Politics

Donald Trump gave a doozy of a speech at the National Prayer Breakfast

...No one has inspired me more in my travels than the families of the United States military. Men and women who have put their lives on the line everyday for their country and their countrymen. I just came back yesterday, from Dover Air Force Base, to join the family of Chief William "Ryan" Owens as America's fallen hero was returned home.
Very, very sad, but very, very beautiful, very, very beautiful. His family was there, incredible family, loved him so much, so devastated, he was so devastated, but the ceremony was amazing. He died in defense of our nation. He gave his life in defense of our people. Our debt to him and our debt to his family is eternal and everlasting. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
We will never forget the men and women who wear the uniform, believe me.

Middle East

Israeli Settlements ‘May Not Be Helpful’ for Middle East Peace, Trump Administration Says

President Donald Trump’s administration said Thursday night that the growth of Israeli settlements “may not be helpful” in achieving a goal of peace in the Middle East, an abrupt shift that signals a potentially tougher stance with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal,” said White House press secretary Sean Spicer, in a statement.

The statement came hours after Mr. Netanyahu vowed to establish the first new West Bank settlement in over two decades “as soon as possible.” Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House on Feb. 15.

Electronic warfare

A New Anti-Jamming Protection of GPS Revealed

Modern navigation, communications, and intelligence collection and electronic warfare systems integrated in modern platforms, rely on the uninterrupted availability of satellite-based navigation and timing for their operation. Despite this dependency, most platforms do not use electronic counter countermeasures (ECCM) systems to protect those essential assets. Remaining exposed, even low-power jammers can disrupt or even deny the operation of GNSS systems, thus degrading the platform’s capability to fulfill its mission.

Based on an advanced electronic architecture and the implementation of sophisticated digital processing, the agile ADA system, developed by IAI MLM, protects a broad range of GNSS systems operating on manned and unmanned combat aircraft and helicopters. ADA variants are also used in land-based platforms such as main battle tanks and APCs, and on naval systems. Other derivatives of the system are integrated in various guided weapons.

Gold smuggling

Man who smuggled gold in rectum from mint gets 30 months in prison, $190K fine

The former Royal Canadian Mint employee who apparently used his rectum to smuggle 22 solid gold "pucks" out of the secure facility in Ottawa has been given a 30-month prison sentence and must pay a fine of $190,000.

In November, 35-year-old Leston Lawrence was found guilty of stealing the 22 pucks from the mint on Sussex Drive, and of laundering 17 of them through Ottawa Gold Buyers (the cheque for an 18th puck never cleared because that puck was seized by police).

Lawrence was also found guilty of possession of property obtained by crime, conveying gold out of the mint and breach of trust by a public official.

Drug smuggling

New York man accused of smuggling cocaine in container of avocados at Port Everglades

A New York man has been indicted in South Florida after he tried to smuggle cocaine in a shipping container of avocados at Port Everglades, federal prosecutors said Thursday.

Siffredo Gonzalez, 39, is charged with conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with the intent to distribute and attempting to possess a controlled substance with the intent to distribute.

According to the federal indictment, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers found 83 kilograms of cocaine in the container, which also held avocados, during a Dec. 15 search at Port Everglades. Federal authorities said the container came from the Dominican Republic.

The indictment alleges that Gonzalez met with an undercover agent last month and paid him $25,000 to return the interdicted cocaine.

Smuggling

Report: Militant Groups in Afghanistan Get Rich Off Mineral Smuggling

The smuggling of Afghan minerals supplies millions of dollars to armed groups, insurgents and strongmen in the country, an Afghan anti-corruption watchdog reported Wednesday.

The Afghanistan Anti-Corruption Network said in a report that militant groups last year received at least $46 million from minerals and precious stones illegally exported from eastern Nangarhar province to neighboring Pakistan.

The report said up to 750,000 tons of marble and talc stones were smuggled in 2016 from various parts of the restive province, where Taliban and Islamic State fighters have been active in several districts.

Sanctions

U.S. eases restrictions on cyber-security sales to Russian spy agency

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday eased economic sanctions on Russia, allowing some cyber-security transactions with the Russian Federal Security Service accused of meddling in the U.S. electoral process.

Some Russian officials applauded the move as signaling a thaw in relations with Washington. But several members of Congress decried the move as pandering to Russia and its hacking attempts. The Trump administration, meanwhile, denied any easing of sanctions, describing the changes as routine tweaking of complicated policy.

The move by Treasury makes changes to sanctions initially imposed by President Obama in April 2015 and strengthened again in December, in reaction to alleged "malicious cyber-enabled activities" by Russia's security service, known as the FSB, in the U.S. electoral process.

Data security

FSB promotes greater cooperation between state & business over data security

A senior representative of Russia’s Federal Security Service says the agency has prepared a bill to put additional responsibility on businesses that own critical elements of the national data structure, adding the state alone cannot guarantee protection.

