WAR 04-02-2016-to-04-08-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

Sorry everyone, I came down with a sore throat, sinus and chest congestion late last night and have been pretty much crashed out and dosing myself with Vitamin C, Echinacea, ginger etc. most of the last 24 hours (dosing basically when the cat woke me up to give her another ration of food). I've been popping onto TB2K on my phone then passing back out. Anyhow with what's developing I figured I'd better get this week's started before it becomes Sunday here on the West Coast.....Housecarl
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FUNG WAR ADVISORY: Hostilities Between Armenia & Azerbjan Have Flared Up Overnight....
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...p-Azerbjan-Have-Flared-Up-Overnight..../page2

The threat from CHINA: Xi warns Obama against threatening China’s sovereignty
Started by Heliobas Disciple‎, Yesterday 12:50 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...Obama-against-threatening-China’s-sovereignty

Turkey Says "Massive Escalation" In Syria Imminent *update #280, Saudis launch strikes
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...nent-*update-280-Saudis-launch-strikes/page43

Main Russia/Ukraine invasion thread - NATO: Russian Tanks and Artillery Enter Ukraine
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ian-Tanks-and-Artillery-Enter-Ukraine/page439

North Korea threatens pre-emptive nuclear strikes against U.S., South Korea
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...uclear-strikes-against-U.S.-South-Korea/page8

North Korea Threatend China with "Nuclear Storm"
Started by Bicycle Junkie‎, Yesterday 08:23 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-Threatend-China-with-quot-Nuclear-Storm-quot

France Slowly Emerges from Denial and Starts Shutting Down Mosques
Started by Be Well‎, Yesterday 02:47 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...-from-Denial-and-Starts-Shutting-Down-Mosques

3/22/16: Reported explosions at Brussels airport in Belgium
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...losions-at-Brussels-airport-in-Belgium/page15

Russia prepared for US tanks in Eastern Europe
Started by China Connection‎, Yesterday 04:13 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?488657-Russia-prepared-for-US-tanks-in-Eastern-Europe

Amerika ... Next Stop Berlin? Moscow's Nazi-Killing Tank Unit is Back
Started by skip1‎, 03-31-2016 06:15 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...erlin-Moscow-s-Nazi-Killing-Tank-Unit-is-Back

Russia Doubling Nuclear Warheads: New multiple-warhead missiles to break arms treaty limit
Started by Housecarl‎, Yesterday 02:27 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...e-warhead-missiles-to-break-arms-treaty-limit

Iraq-IS War (30 March 2016) Obama to decide on increasing troop levels in Iraq soon
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ecide-on-increasing-troop-levels-in-Iraq-soon
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(209) 03-12-2016-to-03-18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...18-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(210) 03-19-2016-to-03-25-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...25-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(211) 03-26-2016-to-04-01-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...01-2016_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
_____

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-04-01/the-iran-nuclear-deal-keeps-changing

Foreign Policy

The Iran Nuclear Deal Keeps Changing

April 1, 2016 11:19 AM EST
By Eli Lake

Like most of Washington, I was under the impression that the nuclear negotiations with Iran ended in July. There was the press conference in Vienna, the U.N. resolution that lifted the sanctions on Iran and the fight in Congress that followed. That turns out to have been wrong.

I should have been more suspicious when no one actually had to sign anything at the end of the negotiations or when the "deal" was not submitted to the Senate as a treaty for ratification. And while it's true that the Iranians have disposed of nuclear material, modified sites and allowed more monitoring, they also keep haggling over the terms.

Quicktake Iran's Nuclear Program

Now, according to an Associated Press report, the Obama administration is considering a rule change to allow some Iranian businesses to use off shore financial institutions to access U.S. dollars in currency trades. When the White House sold it to Congress, senior Treasury officials promised the nuclear agreement would not allow such dollar transactions, since Iran's financial system has been repeatedly designated as a concern for money laundering. It was not part of the "deal" that was agreed in July, which only lifted nuclear related sanctions on Iran, but kept in place other sanctions to punish the country's support for terrorism, human rights abuses and its ballistic missile program.

In a statement Thursday urging the Treasury department not to go through with the rule change, Democratic House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer said:

I want to make clear my concerns that the Administration had indicated that there would be no further concessions beyond those specifically negotiated and briefed to Congress. I do not support granting Iran any new relief without a corresponding concession.

This is not how the Iranians see it. Over the last month, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has complained that the U.S. was not upholding its end of the bargain. He implied that Iran may have to back out of its own commitments if the U.S. does not do more to signal to foreign banks and businesses that it's safe to invest in his country.

And that's just the latest example of a new concession won by Iran. Over the summer, Secretary of State John Kerry told Congress that the U.N. resolution that ended international sanctions on Iran's nuclear program would nonetheless retain language that prohibited Iran from testing ballistic missiles. And yet a March 28 letter from the U.S. and the European Union to the U.N. Secretary General this week conspicuously declined to call Iran's recent ballistic missile tests a "violation" of that resolution.

This caught the attention of Rep. Mike Pompeo and two of his fellow Republican House members, Pete Roskam and Lee Zeldin. In a letter to Kerry sent Thursday, they write, "The seeming American refusal to name these Iranian tests as violations is in direct conflict with the administration’s earlier commitments."

The White House sees it differently. This week Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser for strategic communications told reporters that Iran's missile tests were not part of July's nuclear agreement, which is strange because most experts consider missiles that can deliver a nuclear weapon to be part of a country's nuclear program.

Again, the Iranians have been firm on this point. There is barely a day that goes by when the country's leaders don't affirm that they have a sovereign right to test as many missiles as they choose. And in case the message wasn't clear, Iranian television made sure to broadcast images of those missiles emblazoned with Hebrew words that said "Israel must be wiped off the earth."

This pattern began over the summer when Obama himself assured Congress and the public that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would have the ability to inspect any suspicious site that it wanted. The Iranians countered that their military facilities were off limits.

It turns out they were right. When the IAEA devised a plan to inspect Iran's Parchin facility, the Iranians refused international inspectors access and allowed only a ceremonial visit from the agency's director. The Iranians were allowed to collect their own site samples.

Experts disagree on whether any of these post-deal concessions are significant. The administration argues that Iran has complied with its primary commitments -- the removal of low enriched uranium, the modification of key nuclear sites like Arak and allowing far greater transparency of its program.

But this misses the point. Despite Obama's 2012 campaign promise, the president accepted an agreement in July that allowed Iran to keep in place the industrial-sized nuclear program it had built in defiance of the United Nations. This gives Iran a loaded gun with which to blackmail the rest of the world. If more concessions are not granted, then Iran can always restart its program.

In theory, Obama and future presidents could then re-impose sanctions. But realistically it will be much harder to persuade America's allies and adversaries to take drastic steps, particularly as so many other countries are now looking to reinvest in Iran's economy. After all, it took years to carefully build the coalition that imposed the sanctions that forced Iran to negotiate.

Iran's leaders seem to understand this. So does the Obama administration. And the terms of the agreement we thought was completed in July keep changing to the benefit of Iran.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Therese Raphael at traphael4@bloomberg.net

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.armytimes.com/story/mili...iraqi-armys-battle-against-isis-hit/82560060/

Trapped civilians slow Iraqi army's battle against ISIS in Hit

Susannah George, The Associated Press 5:19 p.m. EDT April 2, 2016

HIT, Iraq — As ground forces push west across Iraq in the fight against the Islamic State group, civilians are increasingly caught in the crossfire.

Iraq's elite counterterrorism forces say an estimated 20,000 civilians are trapped in the small western town of Hit, where Iraqi forces have recently relaunched an offensive aimed at cutting critical IS supply lines to neighboring Syria. The civilians, Iraqi commanders and U.S.-led coalition officials say, are slowing operations, making it more difficult to use airstrikes to clear terrain ahead of ground troops.

A single white flag flies above Mursid Nigris's house on the edge of a palm grove on the western outskirts of Hit, which lies in Anbar province, 85 miles (140 kilometers) west of the Iraqi capital. Behind his home, black clouds of smoke rise from the town's center. Counterterrorism forces pushed IS out of this largely agricultural neighborhood on the outskirts of Hit Thursday, but have made little progress since.

