020, well you might have some takers.  I don't think that was a conscious thing, though.  Politicians don't have to try and screw things up.  It's their stock in trade.  So our next president may end up being a democrat because a big storm hit a little island in 2017.  I think that's what you'd call the butterfly effect.  I guess we'll see.

 

So that's all I have for today folks.  Thanks for watching the hot zone.  If you like what you're seeing, please share this with your friends and go subscribe over at patreon.com/hotzone.  You'll help keep this content coming - and you get to be smarter than all your friends on issues that really matter.

 

I'm Chuck Holton.  Thanks for being here.  We'll see you tomorrow on the Hot Zone.

 

We are tracking closely tropical storm Dorian as it heads, as usual, to Puerto Rico. FEMA and all others are ready, and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it, and give them a big Thank You - Not like last time. That includes from the incompetent Mayor of San Juan!We are tracking closely tropical storm Dorian as it heads, as usual, to Puerto Rico. FEMA and all others are ready,  and will do a great job. When they do, let them know it, and give them a big Thank You - Not like last time. That includes from the incompetent Mayor of San Juan!

Episode 188 - DHS Secretary in Panama and CNN is LYING about the Amazon

The acting U.S. homeland security secretary Kevin McAleenan recently visited Panama for three days and during that time went to the same camp out in the Darien jungle I reported from back in April. The place is still housing hundreds of migrants who survived that perilous border crossing through the Darien we've talked so much about.  They are still coming...hundreds every week.

 

McAleenan was in Panama pushing for a safe third country agreement that would see this tiny country becoming home for all these migrants.  Let me predict that's not gonna happen.  Panama is already struggling under the weight of so many migrants, not just the ones coming through the Darien, but there are also hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Colombians here taking jobs from the locals, and it is starting to affect local politics. 

 

the DHS Secretary got briefed on the camp's operations and was able to see first hand how bad the conditions are for those who are walking through the Darien gap.  He did not interact with any of the migrants, mostly from Haiti, Cuba, and Africa, along with some from Asian nations. He also avoided the journalists present.

 

Panama has already had more than 16,000 people cross the Darien and enter their country illegally this year.   now that the rainy season is in full swing, the numbers are dropping somewhat just because there are lots of places in there that are literally impassable.   A month ago they had something like 75 Africans washed away in a flash flood who had to be rescued by the Panamanian border police, called Senafront.

 

Many of them said they were unaware of McAleenan's visit, and when he arrived with Panamanian Security Minister Rolando Mirones, escorted by border police, the migrants remained seated in villagers' homes and looked on with apparent indifference.

 

News has it that the buses that were carrying people from this camp to Costa Rica have been suspended for the time being.  And that means an increasingly uncertain future for those who are stuck in Las Penitas and the other similar camps in Panama.  For their part, the Panamanian authorities are not saying why the buses stopped running.

The increasing difficulty of making it to the US is causing some migrants to rethink their plans.  Many say they will now try to find work in Mexico or somewhere else.  Which shows that the Trump administration's efforts are bearing fruit, even in the face of fierce opposition back at home.

 

Immigration wasn't the only reason McAleenan came to Panama, he also met with government officials to address drug and human trafficking, and to try to bolster the relationship between the United States and the new Panamanian administration of president Laurentino Cortizo.

 

During the meetings, officials agreed to boost migratory and border controls to combat human trafficking.  That's a good thing.  There is already a lot of cooperation between our two countries, but it normally happens behind the scenes.  The US shares lots of intelligence with Panama, which allows them to confiscate hundreds of tons of cocaine and other drugs headed for the US.   At the end of July Costa Rican and Panamanian authorities busted a huge human smuggling ring that was part of the reason why so many Africans came this way to get to the United States.  They raided 36 locations near Costa Rica's borders and took down this massive smuggling enterprise...which was reportedly charging migrants between 7,000 and 20,000 dollars per person to get them to Mexico.  The local authorities got the credit for these apprehensions, but you can be sure the US had a lot to do with it.  Obviously, there is much to be gained by both countries for the US and Panama to work together on these issues.  but asking Panama to take in tens of thousands of illegal refugees on a permanent basis...might just be a bridge too far.