The deputy head of the FSB’s Center for Communications Security, Nikolay Murashov, made the announcement on Thursday in the course of the Infoforum-2017 national conference dedicated to data security.

“Business must understand its responsibility for disturbing the process of data management that could trigger the domino effect. Various terrorist and extremist groups are actively creating and perfecting the means to attack the objects of critical infrastructure,” the official said.

He noted that FSB experts estimate the damages inflicted by hacker attacks worldwide as between US$300 billion and $1 trillion over the past few years. This amounts to 0.4-1.5 percent of combined global GNP.

People smuggling

Europol Raid Busts Migrant Smuggling House in Budapest - Statement

A major migrant smuggling center was busted in a police operation in Hungary's capital Budapest, the European Police Office (Europol) said Thursday.

The raid took place as part of a coordinated police effort across Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary and Romania on Wednesday. The Budapest operation proved to be the most successful, with a hotel used to house illegal migrants along a transit route searched.

"Several organised crime groups used this legal business to accommodate smuggled asylum seekers during their transit. Several people smuggling incidents along the Western Balkan route could be linked to this safe house. Two experts from Europol’s European Migrant Smuggling Centre supported Hungarian police on the spot," Europol said in a statement.

Police found cross-border train tickets, plane boarding passes, navigation devices, thousands of euros in cash and a car during the operation, according to the statement.

Weapons

FACTORING RUSSIA INTO THEUS–CHINESE EQUATION ONHYPERSONIC GLIDE VEHICLES

Hypersonic glide vehicles are a growing factor in strategic stability calculations. These systems are characterized by speed, precision and manoeuvrability, which can be applied to defeat missile defences. Traditional calculations of strategic stability rely on the ability to undermine an opponent’s nuclear deterrent capability, and hypersonic glide vehicles are seen as providing this assurance.1 On reaching near space, the systems are ejected from their missile boosters to begin their glide phase, during which they can accelerate to upwards of Mach 5 or 6138 kilometres per hour. The glide phase allows them to manoeuvre aerodynamically to evade interception and extends the range of their booster missiles. Unlike conventional re-entry vehicles, which follow a predictable ballistic trajectory, hypersonic glide vehicles are almost impossible to intercept using conventional missile defence tracking systems.

Modern warfare

IT’S TIME TO CREATE A MEGACITIES COMBAT UNIT

A 2016 United Nations report estimated 54.5 percent of the world’s population lived in urban areas. By 2030, that percentage is projected to rise to 60 percent. As a result of this rural-to-urban migration, cities themselves are growing. In 2016, there were 512 cities with at least one million inhabitants globally. By 2030, a projected 662 cities will have at least one million residents. And the number of “megacities” in the world—those with ten million residents or more—is projected to grow from thirty-one to forty-one in the same period.

In 2014, the chief of staff of the Army’s Strategic Studies Group (SSG) chose megacities to be the organizing theme for its yearlong research projects. Concept teams looked at the unique characteristics and challenges of a megacity, future maneuver and mobility concepts, Army force design considerations, personnel talent management, and other topics, assessing the requirements for operating in megacities. The conclusions of the SSG research are clear: megacities are unavoidable, they are potentially the most challenging environment the Army has ever faced, and the Army is unprepared to operate in them. The SSG also recommended that the Army, charged with the mandate of preparing forces for sustained operations on land, take the lead in training, organizing, and equipping forces for megacities.

Border security

Which Technologies would Turn US-Mexico Border Wall Effective?

According to aei.org, walls can actually work. The article mentions various precedents of walls and systems designed to maintain security and keep illegal immigrants and terrorists out while allowing legal immigrants and visitors in. Among these are Israel’s West Bank security fence; Morocco’s 1,700-mile system of sand berms, fences, mine fields, and ditches along the Algerian border; the Indian border fence and wall system to keep Pakistanis out; Turkey’s border with Syria, along which fences and mine fields were deployed; Saudi Arabia’s newly built wall along its disputed border with Yemen to keep Yemeni-based terrorists out of the Saudi Kingdom, and several other walls in conflict regions.

During and before the Obama administration, US policymakers concluded that a US-Mexico border wall would not be feasible. The border is 1,954 miles long. While more than 700 miles of border fence exists, the fenced border remains porous with drug cartels and people smugglers constructing tunnels under the border, cutting holes through the fence, or simply climbing over it.

Border security

New Border Security Solutions – Infrared and Laser Walls

CRON System’s perimeter security solutions act like a security wall and provide an intrusion alert range up to 1 KM per unit installation. Using evolution and innovation over Laser and Infra Red, the system is ideal for areas spread over kilometers.