Iraqi forces relaunched the operation to take Hit early Thursday morning under cover of coalition airstrikes. The town lies along a supply line linking the extremist group's fighters in Iraq to those in neighboring Syria. Iraqi commanders say retaking the town will be a key step to link up government forces in Iraq's west and north in preparation for an eventual push on Mosul.

The original push was delayed by political instability in the capital, Baghdad. When anti-government protests escalated last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pulled some military units from Anbar to Baghdad.

After parts of Ramadi fell to Iraqi forces in December last year, the government and the U.S.-led coalition have tried to build on those gains, moving up the Euphrates river valley and clearing IS from villages as they went. In the months that followed, thousands of civilians fleeing Iraqi military operations across Anbar descended on Hit.

While Iraqi forces have evacuated thousands of families as they've retaken territory from IS, thousands more simply fled or were forcibly moved by IS fighters as they retreated. The operations to Hit's north, west and south have effectively boxed civilians in to the small town.

"They honestly are just looking for a safe place they can reach quickly, they don't care if it is IS controlled or not," said a captain with the counterterrorism forces overseeing the Hit operation.

He spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to brief the press.

Nigris, a 45-year-old farmer, is hosting 20 members of his extended family in his simple farm house. Although Hit fell to IS last summer, the town has remained relatively safe as airstrikes and the initial clashes between IS and Iraqi forces focused on the larger cities of Ramadi and Fallujah.

"Daesh would come to our house and interrogate us," Nigris said, using an arabic acronym for IS. "They would demand we confess we are with the police or the military."

Eventually, however, fighters largely left his family alone. The problem then was the longer IS stayed in Hit, the harder it became to find food, water and fuel for his family, Nigris said. Trade with the rest of the country ceased, and damage to the town's infrastructure meant few people had access to running water.

"Militarily we could liberate Hit in just one day," said Gen. Abdul-Ghani al-Asadi, the top counterterrorism forces commander, "but we are having problems with the families stuck inside."

Al-Asadi said the civilians have prevented the coalition from launching airstrikes and Iraqi military units from using heavy artillery. While the counterterrorism forces are some of Iraq's most capable ground forces, they are still heavily reliant on airstrikes to retake ground.

"This is a bigger problem than we saw in Ramadi. That city didn't contain that large of a number of civilians, at least not in such a concentrated area," al-Asadi said.

When Iraqi forces closed in on Ramadi in December, IS blocked the main roads out of the city, trapping families inside. Later, as the fighters were pushed out of some neighborhoods, they forced civilians to flee with them.

Hit is roughly a fifth of the size of Ramadi. Initial estimates of the number of civilians in Ramadi were around a thousand, but as Iraqi forces cleared the city many thousands more were discovered.

Al-Asadi said his forces are prepared to help evacuate civilians in Hit as they did in Ramadi, where special forces evacuated families as they took over territory. He added, however, that he believed the large number of trapped civilians would become an ever bigger complication facing operations as forces move north to the IS-held city of Mosul.

The captain with the counterterrorism forces overseeing the Hit operation says he doesn't believe IS has the manpower in Hit necessary to move civilians with them as they flee, but his men are still struggling to avoid civilian casualties when coordinating airstrikes.

"We're telling the civilians to mark their houses in a certain way so we can tell who is and who isn't a fighter," the captain said.

Initially he said his forces asked civilians in Ramadi to carry white flags as they fled, but the symbol was quickly adopted by IS to disguise counterattacks.

"It's not easy always coming up with new signs," the captain said, "the last time I saw a white flag it turned out to be a VBIED," he said using an American military acronym for a car bomb.

Associated Press writer Khalid Mohammed in Hit, Iraq contributed to this story

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/obama-nixed-cia-plan-could-have-stopped-isis-officials-n549111

Apr 2 2016, 7:52 pm ET

Obama Nixed CIA Plan That Could Have Stopped ISIS: Officials

by Ken Dilanian and Kevin Monahan

Video
Ex-CIA Officer Sheds Light on U.S. Plan To Overthrow Syrian Regime 3:17

The CIA in 2012 proposed a detailed covert action plan designed to remove Syrian President Bashar Assad from power, but President Obama declined to approve it, current and former U.S. officials tell NBC News.

It's long been known that then-CIA Director David Petraeus recommended a program to secretly arm and train moderate Syrian rebels in 2012 to pressure Assad. But a book to be published Tuesday by a former CIA operative goes further, revealing that senior CIA officials were pushing a multi-tiered plan to engineer the dictator's ouster. Former American officials involved in the discussions confirmed that to NBC News.

In an exclusive television interview with NBC News, the former officer, Doug Laux, describes spending a year in the Middle East meeting with Syrian rebels and intelligence officers from various partner countries. Laux, who spoke some Arabic, was the eyes and ears on the ground for the CIA's Syria task force, he says.

Laux, an Indiana native who joined the CIA in 2005 at age 23, says he wrote an "ops plan" that included all the elements he believed were necessary to remove Assad. He was not allowed to describe the plan, but he writes that his program "had gained traction" in Washington. His boss, the head of the Syria task force, regularly briefed members of the Congressional intelligence committees on what Laux was seeing, hearing and suggesting.

Click Here to Read a Profile of Doug Laux

A former senior intelligence official said Laux's ideas—many of them shared by other members of the CIA's Syrian task force--were heavily represented in the plan that was ultimately presented to Obama.

But the president, who must approve all covert action, never gave the green light. The White House and the CIA declined to comment.

The White House and CIA leaders "had made it clear from the beginning that the goal of our task force was to find ways to remove President Assad from office," Laux complained. "We had come up with 50 good options to facilitate that. My ops plan laid them out in black and white. But political leadership…hadn't given us the go-ahead to implement a single one."

Laux's account was heavily censored by the CIA, which reviews every book by a former officer and removes classified information. The agency would not let Laux describe his Syria prescriptions in detail. Still, some observers have found it surprising that the agency allowed a former officer to write that the CIA was planning the overthrow of a foreign government.

Petraeus and others who supported the plan believe it could have prevented the rise of ISIS, Assad's use of chemical weapons, the European refugee crisis and the tens of thousands of civilian deaths that have happened since, the former officials say. President Obama and many other analysts strongly disagree.

Elements under discussion at the time included not only bolstering Syrian rebels, but pressuring and paying senior members of Assad's regime to push him out, the former officials said. The idea was that the Syrian civil war could then have been peacefully resolved--a huge uncertainty.

Laux ultimately resigned in frustration — over that and other issues -- after it became clear the Obama administration would not move forward.

Some time later, Obama authorized a more modest CIA plan to arm and train Syrian rebels than the one Petraeus had recommended, but that effort has not been decisive on the battlefield. The moderate Free Syrian Army collapsed, and many Syrians opposed to Assad were drawn into the orbit of extremist groups, including al Qaeda and ISIS. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf countries began arming different rebel groups and pursuing their own agendas.

ISIS had not yet broken from Syria's al Qaeda affiliate, or seized territory, when Laux was proposing his plan. By 2014, an allied coalition that included the U.S., U.K., and France was launching massive airstrikes against ISIS, which had seized a vast swath of Iraq and Syria and established a caliphate.

Looking back, Laux now says he doesn't believe his or any other covert plan could have stopped the rise of ISIS or ended Syria's bloody civil war. "There were no moderates," he says.

But Petraeus believes it might have, as does Robert Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, and Leon Panetta, the former defense secretary, former senior U.S officials told NBC News.

While the plan had risks, the situation in Syria "couldn't be worse" than it is now, another former senior official involved said.

In the memoir she published last year, "Hard Choices," Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said she advocated having the CIA arm the rebels in 2012, siding with Petraeus in internal White House debates.

Petraeus, Ford and other officials held weekly meetings on the issue during the summer and fall of 2012, former officials say.

Neither Petraeus nor Ford would comment about the covert plan, but Ford said in an interview that he believes ISIS would not have been able to declare a caliphate in Raqqah, Syria, if the U.S. government had taken steps in 2012 to bolster what was then called the Free Syrian Army.

