Flights security

Germanwings Mass Murder-Suicide Caused by Punitive Rules, Coldhearted Capitalism

Investigators are still putting together the pieces, but from what we know so far, it's likely that 27-year-old German co-pilot Andreas Lubitz committed mass murder-suicide when he flew a Germanwings passenger jet carrying 149 passengers and fellow crewmen into the French Alps. Authorities say they haven't found a suicide note, but it's a safe bet that Lubitz's final act was prompted by depression (they found the meds), diminished vision, a deteriorating romantic relationship and his worry that the Lufthansa subsidiary would ground him if they found out about his problems, crashing a career he loved and blowing up his livelihood.

International security

John Boehner: ‘The world is on fire’

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) doubled down on his criticism of the Obama administration's foreign policy during a high-profile visit to Israel Wednesday, notably knocking the White House just as nuclear negotiations with Iran reach a critical endpoint. “I wouldn’t have believed that I would be involved in as much foreign policy as I am today … And it certainly isn’t by choice. It’s just that the world is on fire,” Boehner told Politico Wednesday night in Jerusalem. 

Ukrainian crisis

Howling in Donetsk

I’ve just been to the struggling Donetsk People’s Republic. Now I’m back in the splendid arrogance and insolence of NATOstan. Quite a few people – in Donbass, in Moscow, and now in Europe – have asked me what struck me most about this visit. I could start by paraphrasing Allen Ginsberg in Howl – “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.”

Economic security

We Just Got Another Sign of the Biggest Contradiction in the U.S. Economy

It's a confusing moment for the U.S. economy. This morning the U.S. Labor Department reported that jobless claims fell to a nine-week low. At 268,000, they were lower than even the most optimistic economist had forecasted. Other labor data has been strong as well, with job creation happening at its fastest pace in years. That being said, almost all other data (like retail sales and manufacturing surveys) have been weak. This chart of economic surprises by sector shows the contradiction nicely. Only the labor market data has been coming in above expectations.

Financial security

Warren Buffett Predicting Upcoming Stock Market Crash

When it comes to investing in the stock market, we’re told to follow the smart money. Who might that be? The most influential investors/businessmen in America today are Warren Buffett, John Paulson, and George Soros. Their investing acumen has helped them amass billions of dollars and millions of followers.With the stock market trading at record highs one would think they’re still snapping up U.S. stocks. The NASDAQ is up 275% since the markets bottomed in March 2009, and the New York Stock Exchange is up 165%.

Financial security

Warning: Stocks Will Collapse by 50%

It is only a matter of time before the stock market plunges by 50% or more, according to several reputable experts. “We have no right to be surprised by a severe and imminent stock market crash,” explains Mark Spitznagel, a hedge fund manager who is notorious for his hugely profitable billion-dollar bet on the 2008 crisis. “In fact, we must absolutely expect it." Unfortunately Spitznagel isn’t alone. “We are in a gigantic financial asset bubble,” warns Swiss adviser and fund manager Marc Faber. “It could burst any day.” 

Middle East

Iran: Saudi Arabia 'endangering entire Middle East'

A senior Iranian official has warned Saudi Arabia that it is endangering the entire Middle East with its U.S.-supported aerial bombardment of Iranian-backed al-Houthi positions in neighboring Yemen. The warning comes just as questions are being raised on just what is U.S. policy, since it is backing Shiite Iran in bombing Sunni Islamic State positions in Iraq but supports Sunni Saudi Arabia in Yemen. In slamming the Saudis, who are leading a 10-nation coalition of Sunni countries attacking the Houthis in Yemen, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the Saudi military attacks are a “strategic mistake.”

Terror threat

UN says '25,000 foreign fighters' joined Islamist militants

Experts have said that the flow of foreign fighters is "higher than it has ever been historically".Fighters from at least 100 countries have travelled to areas such as Iraq, Syria, Libya and Pakistan.The report states that this poses an immediate and long-term threat to global security.It said that the number of foreign fighters has "risen sharply", increasing by 71% between the middle of 2014 and March 2015.

International security

Bureaucracy and Corruption Stand in Way of Russia’s Shift to Asia

Russia's "pivot to Asia" is meeting with a number of challenges. The principal ones are bureaucratic inertia; lack of workable ideas; and high levels of corruption. Deepening economic recession, the dramatic drop in the oil price, and Western sanctions compound the situation. And, of course, Russia's small population east of the Urals makes its Siberian and Far Eastern regional market unattractive to foreign investors. Yet, there are ways of dealing with all of them.

