US designates Russia's Wagner military group an intl 'criminal organization'

 Yahoo - AFP, January 20, 2023 

The United States on Friday designated Russia's Wagner group as a "transnational criminal organization," raising pressure on the private Russian army fighting in Ukraine. 

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Wagner, controlled by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a businessman close to President Vladimir Putin, has about 50,000 fighters in Ukraine, 80 percent of them drawn from prisons. 

Kirby showed US intelligence photographs of North Korea supplying arms to Wagner for its Ukraine operations, and said the private army has become a rival to the formal Russian military. 

The photographs, from November 18-19, show Russian rail cars entering North Korea, picking up a load of infantry rockets and missiles, and returning to Russia, he said. 

He said the US Treasury was formally designating Wagner as a transnational criminal organization, putting it in league with Italian mafia groups and Japanese and Russian organized crime. 

The designation will allow the wider application of sanctions on the group’s sprawling global network, which includes mercenary operations as well as businesses in Africa and elsewhere. 

Wagner "is a criminal organization that is committing widespread atrocities and human rights abuses," Kirby said. 

"We will work relentlessly to identify, disrupt, expose and target those who are assisting Wagner," he said. 

Kirby also said the United States had presented its intelligence on Wagner's North Korean purchase to the UN Security Council's unit on North Korea sanctions. 

The arms transfers from North Korea are in direct violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions, Kirby said. 

Kirby said there is evidence that Prigozhin's confidence in Wagner fighters' relative success in Ukraine has generated tensions in the Kremlin. 

"Wagner is becoming a rival power center to the Russian military and other Russian ministries," Kirby said. 

"Prigozhin is trying to advance his own interest in Ukraine and Wagner is making military decisions based largely on what they will generate for Prigozhin, in terms of positive publicity."

'Butcher' Putin 'cannot remain in power': Biden

Yahoo – AFP, Aurélia END, 26 March 2022 

US President Joe Biden, with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz (c) visiting Ukrainian
refugees in Warsaw on Saturday (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

President Joe Biden on Saturday called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a "butcher" who "cannot remain in power" after meeting top Ukrainian ministers for the first time since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

Within minutes of his comments during a visit to Warsaw, a White House official played down the remarks saying Biden "was not discussing Putin's power in Russia, or regime change". 

"The president's point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbours or the region," the official said. 

Biden compared Ukraine's resistance against Russia to the anti-Soviet "battle for freedom" and said the world must prepare for a "long fight ahead". 

"We stand with you," he told Ukrainians in a sweeping speech at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, which he began with the words of late Polish pope John Paul II: "Be not afraid." 

He said Russia had suffered a "strategic failure" in Ukraine and told ordinary Russians they were "not our enemy", urging them to blame Putin for the heavy sanctions imposed by the West. 

He also warned Russia not to move on an "inch" of NATO territory, reiterating the "sacred obligation" of collective defence for alliance members. 

"We will have a different future, a brighter future rooted in democracy and principle, hope and light. 

"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," he said, concluding his address. 

Russian missile fragment 

Biden earlier on Saturday met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who made a rare trip out of Ukraine in a possible sign of growing confidence in the fightback against Russian forces. 

The meeting took place at the Marriott Hotel in the city centre -- opposite a Warsaw train station where there has been a constant flow of Ukrainian refugees since the conflict started. 

Biden sat at a long white table between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, facing Kuleba and Reznikov, an AFP reporter saw. 

There were Ukrainian and US flags in the background. 

During the meeting Biden was flanked by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin (far right, facing) and sitting opposite Kuleba and
Reznikov (front 3rd right) (AFP/Brendan Smialowski)

Kuleba gave Biden the fragment of a Russian missile that struck a base in Yavoriv near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv close to the Polish border. 

"The invincible character of Ukrainians and Western ones, especially US ones, are the recipe for our victory," Kuleba said after the meeting. 

Kuleba said he had discussed new sanctions that could be imposed against Russia and how to ensure the current ones are properly implemented. 

Blinken and Austin "pledged continued support to meet Ukraine's humanitarian, security, and economic needs", State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. 

Biden last met Kuleba in Washington on February 22 -- two days before Russia launched its assault. 

Since then, Kuleba has also met Blinken in Poland, next to the border with Ukraine on March 5. 

'He's a butcher' 

The US leader later visited a refugee centre at the National Stadium in Warsaw where he met several refugees, including some from the city of Mariupol which has suffered the worst of Russia's assault. 

Asked by reporters what he thought of Putin's actions, Biden responded simply: "He's a butcher." 