"I'm confident we would be looking at a different Syria today if the president of the United States hadn't overruled David Petraeus, head of the CIA, Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, and Leon Panetta, who was secretary of defense," Sen. John McCain (R.-Arizona) told NBC News.

President Obama has not commented on the full CIA plan, but he has said arming Syrian rebels would not have worked.

"The notion that we could have—in a clean way that didn't commit U.S. military forces—changed the equation on the ground there was never true," Obama told the writer Jeffrey Goldberg for the April edition of the Atlantic Magazine.

But former senior U.S. officials point out that the Lebanon-based terror group Hezbollah, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards, had not yet begun fighting in Syria in significant numbers in 2012. Many players in the region, they say, were waiting to see what the United States would do.

Laux said he believes U.S. policy at the time was "feckless," and shattered American credibility in the region, even before Obama declined to take military action when Assad used chemical weapons in August 2013.

For example, he said, in August 2012, then-Secretary of State Clinton announced in Turkey that the U.S. was considering enforcing a no fly zone against Assad's forces, a statement that made news.

"For the next few days, rebel leaders who had been suspicious of U.S. motives before happily shared everything with me — the state of their forces, where they were deployed, the names of important leaders, etc," Laux writes. "It yielded an intel bonanza."

Video

Soon, though, they began to ask when the U.S. jets were coming.

"The no fly zone pledge turned out to be a bluff to try to get Assad's allies to put more pressure on him to resign," Laux writes. "I wasn't told that either. What it accomplished was to flush the slim credibility we had in Syria down the drain."

After it was clear the administration wasn't going to move forward with covert action, Laux recommended that the CIA pull out altogether, an idea that did not win him any friends inside the agency.

He was soon overtaken by frustration.

"I had worked my ass off for almost a year, risked my life, and compromised my health and personal life because I was seriously trying to come up with a plan to help the Syrian opposition that would meet with the approval of the administration, Congress, and our Arab and European allies," he writes.

The experience left him "starting to question what I was doing with my life."

Laux, who had previously spent two years spying in Afghanistan, quit the agency soon afterward.

While the CIA would not comment on the Syria plan, a spokesperson did issue a statement about Laux's book.

"Sadly, Mr. Laux's career at CIA did not work out. We hope that someday, maybe with age and greater maturity, he will have better perspective on his time here. The American people should know that his former colleagues continue to do extraordinary work despite his departure, and do so without the need for public recognition."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/International-Relations/North-Korea-sanctions-yet-to-bite

April 3, 2016 1:00 am JST

North Korea sanctions yet to bite

OKI NAGAI, Nikkei staff writer

WASHINGTON -- A month has passed since the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea, in response to the reclusive state's fourth nuclear test.

China, one of the council's five permanent members and a traditional ally of neighboring North Korea, holds the key as to whether the sanctions will bite as hard as expected.

To be sure, China has toughened customs inspections at borders with North Korea and restricted calls at major domestic ports by North Korea-related ships, heeding the resolution adopted on March 2.

Yet despite China's declared commitment to keep in step with the international community and comply with the resolution, concerns linger that some loopholes might be used to help North Korea evade the sanctions.

Speaking at a press conference in New York on Friday, Liu Jieyi, China's ambassador to the U.N., who holds the Security Council's rotating presidency for April, stressed that his country attaches "great importance" to implementing the resolution.

Liu was responding to a question about how China is complying with the resolution. As he was answering, he raised his voice in an apparent bid to dispel international concerns about China's seriousness.

It is true that China has taken measures in response to the U.N. resolution, with people involved in trade between China and North Korea saying Beijing has significantly toughened border customs inspections.

Beijing has also imposed restrictions on North Korea-related ships making port calls. One source at the Port of Dandong, on the border between the two countries, said 27 vessels subject to the U.N. sanctions "will never be allowed into the port."

Other North Korea-related ships, including those that have made port calls in North Korea, will also not be allowed to visit Chinese ports -- unless they submit necessary documents to Chinese authorities and get permission.

People involved in trade between China and North Korea agree that the suspension of money transfers into North Korean bank accounts has dealt a particularly serious blow to bilateral trade. Traders now have to settle transactions with cash.

But China remains cautious about sanctioning North Korea into a corner. China fears that if the current regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un plunges into turmoil, many North Korean refugees would flood into China.

China's crude oil exports to North Korea are believed to be continuing since they do not violate the U.N. sanctions.

The sanctions include a ban on the trade of minerals, but minerals for civilian use are exempt.

In fact, there are eyewitness reports that vehicles carrying what is believed to be coal have continued to cross the border from North Korea into China despite the resolution.

There is also this: Some observers say China might loosen its imposition of the sanctions over time.

Related stories
North Korean leader observes test of anti-air missile system
Exclusive: North Korean counterfeit cigarette trade faces squeeze

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://asia.nikkei.com/Features/China-up-close/Xi-told-to-resign-has-well-being-threatened

April 2, 2016 1:00 pm JST

China up close

Xi told to resign, has well-being threatened

KATSUJI NAKAZAWA, Nikkei senior staff writer

TOKYO -- In a fresh sign of the bitter power struggle going on in China, an explosive open letter appeared briefly on a state-sanctioned website calling for President Xi Jinping to resign over economic mismanagement.

The letter was not signed. It was posted by Wujie News in early March, shortly before the National People's Congress, China's parliament, kicked off its annual meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Xi also helms the Chinese Communist Party. The highly unusual public lambasting blamed Xi for China's slowing economy, now the world's second-largest, and called for him to resign from all party and state leadership posts.

It did not start out this way for Xi, who became president a little more than three years ago and launched a sweeping anti-corruption campaign to wide acclaim.

The campaign, however, quickly became a hammer that Xi has wielded against political foes and to consolidate power.

The defiant letter credited Xi's "high pressure" anti-corruption campaign with helping to correct rampant misconduct among party officials.

But it went on to say the campaign has also led to a "slacking-off phenomenon" at all levels of government, with frightened bureaucrats failing to do their jobs. This has further accelerated the deterioration of China's economy, the missive said.

The letter also said the current aim of the anti-corruption drive is to quench Xi's thirst for power.

The posting was the first criticism released inside China to openly and clearly link the anti-corruption campaign to the worsening economy. It blamed China's current economic woes on Xi, not Premier Li Keqiang.

Li, ranked second in the Communist Party hierarchy, after Xi, was supposed to serve as the economic czar in Xi's administration. But he has ended up with no such authority due to Xi's aggressive consolidation of power.

The letter also pointed out that Xi has abandoned the Communist Party's traditional principle of collective leadership exercised through the Politburo Standing Committee.

The Politburo Standing Committee is the ruling party's top decision-making body. It currently has seven members, including Li and Xi.

There are rumors that insiders worked to get the letter posted on Wujie News. In addition to calling for Xi to resign from all party and state leadership posts, the missive warned Xi to watch out for his and his family's physical well-being.

The letter appeared only briefly before being taken down. Still, it was read by many before disappearing and has made a big splash elsewhere on the Internet. Copies are still making the rounds on other sites, mostly overseas.

At least at first glance

There is a backstory to Wujie News. The site was born in the spring of 2015 as a new propaganda tool of the Chinese Communist Party. It is under the umbrella of the Cyberspace Administration of China, also known as the Office of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs.

The cyberspace administration was established so Xi and his leadership team could better manage and supervise online media outlets.

Wujie News was jointly set up by SEEC Media Group -- the publicity department of the Communist Party committee in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region -- and Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. SEEC Media Group publishes Caijing, a leading Chinese-language business magazine.

Beijing-based Wujie News began by hiring prominent editors as well as many reporters.

Part of its job was to attract eyeballs that in the smartphone era had strayed from China's state-affiliated news outlets, known to be quite boring. The idea was to run interesting stories that would read differently -- at least at first glance -- than those put out by conventional state-affiliated media outlets, all while still toeing the official party line.

The investigation begins

Wujie News is one of many new-breed news sites in China and one of the most successful. One reason for its stickiness might be the backing of Alibaba, which also invested in the production of one of the "Mission: Impossible" movies starring Tom Cruise.

At first, the site attracted readers with eye-catching headlines and sharp analyses -- as well as by using or quoting a bare minimum of stories from state-run media outlets such as Xinhua News Agency and the People's Daily.