Economic security

IS WARREN BUFFETT WRONG ABOUT OIL STOCKS? – ANALYSIS

Recently, Warren Buffett has made headlines by selling all of his shares in Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM), the rest of his position in ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), and reducing his stake in National Oilwell Varco. This has people wondering if the glory days of oil investing are over. Warren’s opinion of oil investments carries a lot of weight, because over a 32 year period, Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway portfolio has generated an average annual return of 24 percent. 

Nuclear security

The Iran Talks: Nuclear Schizophrenia

The Iranian and American negotiators in Switzerland apparently have decided to kick the nuclear can a little farther down the road and hope like hell that sometime soon—at least before the end of June—they can finally hold it up like a trophy and declare there will be peace in our time.

Economic security

Want To Reduce Inequality? Consult China, Vietnam And India

President Obama has called income inequality the “defining challenge of our time.” Many progressives blame the market economy and doubt John F. Kennedy’s view that “a rising tide lifts all boats.” In 2011 Mr. Obama chided those who believe “the market will take care of everything.” It’s a “simple theory,” he said. “It fits well on a bumper sticker. Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It’s never worked.”

Grand corruption

Why Jersey Politicians Are All Crooks

Bob Menendez has just been indicted on 14 criminal counts, including eight counts of bribery. While it’s not every day that a member of the United States Senate is hit with criminal charges, it might as well be every day that a politician from New Jersey is revealed to be corrupt. “There is something about this state—whether it’s in the air or in the water or whatever it is, that just makes people more accepting of corrupt practices,” Bob Ingle, co-author of The Soprano State, said. 

Nuclear security

Blast from the Past: When Hawks Wanted to Bomb a 'Suicidal' China

Even before the P5 +1 negotiations with Iran regarding its nuclear program reach a conclusion, hawks in the United States are beating their war drums. Longtime neoconservative activist Joshua Muravchik published a piece in theWashington Post on March 13 ridiculing the notion that diplomacy might work with Tehran, insisting that war as the only prudent alternative.

Nuclear security

Remember, America’s Top Spy Says Iran Isn’t Trying to Build A Nuke

The April 24, 1984, edition of the British defense publication Jane’s Defence Weekly informed its readers: “Iran is engaged in the production of an atomic bomb, likely to be ready within two years, according to press reports in the Persian Gulf last week.” Subsequent warnings from U.S. and foreign sources about Iran’s imminent acquisition of a nuclear weapon have been offered over the past four decades.

Nuclear security

Asia's Coming Nuclear Nightmare

While the world focuses on the dangers that a nuclear-armed Iran could present in the Middle East, a potentially more dangerous and unstable nuclear proliferation is occurring in the Indian Ocean.

In the coming years India, Pakistan, and perhaps China will likely deploy a significant number of nuclear weapons at sea in the Indian Ocean. This could further destabilize already unstable nuclear relationships, creating a real risk of a sea-based exchange of nuclear weapons.

Terror threat

ISIS Wants a Truce

After months of being targeted by U.S.-led airstrikes, losing ground in Iraq and suffering defeat in a weeks-long assault to capture the Syrian border town of Kobani, is the Islamic State flagging and putting out feelers to see if a truce might be possible? Or is it just seeking to sow confusion in the ranks of its opponents and to undermine their unity and resolve by raising the idea of negotiations?

Middle East

Sorry, Obama: The Arab World No Longer Needs America

Operation Decisive Storm, the new coalition led by Saudi Arabia to roll back the takeover of Yemen by the Houthis is seen as an awakening by most of the Arabs, a new page that restores the strategic balance between them and Iran. There is a sense of relief and euphoria in many capitals that after a long hiatus, there is a new dynamism, new Arab spirit, and a resolve to roll back what they see as Iran’s “coup” in the region.

Economic security

How Cheap Oil Is Reshaping Global Hotspots

What do Russia, Exxon Mobil, and ISIS have in common? Not much, except that they’re all grappling with an inconvenient but incontrovertible truth: a sudden, significant, and prolonged shift in the price of oil changes the world. That truth was on display in 1974, and it’s on display again now. Over the course of just a few months in 1973-1974, the price of oil surged from $3 to $12 per barrel. 