"I remember what it's like when you have someone in a war zone and every morning you get up and you wonder, you are just wondering, you are praying you don't get that phone call," said Biden, whose son Beau served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumour. 

He also said he was "not sure" that Russia had changed its strategy in Ukraine after assertions by Russian officials that they were altering their war aims to concentrate on the eastern Donbas region. 

During his visit, Biden also told Polish President Andrzej Duda that NATO's collective defence was a "sacred commitment" for the US, adding: "You can count on that... For your freedom and ours." 

Duda told him that Poles felt a "great sense of threat" from the conflict in neighbouring Ukraine.

Femicide: A global scourge

Yahoo – AFP, Lucie PEYTERMANN and Mariette LE ROUX, November 19, 2019

The share by gender of homicides and partner-killings worldwide.
(AFP Photo/Maryam EL HAMOUCHI)

Paris (AFP) - Every day in 2017, 137 women and girls were intentionally killed by their partner or a family member somewhere in the world, according to UN statistics.

This adds up to over 50,000 women's lives ended by those closest to them, a scourge blamed on deep-rooted gender inequality and damaging stereotypes of women as weaker and less valuable members of society.

Here is an overview of the worldwide killings of women, also called femicide.

The toll

In 2017, some 87,000 women and girls were murdered worldwide, according to a 2018 report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Of these, 58 percent had their life taken by someone in their inner circle -- 30,000 by their spouse or intimate partner, and another 20,000 by a member of their own family.

The report showed that men were four times more likely than women to fall victim to homicide (they form 80 percent of all murder victims) but more often than not died at the hands of a stranger.

Fewer than one in five murdered men were killed by their life partner, compared to 82 percent for women.

Women in Africa are most likely to be killed by a spouse or family member, with a rate of nearly 70 percent (19,000 murders) compared to 38 percent (3,000 murders) in Europe, the region with the smallest share, said the UNODC.

In absolute numbers, Asia had the most severe toll, with 20,000 women killed by a partner or family member in 2017.

Husbands, fathers, brothers, mothers

The high murder rate among women is a consequence of rampant gender-based violence.

Nearly a third of women who have been in a relationship reported having experienced physical or sexual violence at the hands of their partner, or a non-partner, according to a report by the World Health Organization (WHO).

"Many of the victims of 'femicide' are killed by their current and former partners, but they are also killed by fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters and other family members because of their role and status as women," said the UNODC.

These killings, it added, do "not usually result from random or spontaneous acts, but rather from the culmination of prior gender-based violence. Jealousy and fear of abandonment are among the motives."

The WHO report also blamed "unequal power of women relative to men" and the "normative use of violence to resolve conflict".

War

Emergencies such as poverty, war and humanitarian crises make women even more vulnerable.

Countries topping a UN-compiled list of "intentional homicides, female" are mostly in Latin America and Africa, regions which struggle with gang and ethnic wars, unemployment and privation.

Topping the list is El Salvador with 13.9 out of every 100,000 women murdered in 2017, followed by Jamaica with 11 per 100,000 in the same year.

The Central African Republic was in third place with 10.4 per 100,000 based on 2016 statistics, followed by South Africa with 9.1 per 100,000 in 2011.

The real numbers are likely to be higher, with reports based on whatever data is gathered by national statistical systems -- severely lacking in many countries in Africa and Asia.

Many wars, from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi to Kosovo and Iraq, are known for the tactic of targeting women, who are raped, beaten, taken as sex slaves, and often killed, as a "weapon of war".

Family

According to the UN, some 1,000 of the 5,000 so-called "honour killings" reported around the world every year, are committed in India.

These are crimes committed by close relatives after a woman or girl is deemed to have diverted from religious or traditional mores and values -- often for falling in love with a man from the wrong family, or for engaging in sex before marriage.

They are shot, stoned, burned, buried alive, strangled, smothered, or stabbed to death with what the UN describes as "horrifying regularity", often in countries where the laws exempt the perpetrators from punishment.

Pakistan sees hundreds of these killings every year, while in Afghanistan 243 cases were recorded between April 2011 and August 2013.

Change coming?

Spain is hailed in some quarters for turning the tide in the battle against femicide through a 2004 law against gender-targeted violence that sought to address the problem in different spheres simultaneously -- social, educational and correctional.

About 100 special courts and police units were also set up.

Last year, 50 women were murdered in Spain, and 51 so far this year, down from 71 in 2003.

Activists say the number is still too high in a country where judges are accused of bungling cases involving violence against women.