"I initially thought it was a new overseas pro-China news site," a university student in Beijing said.

Only a year since going live, however, the future of Wujie News is now up in the air. There are rumors that the site could be permanently shut.

Nowadays almost all of Wujie News' stories are sourced from three major state-run media outlets: Xinhua, the People's Daily and China Central Television, or CCTV. As a result, most readers have left the site behind.

Hoodwinking the public with propaganda just is not as easy as it used to be. On Feb. 19, Xi made a rare and high-profile inspection tour of the People's Daily, Xinhua and CCTV, demanding they pledge absolute loyalty to the Communist Party.

Now Chinese authorities are investigating how that letter got posted. According to reports, more than 10 people -- including Jia Jia, a prominent Chinese commentator living in Hong Kong -- have been detained.

Jia and a male editor at Wujie News are longtime acquaintances. According to people familiar with the matter, Jia, in the U.S. at the time, noticed the letter and tipped off the editor to take it down.

When Jia returned to China in mid-March he was detained at the Beijing airport where he landed before he could transfer to a connecting flight to Hong Kong. He has since been released.

Tug of war

Lurking behind the case is the fact that many national and local leaders are increasingly anxious amid Xi's fierce and arbitrary anti-corruption campaign -- so anxious that they are afraid to do their jobs.

Premier Li referred to the situation in a government work report he delivered on March 5 during the opening session of the National People's Congress' annual meeting.

The Wujie News letter put the matter squarely on the table, giving voice to many Communist Party officials' pent-up frustrations.

In China, any public criticism of a top leader is risky. Critical words would never be posted or published while a top leader enjoys popularity. The fact that the letter made its way online reflects the erosion of Xi's once-soaring popularity.

The public now yawns at Xi's anti-corruption campaign. And the slowing economy is not doing the president any favors. If ordinary Chinese begin to feel that life is a heavier burden, many will likely turn their back on Xi.

In a democratic country, there is usually no problem with expressing opinions to a top leader. Sound criticism can even lead to better policymaking.

In China, where the Communist Party manages everything, this is not the case.

Behind the Wujie News letter is a bruising power struggle that will affect the investigation into how the missive got posted and even how the case is handled.

It also comes as Xi's enemies prepare for the Chinese Communist Party's next national congress, to be held in the autumn of 2017. Five of the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the ruling party's top decision-making body, led by Xi, are due to be replaced during the event.

There is a tug of war being waged for those five seats. One of the winners could end up succeeding Xi.

So pay attention to how the investigation into the letter plays out; it could reveal who is winning the tug of war.

Related stories
Missing Chinese columnist released from custody -- lawyer
Chinese columnist goes missing en route to H.K.: reports

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_29717736/armenia-azerbaijan-clash-over-separatist-region

Nation World

Armenia, Azerbaijan clash over separatist region

The Associated Press
Posted: 04/03/2016 12:01:00 AM MDT

BAKU, Azerbaijan — At least 30 soldiers and a boy were reported killed as heavy fighting erupted Saturday between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The fighting was the worst outbreak since a full-scale war over the region ended in 1994. Since then, mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh — officially part of Azerbaijan — has been under the control of local ethnic Armenian forces and the Armenian military.

Armenian forces also occupy several areas outside Nagorno-Karabakh proper. The sides are separated by a demilitarized buffer zone, but small clashes have broken out frequently.

Each side blamed the other for Saturday's escalation.

In a statement, Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said 12 of its soldiers "became shahids" — Muslim martyrs — and said one of its helicopters was shot down.

The statement also claimed that more than 100 Armenian forces were killed or wounded and that six tanks and 15 artillery positions were destroyed.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan told his national security council that 18 Armenian soldiers were killed and 35 wounded.

Armenia earlier claimed to have inflicted heavy damage on Azerbaijani forces, but did not immediately give figures. A statement from the Nagorno-Karabakh defense ministry claimed more than 200 Azerbaijani soldiers were killed, but there was no corroboration for that figure.

"This is the most wide-scale military action that Azerbaijan has tried to carry out since the establishment of the 1994 cease-fire regime," Sargsyan said.

David Babayan, a spokesman for Nagorno-Karabakh's separatist president, said a boy of about 12 was killed and two other children were wounded in a Grad missile barrage by Azerbaijani forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin urged all sides to cease firing and "show restraint," Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying. Russia's foreign and defense ministers contacted their Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts in hopes of stabilizing the situation, the ministries said.

"The situation along the entire length of the line of opposition between Karabakhi and Azerbaijani armed forces continues to be extremely difficult," Armenian defense ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannisyan told The Associated Press.

Years of negotiations under the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have brought little progress in resolving the territorial dispute.

The negotiation efforts are led by a troika of envoys from the United States, Russia and France. On Saturday, the envoys jointly issued a statement calling on the sides "to stop shooting and take all necessary means to stabilize the situation on the ground."

Armenian forces also occupy several areas outside Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Armenian Defense Ministry said Azerbaijan used aircraft, tanks and artillery to try to make inroads into Nagorno-Karabakh and that "Azerbaijani authorities bear all responsibility for the unprecedentedly supercharged situation."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35949991

Nagorno-Karabakh violence: Worst clashes in decades kill dozens

2 hours ago
From the section Europe

Dozens of people have been killed in clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the disputed Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia said 18 ethnic-Armenian troops died in the fighting early on Saturday, among the worst in two decades.

Azerbaijan said it had lost 12 troops and there were unconfirmed reports of civilian deaths on both sides.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been in the hands of ethnic-Armenian separatists since a war that ended in 1994.

There was more firing across the frontline overnight into Sunday, the two countries said, but no deaths were reported.

Frozen conflict threatens to reignite

Azeris dream of return

Nagorno-Karabakh profile

Russia, which has sold arms to both sides, called for an immediate ceasefire and for both sides to exercise restraint.

Azerbaijan said its armed forces had come under fire first from large-calibre artillery and grenade-launchers, and that it had taken over two strategic hills and a village.

The Armenian government said Azerbaijan had launched a "massive attack" with tanks, artillery and helicopters.

The Armenian-backed defence ministry in Karabakh said a 12-year-old boy had been killed and two other children injured.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has spoken with his Armenian and Azeri counterparts - Seyran Ohanyan and Zakir Hasanov - by phone, Interfax reported, in an effort to calm the situation.

Fighting between the two sides began in the late 1980s and escalated into full-scale war in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, killing about 30,000 people before a ceasefire in 1994.

The region, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, has since run its own affairs with Armenian military and financial backing, but clashes break out on a regular basis.

Analysis: Konul Khalilova, BBC Azeri

The fighting that erupted on Friday night is some of the worst since a 1994 ceasefire between the two sides. Azerbaijan says it has taken back two strategically important villages from the Armenian army, a claim denied by Armenia. As usual, both sides say the other pulled the trigger first.

There are reports of civilian casualties on both sides. Witnesses told the BBC's Azeri service that people were being evacuated from villages near to the conflict zone and that others were hiding in basements.

Both President Aliyev of Azerbaijan and Armenia's President Sargsyan are on their way back from the international nuclear summit in Washington.

Azerbaijan has purchased at least $4bn worth of arms from Russia. Armenia, an important strategic partner of Russia in the Caucasus, also buys weapons from Russia. There are concerns that the fighting could lead to a more wide-scale military conflict.

Leaders on both sides have been blamed for not making enough effort to achieve peace and instead using the conflict as a tool to stay in power. Nationalist sentiment boosted by pro-government media in both societies has been at its height in recent years.


The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has expressed "grave concern" over the reported large-scale ceasefire violations.

The co-chairmen of the body's Minsk Group - ambassadors Igor Popov of Russia, James Warlick of the US, and Pierre Andrieu of France - issued a joint statement saying: "We strongly condemn the use of force and regret the senseless loss of life, including civilians.

"The co-chairs call upon the sides to stop shooting and take all necessary measures to stabilise the situation on the ground. They reiterate that there is no alternative to a peaceful negotiated solution of the conflict and that war is not an option."


Frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh

The conflict has roots dating back over a century to competition between Christian Armenian and Muslim Turkic and Persian influences
Frictions exploded into violence when the region's parliament voted to join Armenia in the late 1980s
The ethnic Azeri population - about 25% of the total before the war - fled Karabakh and Armenia while ethnic Armenians fled the rest of Azerbaijan
Russian-brokered ceasefire signed in 1994, leaving Karabakh and swathes of Azeri territory around the enclave in Armenian hands
Progress on a peace process stalled after talks between Armenian and Azeri leaders in 2009. Serious ceasefire violations have followed
Karabakh is a word of Turkic and Persian origin meaning "black garden", while "Nagorno" is a Russian word meaning "mountain"

Nagorno-Karabakh profile


Are you in Nagorno-Karabakh? Share your experiences and photos with us if it is safe to do so. Email ƒ\haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your stories.

Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
WhatsApp: +44 7525 900971
Send pictures/video to ƒ\yourpics@bbc.co.uk
Upload your pictures / video here
Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSay
Send an SMS or MMS to 61124 or +44 7624 800 100

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....

 

[China Connection]

Even before Xi, top party member stated to get themselves or at least their money out of China as fast as they could. There has been no slow up since he came to power and many party member that stayed in the power struggle have lost everything. China in many ways has gone backwards from what I hear and read.

 

[Heliobas Disciple]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/01/isil-plotting-to-use-drones-for-nuclear-attack-on-west/
(fair use applies)

Isil plotting to use drones for nuclear attack on West
Ben Riley-Smith, Political Correspondent, Washington DC
1 April 2016 • 10:30pm

Isil terrorists are planning to use drones to spray nuclear material over Western cities in a horrific “dirty bomb” attack, David Cameron has warned.

World leaders are concerned that jihadists want to buy basic drones that are widely available online to transport radioactive material into the heart of major cities in a strike that could kill thousands.

The Prime Minister warned that the dangers of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) getting hold of nuclear material was “only too real”.

Mr Cameron on Friday met world leaders, including the presidents of America, France and China, to plan how they would react to such an attack.

Footage has reportedly emerged showing Isil using drones and the threat was deemed so serious that – in a highly unusual move – world leaders were asked to take part in war games to plan how they would respond.

One scenario, mapped out by US officials and presented at the special Nuclear Security Summit session in Washington DC, spelt out the danger in remarkable detail.

It imagined radioactive material had been taken from a medical facility by “insiders” and sold to extremists through the internet’s secretive “dark web”.

Mr Cameron outlined how ministers would urgently hold a Cobra meeting and deploy counter-terrorism police and the UK Border Force. A British official said: “We have already seen Daesh [another name for Isil] trying to look at whether they can they get their hands on low-level crop-using-type drones.”

Isil is believed to have seized around 90 pounds of low grade uranium from Mosul University in Iraq after taking over the city in 2014, though its limited toxicity means its use would likely cause panic than serious harm.

In Europe, fears have also been raised by apparent attempts to infiltrate nuclear facilities. Mr Cameron told journalists in Washington DC that concerns over a radioactive attack were real.

“So many summits are about dealing with things that have already gone wrong,” he said. “This is a summit about something we are trying to prevent.

"The issue of nuclear security and the security of nuclear materials, particularly when it comes to the problems of international terrorism, the concept of terrorists and nuclear materials coming together – which is obviously a very chilling prospect. And something in the light of the Belgian attacks, we know is a threat that is only too real.

“That’s the point of being here and that action Britain has taken with America, very much giving a lead on nuclear security, and the security of nuclear sites, transport and materials.”

During the nuclear summit it emerged that US commandos have been trained to seize and disable radioactive bombs.

Mr Cameron announced during his visit that Britain would hire 1,000 more armed police and deploy counter-terrorism units in cities outside London to help counter any future attack.

Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, also announced yesterday that over £40 million will be spent on a new Cyber Security Operations Centre.

The facility will be dedicated to using “state-of-the-art defensive cyber capabilities” to protect Britain from “malicious actors”, according to government officials.

Mr Fallon said: “Britain is a world leader in cyber security but with growing threats this new Operations Centre will ensure that our Armed Forces continue to operate securely.”

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35953358

Nagorno-Karabakh clash: Turkey backs Azeris 'to the end' against Armenia

13 minutes ago
From the section Europe

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he backs Azerbaijan "to the end" amid its clashes with Armenians over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

"We pray our Azerbaijani brothers will prevail in these clashes," the presidency quoted him as saying.

Fighting has continued into Sunday, after clashes left at least 30 soldiers dead and caused civilian casualties.

Nagorno-Karabakh has been in the hands of ethnic-Armenian separatists since a war that ended in 1994.

Frozen conflict threatens to reignite




Azeris dream of return

Nagorno-Karabakh profile

The BBC's Reyhan Demytrie in Tbilisi says there have long been fears that hostilities between the two nations, which are highly militarised and possess sophisticated weaponry, could spiral out of control.

Turkey has close ties to Baku but does not have relations with Yerevan because of the dispute over mass killings of Armenians during the Ottoman era, which Armenia says was a genocide. Turkey staunchly denies this.

The situation on the front line remains tense, with each side accusing the other of firing heavy weapons, rockets and artillery.

On Saturday Armenia said 18 ethnic-Armenian troops died, while Azerbaijan said it had lost 12 troops. The Karabakh defence ministry said a 12-year-old boy had been killed and two other children injured.

Each side blamed the other for breaking the ceasefire. Azerbaijan said its forces had taken over two strategic hills and a village but lost a helicopter. The Armenian government said Azerbaijan had launched a "massive attack" with tanks, artillery and helicopters.

Mr Erdogan also criticised the Minsk Group - a body under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), chaired by the US, Russia and France and tasked with resolving the conflict.

He said it had "underestimated" the situation.

"If the Minsk Group had taken fair and decisive steps over this, such incidents would not have happened. However, the weaknesses of the Minsk Group unfortunately led the situation to this point," he told an Azeri reporter during his trip to the US, the presidency said.

The OSCE has called for an end to the fighting. Russia, which has sold arms to both sides, has also called for an immediate ceasefire and for both sides to exercise restraint.

Fighting between the two sides began in the late 1980s and escalated into full-scale war in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, killing about 30,000 people before a ceasefire in 1994.

The region, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, has since run its own affairs with Armenian military and financial backing, but clashes break out on a regular basis.

BBC Azeri's Konul Khalilova says leaders on both sides have been blamed for stoking the conflict to stay in power rather than seeking peace.

Frozen conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh

The conflict has roots dating back over a century to competition between Christian Armenian and Muslim Turkic and Persian influences
Frictions exploded into violence when the region's parliament voted to join Armenia in the late 1980s
The ethnic Azeri population - about 25% of the total before the war - fled Karabakh and Armenia while ethnic Armenians fled the rest of Azerbaijan
Russian-brokered ceasefire signed in 1994, leaving Karabakh and swathes of Azeri territory around the enclave in Armenian hands
Progress on a peace process stalled after talks between Armenian and Azeri leaders in 2009. Serious ceasefire violations have followed
Karabakh is a word of Turkic and Persian origin meaning "black garden", while "Nagorno" is a Russian word meaning "mountain"

Nagorno-Karabakh profile

http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/A1A8/production/_89048314_nagorno_karabakh_map.gif

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/04/iraq-ramadi-liberation-reconstruction.html#

What it will cost to rebuild Iraq

Author Omar al-Jaffal
Posted April 1, 2016
Translator Pascale el-Khoury

BAGHDAD — “Ramadi has turned into ruins,” said Ouda, a soldier who has been fighting in the Iraqi army’s Seventh Division since mid-2015. Ouda took part in the liberation of Anbar province from the Islamic State (IS), which took hold of the city of Ramadi in May 2015.

Al-Monitor met Ouda (a pseudonym), who is a resident of Baghdad, in one of the cafes of the capital during his day off.

He recalled, “We fought with my comrades violent battles to expel radical IS militants in several axes of the city of Ramadi and the province of Hit. The battles wreaked havoc in Ramadi.”

Ouda described the situation in Ramadi to Al-Monitor on condition his real name not be used, because as a soldier he is not allowed to speak with the media.