Perimeter Security Variants include:

• KVI Series: CRON’s KVI (Infrared Intrusion Alert) series, for the protection of expensive equipment, entrance where the distance of more than 400 Meter is not required.
• KVL Series: KVL series works on laser array technology which enables this unit to work without the need for accurate alignment, whereas conventional equipment fails to work even with slightest of disturbances. A single unit can protect a range up to 1 Kilometers.
• KVH Series: KVH Series combines the power of both (Infrared and Laser) and comes with a failsafe mechanism with added security.

Chemical security

Europe Preparing for A Different Sort of Terrorist Attack

Following the Christmas market attack in Berlin, the German government issued a paper stating the country is at “high risk” of terrorist attacks carried out by “Islamist-motivated perpetrators” who may employ large amounts of chemicals to target drinking water supplies.

According to rt.com, the government is treating the threat seriously and has ordered the German armed forces, intelligence agencies and emergency services to prepare for action in the event of a chemical attack.

“A determined and well-trained terrorist group is likely to be in a position to exploit Germany’s potential chemical hazards in order to stage an attack,” says the report jointly prepared by the government and the federal police (BKA) to evaluate level of threats to civilian population. Islamist-motivated perpetrators are able “procure and use large amount of chemicals,” it states, also describing “realistic options” of a chemical attack.

Defense

Making America’s ICBMs Great Again


With the election of Donald Trump and his Dec. 22 tweet calling for the United States to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability,” advocates of additional nuclear reductions saw their chances of furthering the disarmament agenda go up in smoke. However, they are now doubling down on efforts to eliminate the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) leg of the triad, arguing that the aging Minuteman III should not be replaced.

Their hopes were pinned to Trump’s defense secretary, James Mattis, who last year offered this testimony on Capitol Hill: “The nuclear stockpile must be tended to and fundamental questions must be asked and answered: We must clearly establish the role of our nuclear weapons: do they serve solely to deter nuclear war? If so we should say so, and the resulting clarity will help to determine the number we need. Is it time to reduce the triad to a diad, removing the land‐based missiles? This would reduce the false alarm danger.” (Emphasis the author’s.)

National security

Donald Trump’s National Security Council reorganization copies previous GOP president

President Trump’s reorganization of the National Security Council principals committee, and the participation of the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, is a duplicate of what George W. Bush did in February 2001 when he issued his NSC directive.

Rather than radical change, Mr. Trump is simply reverting to the way the last Republican president did national security business in-house, a comparison of their directives shows.

Washington is in a uproar because the Trump directive does not make the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff a “regular” member of the principals committee. The committee debates policies and is a sub-panel of the full National Security Council of which the JCS chair is a permanent member.

The Trump wording that has some former Obama officials up in arms reads:

“The Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shall attend where issues pertaining to their responsibilities and expertise are to be discussed.”

International security

‘Iran put on notice’ after ballistic missile test – White House National Security Advisor

Washington has put Tehran on ‘official notice’ over its recent ballistic missile test, with White House National Security Advisor, Mike Flynn describing it as provocative and destabilizing the situation across the Middle East.

The Trump administration "condemns such actions by Iran that undermine security, prosperity and stability throughout and beyond the Middle East that puts American lives at risk," Flynn told reporters Wednesday.

Reuters reported that an anonymous White House official said the missile test was carried out on Sunday from a site near Semnan, east of Tehran.

A White House statement released by Flynn said the missile test was in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 which called upon the country “not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles.”

Iranian officials on Tuesday, however, insisted that the country has complied with the restrictions imposed in the Iran nuclear deal, according to Al Jazeera.

Immigration security

Trump on immigration ban: 'Call it what you want'

President Donald Trump has jumped into the controversy surrounding how to refer to his executive order from last week regarding immigration and refugees.

"Everybody is arguing whether or not it is a BAN," Trump wrote on Twitter on Wednesday morning. "Call it what you want, it is about keeping bad people (with bad intentions) out of country!"

Many of Trump's critics have labeled the executive order a "Muslim ban," as it temporarily barred almost all travel to the US from seven countries that, while having been identified as terrorism hotspots, are predominantly Muslim. John Kelly, the secretary of homeland security, disputed that label on Tuesday.

Law & order

Top cop James O’Neill to double size of NYPD’s vice squad, enforces new human trafficking probe training

In a new initiative aimed at addressing human trafficking, the city’s top cop ordered new training for police on dealing with victims by doubling the size of the NYPD’s vice squad.

Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Wednesday he will add 25 new cops to the citywide Vice Enforcement Unit to conduct trafficking investigations. The NYPD now has a 24-hour hotline for victims and others with information about trafficking to call.

“We (are) altering the law enforcement mindset in training and recognition,” O’Neill said. “We’ve already switched our emphasis from prostitutes and are focusing on pimps and the Johns who pay for their services.”