Last month, a court caused widespread anger by convicting five men accused of gang-raping a teenager of a lesser charge of sexual abuse on the grounds that she did not fight back.

There are action plans to combat violence against women in all of Canada's 10 provinces and marital violence has fallen since 2009.

"Training police has been one of the most beneficial factors," said Manon Monastesse, of the federation of homes of refuge for women.

But a woman still dies in Canada every six days at the hands of her partner, with indigenous Canadians six times more at risk.

Ex-SS guard, 93, 'sorry for what he did', German court hears

Yahoo – AFP, Mathieu FOULKES, October 17, 2019

A 93-year-old former SS guard holds his walking stick during his trial at
the regional court in Muenster, Germany (AFP Photo/Guido Kirchner)

Hamburg (AFP) - A former SS guard, 93, said he was sorry for his actions as he went on trial in Germany on Thursday for complicity in the murder of more than 5,000 people at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II.

In what could be one of the last such cases of surviving Nazi guards, Bruno Dey stands accused of abetting the murder of 5,230 people when he worked at the Stutthof camp near what was then Danzig, now Gdansk in Poland.

While he insisted that he did not join the deadly operation voluntarily, he voiced regret for his actions.

"That's what he said in his interrogation: He felt sorry for what he did," said his lawyer Stefan Waterkamp.

"It was also clear to him that (the inmates) were not in there because they were criminals, but for anti-Semitic, racist and other reasons. He had compassion for them. But he did not see himself in a position to free them."

Seated in a wheelchair, Dey wore a hat and sunglasses and hid his face behind a red folder as he entered the courtroom.

Waterkamp said his client was "ready to respond to all questions", underlining that Dey "did not join the SS voluntarily".

Prosecutors said nevertheless that as an "SS guard at Stutthof concentration camp between August 1944 and April 1945, he is believed to have provided support to the gruesome killing of Jewish prisoners in particular".

Although the trial comes decades on, Ben Cohen, grandchild of a survivor, said "it's a really powerful way to acknowledge that we're not just going to look away and we're not just going to just turn around and say 'this is finished, we do not need to think about it anymore.' These things are as relevant today as they ever were."

Jewish groups underlined the trial's importance in light of contemporary far-right anti-Semitic violence after last week's deadly shooting in the eastern city of Halle that included a synagogue.

"Why are you doing this trial today? Remember what happened in Halle," said Efraim Zuroff of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre.

The 93-year-old Bruno Dey admitted in court to being an SS guard, but the 

defence underlined that he did not join the SS voluntarily' (AFP Photo/Markus Scholz)

'Cog in the murder machine'

During Dey's time at the camp, the "Final Solution" order to exterminate Jews was issued by the Nazi leadership, leading to the systematic killing of inmates in gas chambers, while others died of starvation or because they were denied medical care, prosecutors said.

Dey is being tried by a juvenile court in Hamburg because he was 17 when he first worked at Stutthof.

According to German media, Dey, who now lives in Hamburg, became a baker after the war.

Married with two daughters, he supplemented his income by working as a truck driver, before later taking on a job in building maintenance.

The law finally caught up with him as a result of the legal precedent set when former guard John Demjanjuk was convicted in 2011 on the basis that he served as part of the Nazi killing machine at the Sobibor camp in occupied Poland.

Since then, Germany has been racing to put on trial surviving SS personnel on those grounds rather than for murders or atrocities directly linked to the individual accused.

In the same vein, Dey is "accused of having contributed as a cog in the murder machine, in full knowledge of the circumstances, so that the order to kill could be carried out," prosecutors said.

'Speak up'

During pre-trial questioning, Dey said he ended up in the SS-Totenkopfsturmbahn (Death's Head Battalion) that ran the camp only because of a heart condition that prevented him from being sent to the front, according to Tagesspiegel daily.

Dey also reportedly confirmed he knew of the camp's gas chambers and admitted seeing "emaciated figures, people who had suffered", but insisted he was not guilty, according to the daily Die Welt.

The Nazis set up the Stutthof camp in 1939, initially using it to detain Polish political prisoners.

But it ended up holding 110,000 detainees, including many Jews. Some 65,000 people perished in the camp.

Since the landmark Demjanjuk ruling, German courts have convicted Oskar Groening, an accountant at Auschwitz, and Reinhold Hanning, a former SS guard at the same camp, for complicity in mass murder.

Both men were found guilty at the age of 94 but died before they could be imprisoned.