“Ramadi’s houses and streets are all filled with mines. The entire city will crumble as a result of the vast quantity of mines left by IS,” he said.

Ouda, who is in his mid-30s, said that IS has booby-trapped everything. “Mines exploded all over the place as we moved inside the city. This is IS’ style. It destroys everything.”

The High Level United Nations mission to Ramada confirmed this situation, estimating that the city could be one of the worst mine-infested cities in the world. The mission's statement followed the visit to Ramadi on March 22 of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative and UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, Lise Grande.

After assessing the situation in the city, Grande said in a press statement, “It is a tragedy that people are dying and injured because of booby traps. The reality is that many if not most neighborhoods in Ramadi aren’t yet safe.”

A UN analysis of satellite imagery in February showed that around 5,700 buildings in Ramadi and its outskirts had sustained different levels of damage since mid-2014, with almost 2,000 buildings completely destroyed.

The staggering devastation of Ramadi and fear of mines pushed Khansa al-Dulaimi to leave Ramadi in April 2015 and seek refuge in Baghdad. Dulaimi rented a small apartment in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, while her husband fled via Turkey to Europe. She hopes her family will be reunited again if her husband is granted asylum in Germany.

She told Al-Monitor that she did not own a home in Ramadi, but lived in a rented house. “Things are difficult there. I am afraid to return to Ramadi because of the land mines and lack of security in the city. I will stay here in Baghdad for now,” she said.

Dulaimi lives off her savings; her husband had sold his car before he left and she sold all her gold jewelry. The family's savings allow her to provide for her three children who stay with her in Baghdad.

She said, “I will not go back. I would rather bear the hardship of living here in Baghdad instead of watching death every day in Ramadi.”

Member of parliament Liqa al-Wardi from Anbar told Al-Monitor that the city of Ramadi is like the Syrian town of Kobani because of the fighting, military operations and indiscriminate terrorist bombings.

“Thousands of houses, hospitals and bridges have been destroyed, as well as [public] buildings and schools,” she said. “The city was [already] neglected by the Iraqi governments after 2003, and now it is witnessing difficult circumstances.”

Wardi called on the Iraqi government to cooperate with the international community to reconstruct Ramadi and not to undervalue the previous and ongoing destruction and devastation. “The city requires large sums of money, but that doesn't mean it should be abandoned,” she said. According to her, the reconstruction of Ramadi is an essential and positive step for the return of its displaced residents.

Bassem Jamil Antoine, vice president of the Economists and Industrialists Iraqi Association, told Al-Monitor, “Iraq needs about $60 billion to ensure the reconstruction of areas recaptured from IS in Iraq, including Ramadi. Iraq will not be able to afford the reconstruction of these cities without international efforts and aid.”

Following his visit to Iraq on March 26, Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon promised international support for the country to reconstruct the liberated areas, acknowledging the significant challenges facing Iraq in the future.

In a press statement, Ban pointed to the challenges that remain to be addressed in these areas, including massive destruction and widespread contamination of improvised explosive devices.

Saad al-Hadithi, a spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, told Al-Monitor, “Ban’s visit is a confirmation of the international community's support for Iraq in overcoming its financial crisis. A donors' conference will be held in April 2016; it will probably be held in the Jordanian capital, Amman, to raise funds for the reconstruction of liberated areas, including Ramadi.”

Hadithi added, “The World Bank expressed its desire to reconstruct liberated areas by providing financial aid, determining the method of spending such aid and ensuring there is no suspicion of corruption. The World Bank and the Islamic Development Bank will encourage international organizations and donors to attend the donors conference to support Iraq in the reconstruction of liberated areas.”

The reconstruction of Ramadi and other devastated Iraqi cities and the return of their displaced residents is now being discussed by international parties. It remains to be seen, however, whether the international community is up to the challenge.

 

[Housecarl]

Wikileaks Reveals IMF Plan To "Cause A Credit Event In Greece And Destabilize Europe"
Started by imaginativeý, Yesterday 01:41 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...t-Event-In-Greece-And-Destabilize-Europe-quot


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/greece-w...ikileaks-report-official-113146703.html?nhp=1

Greece wants IMF explanations over WikiLeaks report

John Hadoulis
AFP
April 2, 2016

Athens (AFP) - Greece on Saturday demanded "explanations" from the International Monetary Fund after WikiLeaks said the lender sought a crisis "event" to push the indebted nation into concluding talks over its reforms.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said he would write to IMF chief Christine Lagarde and reach out to European leaders, after the website published what it said was a transcript of a teleconference in which IMF officials complained that Athens only moves decisively when faced with the peril of default.

An "event" was therefore needed to drive the threat of default and get the Greeks to act, the officials say in the document dated March 19, and released by the whistleblowing website Saturday. The nature of such an "event" is not specified.

The officials also express concern that Britain's referendum in June on EU membership will hold up the negotiations, predicting that the vote will halt the talks on Athens' latest massive international bailout "for a month".

The Greek government reacted strongly to the report, saying it wanted the IMF to clarify its position.

"The Greek government is demanding explanations from the IMF over whether seeking to create default conditions in Greece, shortly ahead of the referendum in Britain, is the fund's official position," spokeswoman Olga Gerovassili said in a statement.

Tsipras' office added: "The Prime Minister will immediately send an official letter to Christine Lagarde over the issue."

In an emailed statement, the IMF said it did not comment on leaks or "supposed reports of internal discussions".

"We have stated clearly what we think is needed for a durable solution to the economic challenges facing Greece -- one that puts Greece on a path of sustainable growth supported by a credible set of reforms matched by debt relief from its European partners," it added.

- 'We need an event' -

Those taking part in the leaked discussion were Iva Petrova and Delia Velculescu, who have been representing the IMF in the negotiations with Greece, and Poul Thomsen, director of the Fund's European Department.

In it, Thomsen allegedly voices exasperation with the slow pace of talks on the economic reforms Athens has agreed to carry out in exchange for a new 84-billion-euro ($95 billion) international bailout agreed in July, after months of bruising negotiations that saw Greece teeter on the brink of a eurozone exit.

The IMF has yet to officially sign onto Greece's latest bailout and is making its participation conditional on the fact that no ground is yielded on the reforms needed by Athens, especially on pensions.

"In the past there has been only one time when the decision has been made and then that was when (the Greeks) were about to run out of money seriously and to default," Thomson is quoted as saying in the transcript.

Later in the conversation, Velculescu reportedly replies: "I agree that we need an event, but I don't know what that will be."

She also says that Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselboem is trying to "jump start" a discussion on debt but "not to generate an event."

Mission chiefs from Greece's international lenders -- the EU, IMF, European Central Bank and European rescue fund -- are due to resume an audit of the reforms on Monday.

But the institutions are believed to be clashing over their assessment of the current state of the Greek economy, with the IMF worried that estimates drawn up by the EU and Greece do not add up.

In the WikiLeaks transcript, the IMF officials allegedly say Greece's leftist government is "not even getting close" to accepting their views.

"(The Greeks) don't have any incentive and they know that the (European) Commission is willing to compromise, so that is the problem," Velculescu is cited as saying.

Athens is under pressure to address the large number of non-performing loans burdening Greek banks and to push forward with a pension and tax overhaul resisted by farmers and white-collar staff.

Tsipras has accused the IMF of employing "stalling tactics" and "arbitrary" estimates to delay a reforms review crucial to unlock further bailout cash.

Comments 133

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.yahoo.com/news/japanese-warships-philippines-near-disputed-waterway-044847549.html

Japanese warships in Philippines near disputed waterway

AFP
April 2, 2016

Two Japanese destroyers and a submarine docked at a Philippine port on Sunday near disputed South China Sea waters, where Beijing's increasingly assertive behaviour has sparked global concern.

Manila is seeking to strengthen ties with Tokyo as tensions mount over the disputed waterway, almost all of which is claimed by China.

Japanese submarine Oyashio and destroyers JS Ariake and JS Setogiri docked in the Subic port Sunday for a routine visit at a sprawling former US naval base just 200 kilometres (125 miles) from a Chinese-held shoal.

"The visit is a manifestation of a sustained promotion of regional peace and stability and enhancement of maritime cooperation between neighbouring navies," Philippine Navy spokesman Commander Lued Lincuna said.

