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Thursday, April 30, 2015

Ukrainian crisis

Unidentified special task forces are conducting a special operation in the area of the township of Avdeyevka in Donbas to render harmless a battalion of Ukrainian nationalists, Eduard Basurin, an official spokesman for the Defence Ministry of the self-proclaimed unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic said on Thursday.
Weapons

Top defense contractors are poised to compete in a major industry battle to develop autonomous missiles for the U.S. Navy that can kill enemy ships at sea and demolish air-defense radar sites inland.
Although the Navy has so far released few details on what it plans to buy, missile manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Boeing are keeping a close eye on a program the Navy has dubbed “next-generation strike capability.”

International security


Nuclear Weapons CyberTaking U.S. and Russian missiles off high alert could keep a possible cyberattack from starting a nuclear war, a former commander of U.S. nuclear forces says, but neither country appears willing to increase the lead-time to prepare the weapons for launch.Retired Gen. James Cartwright said in an interview that "de-alerting" nuclear arsenals could foil hackers by reducing the chance of firing a weapon in response to a false warning of attack.

Yemen knot


Mideast YemenYemen's Shiite rebels and their allies advanced in the southern city of Aden on Wednesday, capturing parts of an upscale neighborhood and seizing men they accuse of fighting them from their homes.Security officials in the city said the rebels, known as Houthis, aided by military forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, had moved up the seaside road in the neighborhood of Khormaksar, taking an area stretching from the Russian Consulate to the Crater business district.
International seurity

U.S. allies in the Middle East have ramped up their support for rebels fighting against Syrian forces in recent months, potentially widening a gulf over strategy between the Obama administration and its regional partners.
Military spending


635659714476867627-Capitol-Hill-and-Reflecting-PoolThe House Armed Services Committee early Thursday adopted a $612 billion defense authorization bill which would radically reform military retirement but reject changes to a host of other benefit trims proposed by the Pentagon.By a 60-2 vote, the panel approved the annual budget legislation after almost 19 hours of debate, setting the stage for a full House vote in mid-May. 
Arms trade

ЗРК С-400 Триумф (SA-21) на репетиции 4 мая 2010.jpgThe director general of Rosoboronexport, Russia’s main defense exporter, recently confirmed the existence of a contract to sell S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to China. Based on anonymous sources, the Russian media began reporting on the sale as early as November 2014. The contract itself had likely been signed even earlier. It is useful to keep this timeline in mind when estimating the probable date by which China will obtain the missile systems—most likely sometime in 2016. 
International security

Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age - gregory-koblentz-strategic-stability-in-the-second-nuclear-ageDuring the Cold War, the potential for nuclear weapons to be used was determined largely by the United States and the Soviet Union. Now, with 16,300 weapons possessed by the seven established nuclear-armed states—China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—deterrence is increasingly complex.
Royal Palace secrets

Saudi army artillery fire shells towards Houthi positions from the Saudi border with Yemen (REUTERS/Faisal Al Nasser). Less than four months after ascending the throne, Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud has made unprecedented changes in the line of succession that benefit his own son Prince Mohammed bin Salman. These shifts come as Salman pursues the most assertive foreign policy in recent Saudi history.
Political theory

Bew in The American Interest: Pax Anglo-SaxonicaOn the way to work at the Library of Congress during the year just past, I was stopped on more than one occasion by activists from the Lyndon LaRouche movement. Among the many interesting theories they regaled me with one sunny Spring morning, one stuck out: Queen Elizabeth II, through dastardly means, exerted a secret and nefarious influence on American foreign policy, manipulating it to serve British imperial interests. This, they said, explained America’s recent wars in the Middle East.
Defense
How the Military Can Keep its Edge: Don’t Offset — HedgeThe current debate about how the U.S. military can maintain its technological superiority is dominated by offset strategies — use of an asymmetric advantage to mitigate an adversary’s advantage. The elegance and efficacy of prior offset strategiesmakes them attractive as a reference point. But given the United States’current and future strategic circumstances might a hedging strategy be more effective?

