International
Researcher points to Russia as responsible for the “Havana syndrome”
A former U.S. military investigator believes that health incidents known as “Havana syndrome” have been the result of attacks by Russia, according to the results of an investigation issued by the 60 Minutes program.
The report comes out as a result of a joint investigation by the CBS television network, the Russian media outlet The Insider, and the German magazine Der Spiegel.
Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Greg Edgreen, who handled the Pentagon’s investigation into what the United States officially describes as “anomalous health incidents,” said on the 60 Minutes program that the affected officials received an attack from Russia.
More than 200 American diplomats and relatives destined for different countries have suffered symptoms of the so-called “Havana syndrome,” which was first detected in the Cuban capital in 2016 and would manifest with dizziness, nausea, hearing problems or migraines.
A little more than a year ago, the United States intelligence concluded that it was “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary will provoke the so-called “Havana syndrome.”
Edgreen told CBS that, in the investigation, the criterion for validating the evidence was very strict because the government does not want to accept realities such as the possible omission in its duty to protect Americans.
“Unfortunately, I can’t give the details, due to the classification,” he added. “But I can tell you that from very early (in research) I began to focus on Moscow.”
Edgreen said that the affected officials have excelled in their performance and “there was constantly a Russian link.”
According to the former soldier, “they worked against Russia, focused on Russia, and they did it extremely well.”
The then-President Donald Trump (2017-2021) decided following the detection of these health incidents to suspend consular services in Havana in 2017 and minimize diplomatic staff on the island.
Havana has denied any responsibility and set up a commission of experts that found no scientific or criminal evidence that linked the symptoms to possible sonic attacks, microwaves or other deliberate action.
The Insider, for its part, published the testimony of Mar Polymeropoulos, identified as a former operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), with assignments in places such as Baghdad and Kabul, and who suffered the symptoms related to “Havana syndrome” after a trip to Moscow in 2017.
The symptoms, according to this report, corresponded to the “Havana syndrome,” and for years Polymeropoulos had to struggle with his employer to access the medical care that his condition demanded.
60 Minutes indicated that, according to several of its informants last year, when President Joe Biden attended a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Lithuania, a high-ranking official in the Pentagon became ill.
Edgreen pointed out that, in his opinion, “that indicates that there are no barriers to what Moscow will do, or who it will attack and that, if we do not face this head-on, the problem will get worse.”
A senior official of the United States Department of Defense who attended the NATO summit in Vilnius (Lithuania) in 2023 experienced strange symptoms similar to those of the so-called ‘Havana syndrome’, the Pentagon confirmed on Monday.
“I can confirm that a senior official of the Department of Defense experienced symptoms similar to those reported in other instances,” Sabrina Singh, one of the Pentagon’s spokespersons, said on Monday during a press conference.
The official, whose identity was not revealed, was not part of the official delegation of the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, at the NATO summit in Vilnius, but attended “separately, meetings that were part of the summit,” the spokeswoman explained.
Singh did not specify what type of symptoms the affected person suffered, citing medical privacy.
International
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
A 65-year-old Austrian citizen was arrested at a border checkpoint in Croatia after attempting to enter the country in his car with a deceased woman sitting as a passenger, police announced on Tuesday.
The man was detained in a routine check in late November in Gunja, a border area separating Bosnia from Croatia, the police told AFP. Suspicious because they saw “no consciousness or movement” from the passenger, Croatian officers called a doctor, who confirmed the death of the 83-year-old woman, also Austrian, according to her identification.
The woman’s relationship to the suspect is unknown. She had died in Bosnia, and the man intended to repatriate her body to Austria to “avoid the formalities related to transporting a corpse,” according to the police. Croatian media reported that the man was her legal guardian.
Once her death was confirmed, a funeral service took charge of the body.
International
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Colombian authorities arrested two nationals accused of the illegal trafficking of migrants to the United States and of endangering lives due to the disappearance of a boat with 40 people aboard, U.S. Department of Justice officials reported on Tuesday.
Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, 52, and Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were arrested on December 13 in Colombia at the request of the United States for their alleged involvement in a “transnational human trafficking operation,” the department said in a statement.
According to the charges, the detainees were transporting migrants to San Andrés Island in the Caribbean, where they would then be taken by boat to Nicaragua. The goal was to reach the United States through Central America and Mexico.
The accused are said to have advised the migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, where they personally received them, arranged accommodations, and “took them to the boats that transported them to Nicaragua so they could enter the United States illegally,” the statement reads.
“These defendants put several migrants on the boat that disappeared off the coast of Nicaragua in 2023,” said Deputy Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, as cited in the statement.
Both men are “directly and personally responsible for the illicit trafficking of migrants on that vessel,” according to the indictment dated October 23.
International
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
Two soldiers were killed and five others were injured by the explosion of homemade landmines planted by a criminal group in a mountainous area of the Mexican state of Michoacán (west), the Secretary of Defense reported on Tuesday.
The attack occurred on Monday morning in the municipality of Cotija, a border area between Michoacán and the state of Jalisco, when the military was conducting a reconnaissance mission after receiving information about an armed camp in the area, explained Secretary General Ricardo Trevilla.
“At that moment, an improvised explosive device detonated. Unfortunately, two soldiers lost their lives, and five others were injured,” the military leader detailed. The affected soldiers were airlifted to hospitals in the region by a military helicopter, while the rest of the team continued with the reconnaissance of the area.
Trevilla stated that before the explosion, the military unit had located the dismembered bodies of three people, and upon continuing the mission, they confirmed the camp was abandoned.
Asked about the individuals responsible for placing the explosives, the general suggested they could be criminals linked to the local group Cárteles Unidos, which operates in Michoacán and uses these tactics in their territorial dispute with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the country.
Austrian man arrested in Croatia with deceased woman as passenger in his car
Colombian nationals arrested for human trafficking and disappearance of migrant boat
Homemade landmine explosion in Michoacán kills two soldiers, injures five
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