The Ariake was equipped with an anti-submarine helicopter, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.

The port call came on the eve of war games between the United States and Filipino soldiers in the Philippines, which is seen as a showcase of a long-standing military alliance that the Philippines is counting on to deter China.

Seriously outgunned by its much larger rival China, the Philippines has turned to allies like the United States and Japan to upgrade its armed forces in recent years.

In February, Japan agreed to supply the Philippines with military hardware, which may include anti-submarine reconnaissance aircraft and radar technology.

Tensions in the South China Sea -- through which one-third of the world's oil passes -- have mounted in recent months since China transformed contested reefs into artificial islands capable of supporting military facilities.

Aside from the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan also have overlapping claims.

Japan and China are locked in a separate dispute over an uninhabited island chain in the East Sea.

The Philippines has asked a United Nations-backed tribunal to declare China's sea claims as illegal and the government expects a decision this year.

View Comments (72)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/02/politics/f-15s-deployed-to-iceland-and-netherla

U.S. F-15s deployed to Iceland

By Zachary Cohen, CNN
Updated 7:50 PM ET, Sat April 2, 2016

CNN) — Demonstrating its commitment to a "free" and "secure" Europe, the United States deployed 12 F-15C Eagles and approximately 350 airmen to Iceland and the Netherlands on Friday, the Air Force announced.

U.S. aircraft units from the 131st Fighter Squadron at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts and the 194th Fighter Squadron at Fresno Air National Guard Base in California will support NATO air surveillance missions in Iceland and conduct flying training in the Netherlands.

The F-15s are not the only package of American fighters being sent to Europe in an effort to deter further Russian aggression in the region.

In February, the U.S. said it will send six F-15s to Finland as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve, which the United States initiated in 2014 to reassure NATO allies after Russian military intervention in Ukraine. These aircraft are scheduled to deploy next month.

Although it maintains a small coast guard force, Iceland is the only country in NATO that does not have a military.

Gallery

The U.S. used to have an air base in Iceland during the Cold War when Iceland sat at a key strategic location in the middle of the Atlantic.

But that base was closed in 2006.

While NATO has maintained air control over Iceland since 2008, their defenses have been unable to stop Russia from reportedly making air incursions into Icelandic airspace.

The F-15s are part of the U.S.'s Theater Security Packages, a rotational force used to augment existing Air Force capabilities in Europe, according to the Air Force.

"Russia's increased patrols with fighters, bombers and submarines in the North Atlantic have brought new attention to the region and the need for NATO to have a presence there as well," said Magnus Nordenman, director of the Transatlantic Security Initiative Atlantic Council.

Tensions between the West and Russia have increased in recent years, in large part because of Russia's annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and its support for separatists elsewhere in eastern Ukraine.

The aircraft are scheduled to remain in Europe through September.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the year NATO began maintaining air control over Iceland.

CNN's Ryan Browne contributed to this report.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-usa-idUSKCN0X008V

World | Sun Apr 3, 2016 5:15am EDT
Related: World, Israel

Israel says Mideast arms proliferation imperils its military edge

TEL AVIV | By Dan Williams

Israel’s neighbors are buying arms on a scale that threatens its regional military superiority, the deputy Israeli air force chief said on Sunday, in remarks that appeared aimed at helping secure more defense aid from a reluctant Washington.

U.S. military payouts to Israel, currently around $3 billion annually, expire in 2018, and Israeli officials have spoken of needing around $4.5 billion. U.S. officials have balked at such an increase.

At the heart of the dispute is how to perpetuate Israel’s qualitative military edge - a guarantee that it gets more advanced U.S. weapons than Arab states get. Israel says it needs to bulk up its armed forces, not just upgrade their technologies, to keep ahead of potential foes.

"There are countries here which have plans that are being actualized for arms deals in the hundreds of billions of dollars, for the most advanced Western weaponry and the most advanced Eastern weaponry," Brigadier-General Tal Kelman told a conference to promote Israel’s purchase of the advanced U.S. fighter jet the F-35.

Kelman did not specify countries other than Iran, which the Israelis fear will use sanctions relief from last year’s nuclear agreement to build up its ballistic missile program and arm Islamist guerillas like Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.

Some Israeli officials have privately voiced concern about U.S. weapons systems being supplied to Western-aligned Gulf Arabs, as well as Egyptian interest in advanced Russian arms, though in neither case are the countries openly hostile toward Israel.

"There is a very great danger here, because today’s enemy can be tomorrow’s friend, and today’s friend could be tomorrow’s enemy," Kelman told the forum, hosted by Israel Defense magazine and Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies.

"There is a potential here for the erosion of the IDF’s (Israel Defence Force) qualitative edge and the IAF’s (Israel air force) qualitative edge."

Russia's military intervention last year in Syria’s civil war has also worried Israel, given Moscow’s dispatch of S-300 and S-400 air defense systems capable of seeing deep into its territory.

A slide projected at the conference by Gary North, a retired U.S. air force general now with F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), showed Russian radars in Syria covering much of Israel as well as its Mediterranean training areas. The F-35 has stealth capabilities.


(Editing by Jeffrey Heller, Larry King)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/03/turkey-erdogan-important-messages-army.html

Turkey's Erdogan openly embraces his naked ambition

Author Metin Gurcan
Posted March 31, 2016
Translator Timur Göksel

The War Colleges Command in Istanbul is the highest training and education institution of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). After a stiff examination and selection process, about a hundred staff officer candidates are selected from among thousands of applicants. They assemble in Istanbul every March to mark the beginning of their academic year.

It is a tradition for the president to make the opening speech to these selected officers, who are likely to constitute the Turkish military's future command. The speeches usually focus on national, global and regional security environments, and foreign relations. But this year and last, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's speeches deviated from this template.

Last year, Erdogan’s speech was dominated by the anguish he felt about the mistreatment of hundreds of officers arrested on charges of involvement in the Sledgehammer and Ergenekon coup conspiracies. Prominent in his speech was his allegation that illegal branches of the Gulenist movement were behind these plots against the military. Erdogan was quoted as saying, “We, too, were deceived. I never approved the detention of soldiers, but there wasn’t anything we could do because of our respect for the word of the law.” In that speech, which was interpreted by the media as Erdogan’s apology to the military, he also expressed his faith in the "solution process" with the Kurds, asked for the TSK’s support for the process and called on the military to show “some patience with the PKK.”

“We cannot ignore the hopes of this nation because of some provocations, insolence and audacity. If there is a light at the end for a final solution, we have to pursue it," he said.

This year, however, his 45-minute speech on March 28 focused on the determined armed struggle against the PKK. Erdogan noted that since operations were launched in July against the PKK, Turkey had suffered 355 casualties, of which 215 were soldiers, 133 were police and seven were village guards. “In the same period, [Turkey] took out 5,359 terrorists — they were killed, wounded or captured. But this situation does not change the reality that the pain we feel for our martyrs will continue,” he said.

Standing out in this year’s speech was his reference to a "single army, single commander." Erdogan said the unity and chain of command of the TSK must be maintained at the highest levels.

“I am saying this at every opportunity: one nation, one flag, one country, one state. Today I want to add 'a single army, a single commander.' Article 117 of our constitution stipulates that the commander in chief cannot be distinguished from the overriding moral existence of the National Assembly and is represented by the president,” he added.

“Accordingly, as the commander in chief, all the officers here are my close colleagues. I have always said outright that each officer here is not any different from my own brother, my own son and close associates. There is no limit to my pride of having colleagues as brave, courageous, well-trained and loyal as you are. May God protect every one of you and give you strength in your work,” he said.

It is clear that Erdogan went beyond the usual rhetoric and was trying to set up a strong rapport with future commanders.

What raised eyebrows among the listeners was Erdogan’s deviation from the established practice of treating the "commander in chief" designation as symbolic, in practice allowing the prime minister and the general staff chief to handle security issues. For the first time, Erdogan used the term “executive commander in chief” — in other words, a functioning commander in chief.

