Lack of Global Biosafety Regulation | One in Eight Terror Suspects Is a Child | Vertical Farming, and more

But the real problem is not what might have happened in China, but that there is no significant international legal oversight in the first place.
This is worrying, given the long history of disease violations in both civilian and military research establishments.

The Far-Right Paramilitary Wannabes Feeding Mike Flynn’s Conspiracy Machine  (William Bredderman and Will Sommer, Daily Beast)
The 1st Amendment Praetorian group has become an on-call security and intelligence team for the most extreme and esoteric of Trumpists.

U.S. Withdrawal Constrains Counterterrorism Options  (Michael Kugelman, Foreign Policy)
When U.S. President Joe Biden announced a full troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, he said he planned to fight terrorism without boots on the ground. “We’ll reorganize our counterterrorism capabilities and the substantial assets in the region to prevent reemergence of terrorists,” he said in April. In recent days, it’s become clear that is easier said than done. On Sunday, the New York Times reported that U.S. officials have held talks with Pakistan about using nearby Pakistani military bases for U.S. counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. This option makes sense: Pakistan has the advantage of location and precedent. It previously granted base privileges to U.S. security personnel for listening posts during the Cold War and for drones in the post-9/11 era. But anti-U.S. sentiment runs deep in Pakistan. The public strongly opposes basing arrangements for the United States. Prime Minister Imran Khan is a vocal opponent of U.S. drone strikes, and his government has taken a populist position on the question of U.S. basing—publicly rejecting the possibility of an agreement. According to the Times story, the U.S.-Pakistan talks have not gotten far.

One in Eight Terror Suspects Is a Child - the Highest Proportion on Record  (Mason Boycott-Owen, The Telegraph)
One in eight terrorism suspects are children, the highest proportion on record, new Home Office figures have revealed.  Thirteen per cent of those arrested in the year to March this year arrested under terrorism laws were aged under 18. This rise, up from five per cent the previous year, came as the Home Office noted that they had seen a fall in the number of older people being arrested for terrorism offences. Experts warned that the “worrying rise” in the number of arrests of under 18s was in part down to influence of far-Right extremists who are eschewing major social media platforms such as Facebook or Youtube and seeding extremism through newer ‘alt-tech’ platforms. Statistics released by the Home Office continue the trend over the last year which in March saw a record proportion of terrorist inmates holding “extreme right wing views”, as well as the highest ever proportion of terrorists who identified as British. The most recent figures show that of the 215 people in custody, 44 were described as “extreme right wing,” while the number of Islamic extremists made up 157, the lowest number in five years. Earlier this year a 16-year-old boy from Cornwall became Britain’s youngest convicted terrorist after he admitted two offences of dissemination of terrorist documents and 10 of possession of terrorist material.

Could Iran Use Shi’ite Centers in France to Spread Terror? – Report  (Jerusalem Post)
The Alma Research and Education Center reported on Thursday that two organizations in France, referred to as “Al-Ghadir,” and “Imam Al Khoei,” could possibly be used to “spread the dangerous ideology of the radical Shi’ite axis led by Iran to youngsters and adults alike.” The report states that the axis aims to develop “an active civilian and military integrated infrastructure,” as a possible terror base on European soil. These reports and activities all appear to to be part of the movement referred to as “Ahlul Bayt” that was established in 1990. The Alma Research Center has stated that it will continue to examine whether these organizations serve as an outlet to promote “indoctrination and radical ideology linked to terrorist activities.” However, France is reportedly unaware of these organizations and their affiliation to the Shi’ite axis, but has kept a close eye and sometimes closing down religious institutions and organizations with some even linked to the activities of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, according to the press release by the Alma Research Center. The Alma Research Center is a non-profit organization whose goal is to educate on geopolitical conflicts in the Middle East and make this information accessible to English-speakers, according to their website.

FBI Chief Calls Capitol Attack Domestic Terrorism and Rejects Trump’s Fraud Claims  (Guaridan)
The FBI director, Christopher Wray, has said that the bureau considers the 6 January Capitol attack an act of “domestic terrorism” and suggested that “serious charges” were still to come in its continuing criminal investigation.
Testifying before Congress on Thursday, the director rubbished Donald Trump’s claims about a stolen presidential election. “We did not find evidence of fraud that could have changed the outcome of the election,” he told lawmakers on the House judiciary committee.
Wray said that “almost none” of the 500 people charged so far with participating in the attack had been under FBI investigation previously, suggesting it would have been difficult for the FBI to have monitored them in advance.
“You can be darn sure that we are going to be looking hard at how we can do better, how we can do more, how we can do things differently in terms of collecting and disseminating” intelligence, Wray said.