Defiant Sudan protesters seek army talks

Yahoo – AFP, April 8, 2019

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been hit by protests since a December
decision to triple the cost of bread (AFP Photo/ASHRAF SHAZLY)

Khartoum (AFP) - Sudanese protesters on Monday called on the army to hold talks on forming a transitional government, as thousands braved a deadly crackdown for a third day to urge the military to back them.

The east African country has been rocked by more than three months of protests that erupted over a hike in bread prices before transforming into nationwide demonstrations against President Omar al-Bashir's iron-fisted 30-year rule.

At the biggest rally so far, thousands of protesters have since Saturday been camped out around the army headquarters in Khartoum which also houses Bashir's residence and the defence ministry.

They are calling on the military to protect them and to back calls for Bashir to resign.

"When the army is here, we have no fear," protesters flashing victory signs chanted as military vehicles with soldiers fanned out around the complex, onlookers said.

Riot police have fired tear gas at the protesters, but they have failed to dislodge them.

Officials say 38 people have died in protest-related violence since December.

Interior Minister Bushara Juma said seven protesters died on Saturday when forces tried to disperse them and 15 were wounded along with 42 members of the security forces. In all, 2,496 protesters were arrested.

The group spearheading the protests on Monday appealed to the army for talks on forming a transitional government.

Map of Khartoum locating the army HQ, Army Road and Omdurman 

(AFP Photo/Vincent LEFAI)

"We call on the Sudanese armed forces to talk directly with the Alliance for Freedom and Change for facilitating the peaceful process of forming a transitional government," said Omar el-Digeir, a senior member of the group.

Digeir said the protest organisers had also formed a council to initiate talks with security forces and the international community aimed at agreeing a transition that gives power to a "transitional government that represents the wish of the revolution".

"We reiterate our people's demand that the head of the regime and his government have to immediately step down," Digeir said.

Reading from a statement, he also called on the armed forces "to withdraw their support for a regime that has lost its legitimacy" and to support the "people's alternative for a transition to a civilian democratic government".

'Protecting the people'

Since protests erupted across Sudan in December agents of the powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and riot police have cracked down on demonstrators, but the army has not intervened.

Soldiers put up barricades in streets near the army compound after reinforcements of intelligence agency members and riot police arrived in the early hours, witnesses told AFP.

Sudanese protest leaders called on the army to protect demonstrators pushing 

for President Omar al-Bashir resign (AFP Photo/STRINGER)

"After that, security forces began firing tear gas at protesters," one said on condition of anonymity.

Gunshots were also heard, witnesses said, but it was unclear who fired.

Some activists on the ground said it was the army shooting in the air, but this could not be confirmed independently.

Protest organisers urged the military to protect the demonstrators.

"We want you, the young officers and soldiers, to remain committed to the role of the national army, which is of protecting the people," said the Sudanese Professionals Association.

A few hours later security personnel again fired tear gas at the demonstrators, witnesses said.

Protest organisers urged the residents of Khartoum and nearby areas to join the demonstrators.

Crowds of people carrying food and water were later seen walking towards the complex to take part in the protest, according to onlookers.

Some companies have told employees not to come into work "until further notice".

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has been hit by protests since a December 

decision to triple the cost of bread (AFP Photo/ASHRAF SHAZLY)

The rally outside the army headquarters has been the largest since protests began on December 19 in the central town of Atbara, quickly spreading to the capital and towns and cities across the east African country.

The European Union said an "unprecedented" number of people had come out calling for change since Saturday.

"The people of Sudan have shown remarkable resilience in the face of extraordinary obstacles over many years," the EU's External Action Service said.

"Their trust must be won through concrete action by the government."

Economic mismanagement

The protesters accuse Bashir's administration of economic mismanagement that has led to soaring food prices and regular shortages of fuel and foreign currency.

Sudan's security council on Sunday said the demands of the protesters "have to be heard" after a meeting chaired by the veteran leader.

Bashir, wanted by the Hague-based International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and genocide in the conflict-wracked region of Darfur, swept to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989.

He has remained defiant, introducing tough measures that have seen protesters, opposition leaders, activists and journalists arrested.

Nobel laureates challenge world to end sexual violence

France24 – AFP, 9 Dec 2018

Murad and Mukwege will be jointly presented with the prize in Oslo on Monday for
"their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed
conflict"    Oslo (AFP)

Nobel peace laureates Nadia Murad and Denis Mukwege said Sunday they hoped their award would help them push the international community to act to end rape in conflict and deliver justice for victims.

Yazidi activist Murad and Congolese doctor Mukwege will be jointly presented with the prize in Oslo on Monday for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict".