Modus operandi

Man Smuggling Cocaine in Canned Tuna, Corn Arrested at JFK Airport: Customs Officials

An arriving passenger carried more than tuna salad in his suitcase on his return flight back to the country, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers at John F. Kennedy Airport found.

Jaime Macias, a U.S. citizen, was arriving on a flight from Guayaquil, Ecuador Jan. 25 when customs officers allegedly discovered three cans labeled as tuna and three cans labeled as corn in his checked suitcase, CBP officials said.

CBP officers escorted Mr. Macias to a private search room where the cans were probed and tested positive for cocaine, authorities said. He was arrested for importing a controlled substance shortly after and was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations.

Smuggling

Mystery Cargo: Suspicions Of Smuggling Swirl Around Airline Tragedy In Kyrgyzstan

Strewn among the aircraft wreckage and obliterated homes outside Kyrgyzstan's capital lie the charred remnants of iPhones, luxury cigarette lighters, and other electronic gadgets disgorged when a Turkish cargo plane slammed into a village near Manas International Airport.

The crash of the MyCargo 747-400 in dense early morning fog on January 16 killed four crew members and 35 villagers in Dacha-Suu, nearly half of them children.

But it also set off a storm of inquiry, fueled by contradictory statements from the Istanbul-based flight operator, into suspicions that some of the cargo was part of an illegal scheme to line officials' pockets or to feed the gray market in this fledgling democracy of 6 million people.

Law enforcement

FBI investigated white supremacist infiltration of law enforcement

The FBI has been quietly keeping an eye on white supremacists and other domestic terrorists as they infiltrate law enforcement agencies.

According to a classified FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide from April 2015, obtained by The Intercept, the FBI has been aware of the growing threat that white supremacists and others pose as they continue to find a hold in the nation's law enforcement agencies, but the FBI has been reluctant to publicly address the issue or even publicly comment on the threat of white supremacy itself.

Norm Stamper, a former chief of the Seattle Police Department and vocal advocate for police reform, told The Intercept that the findings weren't surprising, given the history of the United States. "There are police agencies throughout the South and beyond that come from that tradition," he said. "To think that that kind of thinking has dissolved somehow is myopic at best."

Criminal investigation

CIA Plays No Part in Russia's FSB Information Security Center Detentions

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) does not appear in the treason case over two information security center officials at the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), a law enforcement source told Sputnik on Wednesday.

The law enforcement source added that it was unclear what special services could have received intelligence from the two detained FSB members, despite media reports linking the intelligence-gathering to the CIA.

"Indeed, they are detained on suspicion of treason. It is assumed that they regularly provided information to foreign, likely US, intelligence service members," the source said.

Foreign policy

Rex Tillerson Is Confirmed as Secretary of State Amid Record Opposition

Rex W. Tillerson, the former chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, was confirmed by the Senate on Wednesday in a 56-to-43 vote to become the nation’s 69th secretary of state just as serious strains have emerged with important international allies.

... In a brief swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office on Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump said Mr. Tillerson understood “the importance of strengthening our alliances and forming new alliances to enhance our strategic interests and the safety of our people.”

German elections

Infighting symptomatic of AfD in key election year?

In populous North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party bickered and fought over leadership issues at its state convention on Sunday just months ahead of a key state election regarded as a litmus test for national polls in September.

Domestic power struggles or no - the AfD, which currently has about 4,500 members in NRW, is aiming to enter the state parliament there in the May 14 vote. The party already has seats in 10 of Germany's 16 state parliaments - and also has set its sights on entering the national parliament, the Bundestag.

The AfD will in fact win enough votes to enter both assemblies, says Professor Carsten Koschmieder of the Berlin-based Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science. The AfD is also expected to win a sizable share of the vote in state polls in Saarland in March and Schleswig-Holstein in May.

Poll results

Marine Le Pen still ahead in poll for first round of French presidential election with Fillon and Macron neck-and-neck 

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Far-Right National Front, is still ahead in the polls as France heads towards the first round of presidential elections in the spring.

A poll by Kantar Sofres put her on 25 percent, ahead of Francois Fillon, a conservative former prime minister, who is now neck-and-neck with Emmanuel Macron, a maverick independent, who is polling better than expected.

Fillon is on 22 percent and Macron is on 21 percent. 

Politics

How Marine Le Pen transformed the Front National into a party for the populist era

Her father was a racist and a convicted holocaust denier who showed more interest in rabble-rousing than leading the Front National (FN) into power.

But Marine Le Pen, a former lawyer with a steely blue-eyed glare, is taking the far-right group in a decidedly different direction.

Once a neoliberal club for churlish business owners under Jean-Marie, who led the party for nearly four decades, Ms Le Pen has turned the FN into a movement for the populist era.

Her campaign of "de-démonisation" since clawing the leadership from her father in 2011 sought to soften the party's toxic image, and she is now being widely touted as a strong contender for the French presidency.