Economic security


Market Movements 3A third day of declines pushed European stocks to their first monthly drop of the year, as the Federal Reserve left open the prospect of interest-rate increases even amid weak U.S. growth.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 0.4 percent to 395.79 at the close of trading, after earlier losing as much as 1 percent. Shares briefly rose 0.2 percent after data showed U.S. jobless claims fell to a 15-year low.
Genocide

Women attend a religious service at the Etchmiadzin Cathedral on April 23, 2015, ahead of the canonization ceremony for victims of the Armenian genocide.  Armenians prepare to commemorate on April 24 a hundred years since 1.5 million of their kin were massacred by Ottoman forces.For years, close ties between Israel and Turkey were understood to be the reason Jerusalem has avoided the repeated requests of Armenians for the international community to recognize the genocide their community suffered at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I. Not only has Israel refused to recognize that the massacre was premeditated and planned by the Ottoman government in Istanbul, it has also exerted its influence in Washington to prevent the United States from recognizing the genocide. 
Health security

Skin cancer affects 1 in 5 Americans, and more than 3.5 million cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer will be diagnosed this year, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. "When skin cancers are caught early, they are often curable,” says Dr. Desiree Ratner, director of the Comprehensive Skin Cancer Program at Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
Land mines
China robot mineclearingChinese combat engineers have a new mine clearing robot that's going to accompany troops onto the battlefield. While many other nations have built mine sweeping robots, such as the U.S.'s Panther (an unmanned M60 tank chassis with chainlink flails), this new robot is actually armed with exploding mine clearing line charges (MCLC). Imagine it a bit like a rocket-armed R2-D2 or BB-8.

Natural disasters

EddyIn a paper published in Biogeosciences, researchers describe pockets of low-oxygenated water traveling across the Atlantic Ocean. They found these so-called dead zones in 100-mile long eddies, giant whirlpool-like structures that form in the open ocean and that can spin for months at a time. Dead zones get their morbid nickname from their waters' low levels of oxygen, which make it nearly impossible for any animal life to survive. Animals caught in these regions of the ocean face a simple choice: move, or die.
Ideology

Kremlin-connected anti-Western ideologue Aleksandr Dugin speaking at a rally in support of Moscow-backed separatists in Ukraine.
Russian nationalist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin is banned from entering the United States for backing separatists in Ukraine. But thanks to the Internet and an American white supremacist, he’s set to beam his anti-Western views into the halls of a public university in Texas.
Overdid it

The celebration of Nazi Germany's surrender in World War II, one of the most important holidays in Russia, has taken on a new meaning as Moscow presses on with its efforts to portray Ukraine's new pro-European leadership as Nazi sympathizers.   
In November 2014, Russia introduced a new law prohibiting the "public demonstration or propaganda" of Nazi symbolism. 
Vietnam war
Vietnam is commemorating the 40th anniversary of the fall of Saigon. The withdrawal of U-S  troops from the city marked the end of the Vietnam War and the more-than-decade-long U.S.  involvement in Vietnam. A military parade took place Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City, which was known as Saigon before  being named after the leader of North Vietnam upon reunification. Some 6-thousand children,  women, veterans and soldiers marched towards the Presidential Palace reenacting when North  Vietnamese tanks crash through the gates on April 30th in 1975. 



Economic security

Market Movements 3U.S. stocks dropped Thursday as a spate of downbeat corporate results and mixed economic data revealed a recent downshift in the U.S. economy, dampening market sentiment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 195.01 points, or 1.08 percent, to 17,840.52. The S&P 500 was down 21.34 points, or 1.01 percent, to 2,085.51. The Nasdaq dropped 82.22 points, or 1.64 percent, to 4,941.42. The slide reversed the bulk of the month's gains for stocks.
Nuclear security
Press Digest: Clintons could have received Russian funds over uranium dealThe State Department, when it was under Hillary's command, had approved of a deal in which the Canadian mining company Uranium One was sold to the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom. Since uranium is a strategic mineral resource, any sales of companies to foreign owners must by law be approved by several U.S. government structures. During the course of the acquisition of Uranium One, the former owners of the company made vast donations to the Clinton Foundation. )

Nuclear security

Chernobyl PowerplantRadiation levels remain normal in Russia as wildfires continue to burn in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, Anna Popova, director of the consumer rights watchdog Rospotrebnadzor and Russia's chief epidemiologist, told Interfax on Thursday.
"All measurements and monitoring results have not detected any heightened radiation levels," she said.


Immigration


Geopolitical WeeklyThe European Union is once again struggling to come up with a coherent asylum strategy for its 28 members. In recent years, the rising number of asylum seekers entering the European Union through countries such as Italy and Greece has generated friction among member states, fueled criticism of the Schengen Agreement and contributed to the growing popularity of nationalist parties.