Murad, 25, who was taken hostage in Iraq by the Islamic State group (IS) in 2014 but escaped, said the prize was an honour for all of her Yazidi community, and "a sign" for the thousands of women still held by jihadists.

"This prize, one prize cannot remove all the violence and all the attacks on pregnant women, on children, on women and give them justice," she told a press conference in Oslo.

But she said she hoped it would "open doors so that we can approach more governments", to bring the perpetrators to court and "so that we can find a solution and actually stop what is happening".

Fellow laureate Mukwege, who has spent two decades treating rape victims at his hospital in conflict-torn eastern DR Congo, said the Nobel spotlight made it harder for the world to ignore sexual violence.

"We cannot say that we didn't act because we didn't know. Now everyone knows. And I think now the international community has a responsibility to act," he said.

He said the prize was not a "victory", but could be seen "as the start of a new struggle, a new struggle against this type of evil".

Murad has spent the years since her escape campaigning for the Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking community that follows an ancient religion and was targeted by IS as it swept through her homeland.

More than 6,800 Yazidis were kidnapped, of whom 4,300 either escaped or were bought as slaves, while 2,500 remain missing, according to a recent report from the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

The United Nations is due to send a team into Iraq next year to investigate atrocities, following a Security Council resolution in September 2017 to bring those responsible for IS war crimes to justice.

The UN has described the massacre of the Yazidis by IS jihadists as possible genocide.

Murad, now a UN ambassador for victims of human trafficking living in Germany, said the "steps towards justice" had given her hope.

But she stressed that "not a single ISIS terrorist" has appeared in court, adding "this injustice will continue in this world if it is not dealt with now".

Dutch businessman found guilty of war crimes in Liberia

DutchNews, April 21, 2017

Photo: Depositphotos

A Dutch businessman has been found guilty of war crimes and smuggling weapons into Liberia by the appeal court in Den Bosch in the latest twist in a legal case dating back over 10 years. 

Guus Kouwenhoven, now 74, had been earlier found not guilty of the charges but the Supreme Court in 2010 ordered the case be heard again. Judges sentenced him to 19 years in prison, one year less than the public prosecution department had demanded. 

On Friday Kouwenhoven was found guilty of delivering weapons to Liberian dictator Charles Taylor in 2000 and 2002 in return for special treatment for his timber company. The weapons deliveries broke international embargoes. 

Some 150,000 people were killed during the Liberian civil war. Taylor was eventually deposed in 20013 and sentenced to 50 years in jail. 

Kouwenhoven was first sentenced to eight years in prison for breaking the UN arms embargo on Liberia in 2006. That sentence was later overturned on appeal in 2008. 

Then in 2010, the Supreme Court said later the appeal court was wrong to refuse to hear two key witnesses who could only give evidence anonymously and ordered the case to be heard again. 

Kouwenhoven, who is in poor health, was not in court to hear the verdict. He has always denied the charges.

Former Liberian President Charles Taylos was sentenced to 

50 years in prison in 2013

Related Articles:

Dutch court jails Charles Taylor arms supplier for 19 years

Charles Taylor sentenced to 50 years

Hitler's 'destructive' wartime phone up for auction

Yahoo – AFP, February 17, 2017

This undated image obtained from Alexander Historical Auctions shows a
 phone belonging to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler which will be auctioned by
Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City, Maryland, on February 19,
2017 (AFP Photo/HO)

Washington (AFP) - Adolf Hitler's personal telephone, which the Fuehrer used to dictate many of his deadly World War II commands, will hit the auction block this weekend, the US house selling it announced.

Originally a black Bakelite phone that was later painted crimson and engraved with Hitler's name, the relic was found in the Nazi leader's Berlin bunker in 1945 following the regime's defeat.

Auction house Alexander Historical Auctions estimates its worth between $200,000 and $300,000.

On Sunday, the company, located in the eastern US coastal state of Maryland, will auction off more than a thousand items -- including the Siemens rotary telephone embossed with a swastika and the eagle symbolic of the Third Reich.

Alexander House dubbed the phone -- which Hitler received from the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany's armed forces -- as "arguably the most destructive 'weapon' of all time, which sent millions to their deaths."

It said Hitler used it to give most of his orders during the last two years of World War II.

Russian officers gifted the device to British Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner during a tour of the bunker shortly after Germany's surrender.

Rayner's son inherited the phone and is selling it, its paint now peeling to reveal its original synthetic black resin surface.

Andreas Kornfeld of Alexander House told AFP estimates are set based on a number of factors, including "rarity and uniqueness," with the expectation that sale prices will exceed opening bids.

