TOC Ready Room 2 Nov 2021: Election 2021; geopolitics heat up in Middle East; sub said to collide with seamount

Here comes Tuesday 2 November 2021, general election day this year, and there’s no stopping it.

As mentioned in the TOC football forum, we plan to be watching the Toledo game.

But we’ll check in with the election results.  New Jersey’s not looking good for turning, but Virginia is a live prospect with the latest poll showing Republican Glenn Youngkin up on Democrat Terry McAuliffe 53%-45%.

…and this is us, checking in with the election in Virginia.

Advertisement

Iran tries to undermine Saudi embargo by diverting ship to Djibouti for ‘inspection’

(Image via Nader Uskowi, Twitter)

When we left our story on Monday, the Iran Shahed was in the Gulf of Aden heading for the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, and was expected to arrive at Hodeidah, Yemen on Thursday, 21 May.  A U.S. military spokesman had encouraged Iran to have the ship offload its cargo in Djibouti and let the UN transport it to Yemen.  But the Iranians were having none of that.

By Wednesday morning, however, Iran had decided to allow the ship to be inspected by the UN in Djibouti, before it continued on to Hodeidah.  That is significantly different from what the low-level U.S. military spokesman — the only person who made an official U.S. suggestion — proposed.

Most likely direction of Yemen war may not be the one you think

Ammo storage site under attack in Aden, 28 Mar. (Image: Reuters via CBC)

New post up at Liberty Unyielding.  Enjoy!

Shocker: South Sudanese faction that shot at U.S. aircraft supplied by Iran, China

Three U.S. Osprey aircraft were hit by rebel fire in South Sudan on Saturday during an evacuation operation for American citizens.  The Americans were being evacuated from the town of Bor, in the southern region of South Sudan near the capital of Juba.  Four U.S. service members (presumably Marines) were injured when the aircraft took fire, and had to be transported via Uganda to Kenya for treatment.

South Sudan has had internal conflict since declaring its independence and obtaining recognition of statehood in July 2011.  Fighting flared up this month, by various reports due to a coup attempt, or to

Russian navy promises “support” to Nicaragua; *Multi-media UPDATE*

… and other news from the brave new world

In case you were wondering: no, the former-Soviet navy didn’t use to send warships to visit Nicaragua, back in the day.  Although the Nicaragua of the 1980s under Daniel Ortega was a client of the Soviet Union, Moscow didn’t send naval task forces to visit back then.  Soviet navy ships were in Cuba on a regular basis, but running the Russian navy around a Central American circuit is a new thing.

And what a thing it is.  Russia and Nicaragua can’t do this quietly.  They have to make headlines