OSINT

Robert David Steele VivasIntelligence is the art and science of evidence-based decision-support. Intelligence is not defined by its inputs (spies, secrecy, money, risk) but rather by its outputs – tailored actionable decision-support. In this context, the fastest, least expensive, and very often the best intelligence is achievable using mostly – and sometime only – open sources and methods.
International security


Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in front of a poster of his father, Hafez al-Assad.If Syrian President Bashar al-Assad meets the same fate as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi or Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, much of Official Washington would rush out to some chic watering hole to celebrate – one more “bad guy” down, one more “regime change” notch on the belt. But the day after Damascus falls could mark the beginning of the end for the American Republic.
 What could be done for all people happiness
North Korea's Kim Jong-Un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year, including several who complained about the young leader's policies, South Korea's intelligence agency said Wednesday. Those executed included two vice minister-level officials, the Yonhap news agency reported, citing legislators who attended a briefing by the National Intelligence Service (NIS).

Fraud

A new report released on Tuesday details fraud and waste totaling more than $200 million of uncovered fraud and waste of taxpayer funds in the charter school sector, but says the total is  impossible to know because there is not sufficient oversight over these schools. It calls on Congress to include safeguards in legislation being considered to succeed the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Policing

There were signs that President Barack Obama might rein in the mass militarization of America's police forces after he won the White House. Policing is primarily a local issue, overseen by local authorities. But beginning in the late 1960s with President Richard Nixon, the federal government began instituting policies that gave federal authorities more power to fight the drug trade, and to lure state and local policymakers into the anti-crime agenda of the administration in charge.
Security spending



ITALY-SEA-REFUGEES-IMMIGRATIONRussian saber-rattling in Eastern Europe, homegrown Islamic State fighters in Scandinavia and human traffickers sending thousands of migrants across the Mediterranean to Italy are three very different problems facing Europe, but they have produced one result — a push to strengthen borders through increased homeland security spending.
Human trafficking



When Colombian authorities intercepted phone calls between a young woman and a member of Colombia's most powerful drug cartel, the Urabenos, they heard the woman offer merchandise with "zero kilometers".But the 23-year-old human trafficker, known by her alias Paola, was not referring to a car's mileage but to virgin girls she had recruited and groomed to serve as sex slaves for kingpins of the notorious organised crime network.
Cybersecurity


may coverFear of cyberattacks has corporate directors on edge. CIOs must paint a realistic view of the company's security posture and steer the conversation toward managing business risk.
Policing

Rev. Jamal Bryant leads a rally outside of the Baltimore Police Department's Western District station during a march and vigil for Freddie Gray on Tuesday in Baltimore. Mr. Gray died from spinal injuries a week after he was arrested and transported in a police van. (Associated Press)An analysis released last week shows that more white people died at the hands of law enforcement than those of any other race in the last two years, even as the Justice Department, social-justice groups and media coverage focus on black victims of police force.


A man is carried by police officers as arrests are made at Union Square, Wednesday, April 29, 2015, in New York. People gathered to protest the death of Freddie Gray, a Baltimore man who was critically injured in police custody. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)In cities across the United States, marchers took to the streets to show support for protesters in Baltimore and to complain about police violence in their own towns.On Wednesday night, several hundred people streamed into Union Square for an "NYC Rise Up & Shut It Down With Baltimore" rally. Protesters headed west on 17th Street and were met by New York City Police officers who pushed them back.


Wednesday, April 29, 2015

New Crusade?
The 5th Crusades Are Underway - Modern Knights and Christian Armies The Salafist Islamist groups scattered around the world may disagree with each other on everything about how to best conduct Jihad, mayhem and murder; but they all seem to agree that slaughtering Christians is their key to entering Paradise.They may be identified by different names like Al-Qaeda, Al Nusra Brigade, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hizbollah, the Daesh or the current Islamic State or ISIS; but they are all driven and justified by their universal belief that they are obeying the command of their religion as stated in the Koran.



Investigation

 
The article goes on to cite a public safety message from the Village of Oak Brook Police Chief and although the link provided is inoperative, the message is still available on the Oak Brook Facebook page. In that statement, Chief Kruger claims that he was told by the FBI that “there is no investigative link between NAIT and the US Muslim Brotherhood.” This statement would appear to be contradicted on its face by a document released in 2007 by the US federal prosecution in the Holy Land Terrorism financing case naming NAIT as one of the entities that is part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.



Poll results

The U.S. Capitol building is pictured in Washington, DC. | Getty Only one-in-three Americans knows how many women serve on the Supreme Court, but 91 percent can identify Martin Luther King Jr., 47 years after his assassination.

That’s according to the latest Pew Research Center News IQ survey released Tuesday, which tests how well the American public knows the world in words, maps and pictures.