"It would be impossible to find a more impactful relic than the primary tool used by the most evil man in history," the auction house said in a statement. "This was not a staid office telephone."

"This was Hitler's mobile device of destruction."

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"Wild Cards" (3) - Nov 19 - 20, 2016 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)- (Text version)

Kryon.com, November 19, 2016

This live channelling was given in Wilmington, North Carolina

Lee Carroll

To help the reader, this channelling has been revisited [by Lee and Kryon] to provide even clearer understanding. Sometime information is even added or condensed. Often what happens live has implied energy within it, which carries a kind of communication that the printed page does not. So enjoy this enhanced message given in Wilmington, NC.

Greetings, dear ones, I am Kryon of Magnetic Service.

Today I want to talk about wild cards. I wish to help explain what or who they’ve been over time, but in order for this explanation to be understood and accepted and beautiful to your soul, you’re going to have to do some pretending.

Adjusting Your Attitude

If you were a scientist coming from another planet to observe Human history, you would need to do it without emotion or bias. I can tell the story about wild cards, both for your grandfathers and for you, but there is often emotion and bias involved. Because of this, I will say one thing, and you may hear another. Dear ones, it can’t be that way for you to understand this message.

Warning: What comes next has to be disengaged from what you think you know, or from the emotions of who you think you are, what you think has happened, or even from what you feel is historical. Remember, in his pretending scenario, you’re aliens coming from another planet to learn what has happened. You’re pretending so you will disengage. Pretend history will be told to you about a race you’re not part of. This is so you will have no attachment to anything as you listen. This is the only way you will understand this lesson today. It is the only way you will begin to understand the beauty of a spiritual system that pushes you when you need to be pushed.

Wild Cards Examined

Wild card, as used in spiritual language, is a term that is difficult to define. Wild cards can be events, they can be inventions, they can involve one Human or a few. They can be one of many things or many of one thing, but they follow a timeline that you can look at. We want to talk about some of the wild cards that you’ve had in the past, and some attributes of their occurrence that you might not have thought of.

The basic attribute of any kind of wild card is that it’s a surprise event. It’s often shocking, sometimes revealing, but always a surprise. We’re also going to do some of the numerology as we go, and also take a look at the energies that help define what the energy is around specific wild cards.

Numerology is an ancient system that helps define an energy around something. For instance, an event may seem to be one thing, but the numerology will tell a story around it that may be more explanatory. When you see what we will call synchronized numerology – the same numbers repeated around a wild card – it’s very telling, for there are no accidents.

Dear Kryon, you might ask, “Does spirit create wild cards for the planet?” Answer: No, you do. Your consciousness at a certain point in time gives an allowance for a wild card. Sprit is ready to enhance some wild card scenarios and not others. But the energy and consciousness of humanity allows for their occurrence.

A wild card can be a person, an invention, a thing, an event, a new system or a new paradigm that changes the planet. It is unexpected, sometimes startling and often dramatic in its influence. If it’s an invention, it has to be outside of the purview of what would normally have occurred through the evolution of science or the timing of expected scientific evolution. It is often a paradigm shifter, and it’s usually from one person. When you see that, you will know there it’s a wild card. It isn’t always an individual invention, and sometimes it’s collective. But, dear one, you can tell because every single wild card takes everybody by surprise.

Wild Cards in History

You’ve had a number of them, and I’ll list a few so you get the idea. You’ll also get to see a system of singularity that comes to inventors. You’ll see this as I go.

Tesla was a wild card. His ideas were unexpected, controversial and advanced to a degree that even to this day those in electronic engineering shake their heads. They will take a look at what he invented and will comment, “How is it possible for any one person to have seen that? If you study alternating current, it’s a conundrum. Phase relationships of alternating current are brilliant beyond brilliant.” This was Tesla.

However, what you know about him is only what he brought to you. Now, a brilliant mind like that would have other things, don’t you think? Indeed, he did, so you might ask, “Well, where are those other things?” The answer is that those other things were stopped cold – all of them. He only was able to promote the one thing that you needed for the planet. The brilliance of his mind had many other profound ideas, but he was unable to proceed. He saw ways to alter mass in his workshops, but couldn’t. He was frustrated that he didn’t have the elaborate tools to be precise enough to make it work on a regular basis. That’s just one. Transmission of electricity without wires through the ground was the other. However, it would not have been correct at the time for those things to have been presented to humanity. You weren’t ready, but you were ready for alternating current, one of the most needed inventions for the time. Tesla died frustrated, poor, in a small room and alone. He came to do one thing, and was stopped from anything else, then he passed. If you have analyzed the people who were wild cards in your history, there is a pattern.