Health security

How AIDS Put the Sex in Sex Education

Since the days of Sigmund Freud, of course, educators had deliberated whether, when, and how young people were sexual beings. But the debate accelerated in the era of AIDS, spurred by the astonishing development of new media technologies: videos, satellite television, and the Internet.Each new advance made sexual imagery more readily available to more and more children and adolescents, which in turn under-scored the issue of what—and how much—they should know about the subject.

Financial security

Russia Joins the AIIB ... Finally

Last week in his speech at the Boao Forum in China, Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov announced Moscow's decision to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. "By the decision of our president, Russia will formally join the AIIB in July of this year," he said, addressing the crowd at a China-created replica of Davos.

Arctic

Self-sufficient Russian military force to be formed in Arctic by 2018 — Defense Ministry

A self-sufficient military force will be formed in Russia’s sector of the Arctic by 2018, a senior source at the Defense Ministry said on Wednesday. "The Russian military group in the Arctic will be built up on the mainland and on the islands," the official told the media. "This build-up is already in progress. By 2018 there will emerge a self-sufficient group incorporating radio reconnaissance companies, the way it was in the past. 

Politics

Inside the Confused Mind of Vladimir Putin

It is not at all clear what President Vladimir Putin's ultimate goals are in the current crisis over Ukraine. His ambitions might be limited to securing Crimea and the Donbass for Russia and getting the West to accept this state of affairs. Or he might want to gain control over more of Ukraine, if not all of it. Or he might aim at nothing less than undermining NATO and the European Union through further aggressive moves in the Baltic states and elsewhere that Western governments will not be able to agree on how to respond to. Or perhaps he himself is not sure.

Nazi legacy

Security Service of Ukraine says it adopts OUN-UPA principles

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported on Wednesday that it would adopt the experience of the relevant structures of the OUN-UPA — an ultra-right terrorist organization in Western Ukraine in the 1930s-50s of the last century. "SBU does not need to invent anything extra — it is important to build on the traditions and approaches of the OUN-UPA security service.

Defense

Israel test-fires ‘David’s Sling’ missile defense system

In an ongoing effort to boost its missile defenses, Israel has recently been testing its David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile system. The latest test coincided with positive developments in Iran nuclear talks currently just meters from the finishing line. A number of recent David’s Sling missile tests – the most recent one this Tuesday – have been a great success, the Homa Directorate at the Defense Ministry and the American Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced Wednesday.

Transportation security

China pins hopes on China-Mongolia-Russia economic corridor, diplomat says

China hopes the project to set up a transport corridor linking China, Russia and Mongolia will be soon translated into practice, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at talks with his Mongolian counterpart Lundeg Purevsuren on Thursday.

"The setting up of a trilateral economic corridor is one of the key points in Chinese Silk Road Economic Belt initiative," the foreign minister said, referring to the project to revive the ancient trade route linking China with Central Asia and Europe.

Arms trade

BBC arms trade ties troubling, BAE boss must resign from Trust – campaigners

The BBC must not be used as a vehicle to legitimize the arms trade, a charity warns. It is calling for newly-appointed Vice Chairman Roger Carr to resign, citing conflict of interest with his role as chairman of Europe’s largest arms firm BAE Systems. In response to Carr’s BBC appointment, Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) has launched a petition calling for him to step down. The anti-arms charity is urging the BBC to sever its ties with Carr, and the arms trade itself.

Defense

Russia’s strategic aviation begins exercise featuring missile carrying cruisers, bombers

 A headquarters exercise has begun on a major base of Russia’s strategic aviation in the city of Engels, Saratov region in the Middle Volga area, Colonel Igor Klimov, the chief public relations officer of the Russian Air Force told reporters on Wednesday.

Engaged in the exercise are the strategic missile carrying cruisers Tupolev-160 (Blackjack) and Tupolev-95MS (Bear), long-distance missile-carrying strike bombers Tupolev-22M3 (Backfire), the early warning and control aircraft A-50 (Mainstay), the Sukhoi-27 and MiG-31 fighter jets, as well as Antonov-12 airlifters and Mi-8 helicopters.

Infrastructure security

Bad bridges: Federal data shows US infrastructure crumbling

More than 61,000 bridges throughout the United States are “structurally deficient” and in need of serious repair, a national association of builders has warned, citing government statistics. New analysis of 2014 bridge database information recently released by the US Department of Transportation (US DOT) showed that there were 61,064 “compromised” bridges handling 215 million crossings every day, mostly within the Interstate Highway System.

Information security

Putin spokesman: hacker group blog publications do not influence Kremlin’s staff policy

Publications in the blog of the Shaltay-Boltay hacker group do not influence the Kremlin’s personnel policy, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday.