 

So the Amazon is on fire - and if you haven't heard about this on the news you haven't been paying attention.  The whole world seems to be up in arms over the fires, which celebrities and politicians are tweeting furiously about, saying things like "the lungs of our planet are on fire" and spouting lots of false information.  So let's take a look at the truth of the matter, shall we?

 

First of all, yes, there are tens of thousands of fires burning right now in the Amazon region.  This is common for this time of year - the dry season, but there are more this year than usual.  How much more?  Major news outlets are reporting this to be a record year for fires, but that's not true.  One reporter said this was the most we've seen in 20,000 years.  Definitely a stretch.  Forbes has a very good article debunking some of the more egregious claims.  Let's take a look at some of them.

 

The Amazon is not really the "lungs of the earth."  According to some of the world's most respected scientists, it may contribute about 5% to the world's oxygen supply, not the 20% being claimed.  One scientist believes the jungle may actually suck up as much oxygen as it produces, through a process they call respiration in which the trees convert nutrients from the soil into energy. 

 

The majority of the fires we see right now in the region are not actual forest fires, either.  They are mostly farmers burning off their land to kill pests and keep the weeds back.  Beats mowing, I guess. 

 

the NUMBER of fires is up significantly this year if you are comparing it to last year.  But in reality, it's only 7% higher than the 10-year average.  Not exactly the apocalypse.

 

So why is everyone up in arms about the amazing burning right now?  What has changed?  I mean, there are fires all over the world happening right now, in Spain, where 9,000 people have had to be evacuated from raging fires on the canary islands, in Greece, where they have been fighting massive wildfires for months now, in Bolivia, where over 1.8 million acres of Amazon have burned this year...there are fires in turkey, Indonesia, Alaska, and the Western United States right now...so again, why is everyone so upset about the fires in Brazil?

 

The answer?  Jair Bolsonaro.  See, Brazil elected a right-wing president last year who many call the Trump of the Tropics.  And leftists are doing everything they can to attack him, just like they do Donald Trump.  That's why they aren't castigating Bolivia for its fires, because their president, Evo Morales is an ardent socialist.  The media didn't scream bloody murder years ago when the fires in Brazil were worse than they are now...because the president at the time was a leftist, who is now in prison for corruption by the way.

 

Policies put in place under that president, Lula da silva, mandated for farmers in the Amazon region that 80% of their farms had to be kept in forest.  Imagine being told you could only farm 20% of your farm.  That's one reason the farmers voted for Jair Bolsonaro.  Now the media is acting like Bolsonaro is wholly responsible for the dry season in Brazil this year, even though he's only been in office for nine months. 

 

This is a perfect example of how the Mainstream media weaponizes the news to push their agenda.  It's underhanded, dishonest and really immoral.  And you need to understand that they want to control how you think.  But you are smarter than that because you watch the Hot Zone!  So good for you.  Now, go subscribe to the podcast so we can keep it going!  Just go to patreon.com/hotzone and support us there.  You'll be privy to lots of great extras and you'll be able to tell your friends you are a stakeholder, not just a spectator. 

 

I'm Chuck Holton, and this is the hot zone.

 

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/08/26/why-everything-they-say-about-the-amazon-including-that-its-the-lungs-of-the-world-is-wrong/#25a71a25bde0

Episode 186 - The UN Passes out Birth Control to 12-Year-Olds in Venezuela. Bad idea?

Venezuela has an epidemic of teen pregnancy, and now there are 30,000 babies in Colombia who have no identity because of it.  What the UN is doing about it, and how Colombia is taking care of these children.

Episode 185 - WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT: White Farmer Murders--Fact or Fiction?

An interview with Mariandra Heunis, Farm widow from South Africa.

Episode 184 - Is Trump's Border Policy Working?

An interview with Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Episode 183 - Reds, Refugees, Rescues and Relics

Pence gets tough with China, Immigrants are mad everywhere, and people get themselves in some really tight spots, and the Taliban are worse than you thought.

Episode 182 - What Will Afghanistan Do if We Leave?

Episode 181 - Colonel Marvin Behr of the International Alert Academy

www.alertacademy.com