Other wild card inventors have come into the planet just because the earth was ready for a specific invention. Remember, Spirit does not give the information, but allows for it to be released, often all at once, all over the earth. Let me give you some examples.

Another wild card is the Wright brothers. Isn’t it odd to you that it wasn’t that long ago that you got powered flight? It was just yesterday! Some of your relatives were alive when flight was discovered! Dear ones, the Chinese have been flying kites for thousands of years. Don’t you think that they knew the dynamics of a bird? Do you think that century after century after century occurred and nobody figured out how to sustain flight with any kind of power source? Two bicycle makers figured it out!

That’s odd enough, but the fact that they only beat the French by two weeks is something worth looking at. That’s odd! It’s almost like this profound invention was ready to be given to the planet simultaneously, all over the earth, at the same time. Whoever got to it first would be the ones who got the credit. The real oddity is the timing. It’s not logical that it was so hidden, then suddenly so many were working on it all at once.

The Wright brothers were here to show it to you, then stop. All they did was what you saw at Kitty Hawk. They never went past basic wing warping, and did not have first intuitive thought about ailerons, or the basics of flight control today. For them, it stopped there. Dear ones, there was great frustration, and perhaps even health issues from it, from having others take the basics and develop flight so fast beyond them. Dysfunction and sorrow followed them both, and they died without ever being able to participate fully beyond the initial invention. One died far earlier than the other, creating sorrow for the one left behind. They came to do what they did and move on. This is more common than you know with wild cards, especially when it comes to inventions that change this planet.

Who invented the radio? Was is the Italian Guglielmo Marconi, or our frustrated wild card Tesla? Marconi got the credit, but the invention was everywhere, ready to be claimed. The earth was ripe and ready for it, and it was delivered to the consciousness of the planet at the right time. But both men got it at the same time, apart from each other. I’m giving you things to think about.

We have told you that there are wild card inventions coming in the future. One in particular is ready, but you will not receive it until the time is right. It’s almost like there’s a thinking ceiling on what you can do. We even gave you some of the attributes of the coming invention, but not the one who will bring it. We’re not even concerned that you’ll do it in advance, because we know the wild card is coming. An invention is coming. It is an invention that will rewrite physics as you know it. You’d see the patterns in quantum fields, and there would be the big aha! It would be like reinventing the wheel.

“Kryon, why can’t we have it now? What’s stopping it?” We told you, it’s too easy to weaponize. When you reach the point where you won’t weaponize it, it’s yours. All this is coming. It’s natural, and it will come when it’s time just like the Wright brothers, just like Tesla, just like Einstein.

Einstein was a genuine wild card. He was not a quantum thinker at all, but what he presented is still alive and well today and they’re still looking inside the atom for the concepts he gave you. So I will make this statement: Einstein isn’t finished yet, because the very concepts that continue to be received from his work are going to be applied to the invention of the century. So the Einsteinean principles, even though they are not quantum, will be very much involved in what is coming. You might say he was a wild card and continues to be one. The joke is that his concepts last and last, outside of time, yet his main ideas were with time. If you asked Einstein if he was happy with what he brought to the planet, he would tell you no. He was frustrated that he didn’t get to do what he really wanted. Like Tesla, he felt that something was just “out of reach” and he didn’t get to do it.

Then there was World War II. Dear ones, pretend you are an alien scientist. Disengage your emotion. You’ve come in from another planet to look at this.

World War II (WWII) was not a wild card, but the man who created and enhanced it was. This planet was teetering on the edge of ultimate dark energy and destruction. Nobody expected it. The most despicable old energy card played itself out exactly as it should have, with the consciousness of this planet going to where it had brought itself. You had just finished World War I (WWI), yet WWII ignited and continued. So WWII was simply an extension of WWI. You did it again, only this time the weapons were getting bigger and more able to destroy all of humanity. Remember the prophecy of your scripture? You were headed for mass destruction. WWII would become World War III, and by the year 2000, you would be almost gone.

As I mentioned, WWII wasn’t the wild card, rather it was the man who led the lowest consciousness in recent history who was. He was the wild card, and you know of whom I speak. This wild card killed millions of people who were not even participants in the military portion of the war. Genocide had begun, a race war had begun, and many were following his lead. It showed the darkest side of humanity – more than you had ever seen before, and it almost targeted the demise of civilization if he had won.