"They don’t influence it," Peskov said when asked to what extent publications in the blog of the group, also known as Anonymous International, which allegedly contain private correspondence of well-known politicians and officials, affect the Kremlin’s staff policy.

Fire

Fire blazes on oil platform in Gulf of Mexico, 4 dead, multiple injures reported

A fire broke out on an oil platform belonging to Mexico’s state Pemex petroleum giant in the Gulf of Mexico, leading to the evacuation of about 300 workers. According to the company at least four people have died and 16 have been injured. Pemex said on Twitter that the fire on the Abkatun Permanente platform in the oil-rich Campeche Bay broke out overnight and eight firefighting boats were tackling the blaze.

Ship’s wreck

Death toll in Russian trawler wreck off Kamchatka reaches 54

The death toll in the wreck of a Russian freezer trawler off the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s Far East has reached 54, region’s emergency services say. "According to updated reports, 54 bodies have been recovered, and 63 crewmembers have been rescued," a source said.Fifteen more people, who are still missing, are believed to have been in ship holds as the trawler sank.

Corruption

Former FBI Special Agent Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Bribery And Obstruction Scheme

A former FBI special agent was sentenced today to 10 years in prison and ordered to forfeit $70,000 for soliciting and accepting bribes to obstruct a federal grand jury investigation into an alleged kickback scheme involving a defense contractor, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Carlie Christensen of the District of Utah and Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz.

Law enforcement

Law enforcement to start collecting DNA samples during arrests

Wisconsin law enforcement will start collecting DNA samples Wednesday from people arrested for certain crimes. DNA samples will be collected from people being arrested on violent felony charges and everyone convicted of a crime whether it be a misdemeanor or felony, according to a release. Wisconsin previously only required convicted felons and sex offenders to provide DNA, officials said. Wisconsin will be the 29th state to collect DNA at the time of a person’s arrest.“There is a huge investigative benefit to taking DNA at arrest by solving crimes and preventing future victimizations,” Attorney General Brad Schimel said in the release.

Crime

Mafia used capsized cruise ship to ‘smuggle drugs’

Doomed cruise ship Costa Concordia was used by the Mafia to smuggle cocaine, police investigators say. Italy’s most feared crime syndicate, the Ndrangheta, hid drugs on board the cruise ship which partially capsized in January 2012, according to The Independent. “The same ship that made us a laughingstock around the world, took the piss out of us too,” Ndrangheta boss Michele Rossi was reportedly heard saying to an associate, Massimo Tiralongo, according to police.

Terror threat

Global Customs Community Strengthens Security Measures

The World Customs Organisation (WCO) and its members have pledged to remain vigilant and to continue to take an active security role in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in the different regions.
The customs as the lead border agency with the responsibility for the regulation of supply chains and the cross-border flows of goods, and in some cases passengers, has a large portfolio of instruments, tools, and techniques to respond to existing and emerging security threats.

Air defense

Special Bulletin – A “Missile Defense Summit” in Herzelia

A “summit” of those dealing with aerial threats, mainly ballistic missiles, is being held this morning in Beit-Haayal in Herzelia. The convention is hosted by the Israeli Organization for Missile Defense along with i-HLS. Hundreds of participants arrived at the convention from the defense industries and the defense forces. In addition many guests have arrived from the US as well as other countries.

Crime

Colombian drug gang who smuggled cocaine worth £25million into Britain inside plastic bananas jailed for total of 59 years

The drugs had a wholesale value of up to £8m and a street value of £24.5m.

'The bananas were wrapped in a particular cling film and had been smeared with some kind of oil or grease or chemical to prevent detection by sniffer dogs,' said Mr Millett.

'The form of the cocaine imported, namely in plastic bananas, made it plain the sophisticated and ingenious method of just how it was brought into the country and therefore the levels of planning involved.'

Crime

Gold smuggling on the rise, DRI seizes over 160 kg in four days

The Indian appetite for gold shows no signs of slowing. Even as legal imports of the precious metal are on the rise, the Directorate General of Intelligence (DRI) has seized around 161 kg of gold in the past four days.DRI is the intelligence wing of the indirect tax body, the Central Board of Excise and Customs. …The agency seized 88 kg of gold in Siliguri, which was being brought in from Myanmar. A consignment from a Gulf country with 57 kg gold was seized at the Delhi Airport, while two seizures were made in Tamil Nadu.