It was a horror wild card, and the planet had created it. However, when it was over, the entire world took a breath and for a moment, just for a moment, there was a glimmer of realization: “This cannot go on, for we will do it again.” Many things took place due to this realization. Without the wild card, you would not have the European Union, you would not have the United Nations or any attempt at unity on Earth. Disengage from your logic and emotion, dear ones. These things were not created from Spirit, but rather from the depth of lower humanity. This is the dark side at its worst, showing itself with almost free reign, but the world objected to it and started to climb out of it. It was the beginning over half a century ago of what you’re starting to see now in the shift.

The amazing shift that you’re in right now is something that goes slow. It didn’t happen all at once. The Cold War was a natural occurrence out of the consciousness that was part of the end of WWII. But, dear ones, you could never have the shift if that Cold War had continued the way it was. Enter another wild card: The Soviet system fell over.

The Cold War could not continue, and it was stopped in the form it was in. Dear ones, for those reading now, that was one of the biggest wild cards of all. The consciousness of earth said “no” and it ended. That was a huge wild card. It changed everything; it wasn’t expected; nobody saw it coming, and it changed everything. It may not have changed things immediately to the way you want it right away, but it created that which you needed at that time.

Then there was Steve Jobs. He was a wild card. What he did had little to do with technology, for that would have happened anyway soon enough. Instead, it had to do with the paradigm of the business of music on Earth. He freed it, and the paradigm of how music is obtained and heard will never be the same. However, Steve Jobs did basically one thing for all of you, and then he died. Do you see any kind of connecting of the dots to some of the inventors who come and give you the one thing, then leave? If he had lived, would there be more? Yes, but you’re not ready for it. Consciousness has to support what happens.

Yes, it would seem we have left some things out – the invention of DNA, the atomic bomb, etc. However, these were not wild cards. These are your civilization, within a normal evolution of science. Wild cards are very unexpected things, and there are more coming your way.

The Wild Card of 2016

Remember: No emotion now. You have come from another planet and you’re looking at the end of 2016 – and there is the election. Understand without bias.

So for 2016, let’s do the numerology. You add the numbers and get nine. Nine is completion in simple numerology, and when you see a nine it often means the completion of something. Often it is of a time cycle, an energy or the completion of a paradigm. But it’s very strong.

The nines are stronger than many of the other numerological aspects and you feel them. The president-elect (at this writing) is a strong wild card. He is scheduled to become the 45th president. What a coincidence! Forty-five is a nine. A nine and a nine together are more than significant. They tell a story about what is happening. I will tell you something else. This story is not finished yet and there is more coming. You don’t know what you don’t know, so don’t make up your mind in advance about any outcomes. You’re from another planet, remember? There’s no emotion, no bias, no politics and nothing to judge. Look at it for what it is.

A big stick has just been inserted into what is normal and it’s going to be turned. As the big stick turns, other things will respond that never would have responded otherwise. I wish to tell you, dear one, old soul, relax with upcoming wild cards. They do what they do on purpose so that you will have a better civilization in the future. Sometimes they show you what won’t work, and sometimes they change paradigms that would have never changed otherwise. But what you have now is a profound wild card. That is the message.

It’s so common for you to respond certain ways when you are invested in the process. The knee-jerk reaction is expected or you wouldn’t be a Human. However, for this lesson, you’re from another planet and you’re looking down and you’re seeing it. Pretend.

Isn’t that interesting about a nine and a nine together? It means that truly the end of something is here. Perhaps it’s the end of the old way things were done? Perhaps it’s a shake-up of the system so it can correct itself? Don’t dare make up your mind where it’s going, because it’s not finished yet. However, wait a moment. Did you also realize that 2017 is a “one” year? Not only is the energy one of completion with a double nine, but it moves into “a new beginning” (the definition of a one in numerology).

I have more to tell you about numerology, and also something that will be clearer about this whole situation. I will give this to you in the next channelling.

Can you relax in the face of uncertainty when it’s your own country? Can you relax in the face of not knowing what’s next? When you’re so involved, can you disengage from either side of the fray? That is the test of a Lightworker.

There’s something else coming. Dear ones, this is beautiful. No matter what you think and no matter what your reaction is to this channelling, what is happening is correct for your time and needed for your immediate future. I will speak of this later. The beauty is when you step away and see how grand it is, that Spirit cares enough that it would allow a big stick to occur that would stir your complacency at this time. The real reason? The shift is here.

How do you feel? I want you to relax and smile at what the shift has brought you. For those of you who felt all the “shift talk” was nonsense, this may be your wake-up call. It’s real. Here it comes.

This is the message of the day. I am Kryon, in love with humanity, and for good reason.

And so it is.

KRYON