Last year, Erdogan’s darts were aimed at the Gulenist movement. This year, the prime target was the West. He spoke of the hypocrisy of Western countries in combating terror. “No matter what we said, how much we warned, they didn’t listen. At the end, snakes started to bite them and the mines began to go off under their feet. Now you can see how those who chatter about democracy freedoms, rights and laws forget all about them when they get into trouble,” he said.

What would a content analysis of this speech by Erdogan tell us? First of all, in contrast to traditional speeches, this one was more emotional and congenial. Instead of telling the audience about global security and the TSK’s structural transformation, Erdogan wanted to relate the tough conditions he has to work under. By expressing his regret about the legal unfairness TSK personnel were subjected to, he appealed to the hearts of these young officers.

It is also possible to interpret his first-ever reference to an "executive [functional] commander in chief" was a message to future commanders that the president is not going to remain as a mere symbol but will be the "real boss." We have to remember that current Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar was in the audience.

Erdogan’s harsh criticism of Western countries and their "hypocrisy" in combating terror — while he did not even refer to Russia — did not go unnoticed.

This "executive [functional] commander in chief" concept is likely to become a key issue in the next presidential campaign.


Metin Gurcan
Columnist

Metin Gurcan is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Turkey Pulse. He served in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Iraq as a Turkish military adviser between 2002-2008. Resigned from the military, he is now an Istanbul-based independent security analyst. Gurcan is currently writing his PhD dissertation on changes in the Turkish military over the last decade. He has been published extensively in Turkish and foreign academic journals and has a book forthcoming in August 2016 titled “What Went Wrong in Afghanistan: Understanding Counterinsurgency in Tribalized, Rural, Muslim Environments.” On Twitter: @Metin4020




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[Housecarl]

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8c33eefc-f6c1-11e5-803c-d27c7117d132.html#axzz44lBUU0GD

April 1, 2016 11:36 am

Jostling for Djibouti

Katrina Manson

The world’s superpowers are competing for global influence in this tiny, impoverished country in the Horn of Africa

At the close of another hot day on the coast of Djibouti, a tiny country on the Horn of Africa, workers are clambering over huge concrete cubes beneath a red crane. One by one, the 2,500-tonne blocks are being submerged in the water: part of a plan to stun the shoreline into submission and create a vast new port at the heart of global trade.

“We’re going to fill in the sea,” Abdo Mohammed, the logistics manager for the $590m project, tells me with quiet glee.

Thirty per cent of all shipping in the world passes this point on the north-east edge of Africa, where the water narrows to a few kilometres opposite Yemen. A former French colony that became independent only in 1977, Djibouti sits at the southern entrance to the Red Sea, en route to the Suez Canal — a waypoint between Africa, India and the Middle East. Over the past 15 years, the country has set about capitalising on its location at the nexus of international trade: once completed, the Doraleh Multi-Purpose Port will be the largest of eight ports that together will handle containers, livestock, oil, phosphates and more.

But the geostrategic ambition of the small, authoritarian state — which at 23,200 sq km (8,950 sq miles) is only slightly larger than Wales — does not stop there. The US, several European countries and Japan have all pinned global military ambitions on Djibouti. Now China is set to do the same.

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Construction began on the new port in 2013. “But then [last year] we had to change things around,” says Mohammed. He gestures with his phone in the direction of the arid land behind us. “We had to make a new section over there, beside the mountain, inside the port. That’s where the Chinese military base will be.”

The sun, by now a giant orange disc, slips behind the sea. Mohammed’s nonchalant disclosure marks the culmination of the search that brought me here. China is planning its first overseas military base at Doraleh, within a few kilometres of America’s largest military outpost in Africa. As superpowers jostle for strategic influence, this impoverished state, home to fewer than a million people, is helping to shape a new world order.

Djibouti first came to the attention of France when the French navy commandeered its coastline in 1862 as a stop to refuel and restock coal steamers en route to French Indochina. French Somaliland, as the colony became known soon after, opened up the landlocked African hinterland to international trade; in the 1910s, a new railway from Addis Ababa to Djibouti linked Ethiopia to the sea. Djibouti is a barren land of mountains and desert, and its location has always been its most precious resource. Even now, it is more port city than country: by far the majority of the population lives in the seaside capital of the same name.

A military and trading entrepôt that welcomes all comers, Djibouti today oozes espionage chic. It is home to pirate-hunters, soldiers, spies and Arab traders. Conservative Somali culture mixes with the legacy of flamboyant French Legionnaires.

“Djibouti is really experiencing a boom,” says Ahmed Osman Guelleh, the 56-year-old chief executive of GSK Group, a family logistics company that has forged its fortune through shipping. Yet the baking heat makes it remarkable that anything much gets done at all. One US soldier who served here describes it as “a hot hell box in the armpit of Africa”. Temperatures reach into the mid-40s for nearly half the year. Government offices shut down at 12.30, and an entire nation of men, and many women, take up the national pastime: chewing for hours on khat, a bitter leaf so renowned for its amphetamine-like properties that it is banned in Britain and the US.

The drug gives its wired adherents a daily *buzz — and mollifying fuzz — they cannot be without. I watched market traders, government officials and on-duty police officers chew khat. Even the 49-year-old finance minister Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh admitted to me that his family has shares in the largest khat importer.

“If Djiboutians stopped chewing khat for seven days, they would overthrow the government,” says one port worker. He is only half joking. Eccentric and appealing as it is, Djibouti is authoritarian and brittle too. President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, a former head of the secret police who has run the country since 1999, will seek re-election for his fourth term on April 8, having altered the constitution in 2010 to allow him to extend his rule. The opposition complains regularly of illegal security crackdowns and the impossibility of free and fair elections.

Flanked by Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, Djibouti is viewed as a haven in the unstable Horn of Africa and hosts armed forces from around the world. “There’s no country with so many military bases. You can throw stones from one end to the other of Djibouti and find military bases all the way, right next to each other,” says one senior official. France pledged to protect its former colony as part of a post-independence deal; after 9/11 it was joined by the US, which chose Djibouti as its base for rooting out emerging Islamist terror networks in the region. Initially, US troops were stationed on a navy ship but in 2003 they set up in Camp Lemonnier, a rundown French Legionnaires’ base beside the airport. The site has since expanded from 88 acres to 500. In 2014 a 10-year lease nearly doubled the annual rent the US pays Djibouti to $63m, with an option to extend for another 10 years.

In the past decade piracy has increased the tiny state’s strategic importance; as Somali pirates took hundreds of crews and vessels captive, costing global trade an estimated $7bn at a 2011 peak, several nations contributed to anti-piracy missions in Djibouti, including Germany, Italy and Japan.

Russia may also be interested in establishing a base. Djibouti’s foreign minister Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, an articulate 50-year-old with a reputation as the most competent minister in the government, tells me that while Djibouti turned down a request from Iran to host its military here — “because we think that Iran’s policy in the region is not a peaceful one” — it has not declined a similar recent request from Moscow. “Russia is a key player, it is a permanent member of the Security Council,” he tells me in his office. “For Russia we have no problem.”

The country is already so full of military personnel that its small, sandy capital city at times resembles a sprawling garrison. US fighter jets share the same airport runway as commercial airlines at the civil airport. French soldiers in impossibly skimpy, neon-hued shorts jog past brightly veiled women and mosques. The five-star Palace Kempinski hotel, a bubble of exclusivity in the otherwise poor city, serves $5 Cokes and popcorn tossed in truffle butter to crewcuts in uniform. Battle tattoos flash on the biceps and backs of Speedo-wearing soldiers in the infinity pool. Special-forces operatives sip Moscow Mules on the pontoon. International spies and drones operate daily. One western spy told me they enjoyed Djibouti because it is “quirky”.

Despite the multi-force troop presence, when rumours started circulating early last year that China was not only going to build its first overseas military base but that it was going to build it in Djibouti, rival powers were taken by surprise. Western countries and their allies view the prospect of China’s military arrival at a global chokepoint for trade and security with alarm. An anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden in 2008 was the first time China had sent naval ships on a mission outside its territorial waters in more than 600 years.

Since then, Beijing has gradually shifted its foreign policy to embrace a more assertive military posture, moving to a strategy it calls “active defence”. Its pursuit of a Djibouti base has been cloaked in secrecy, with public statements short on detail. Some diplomats speak darkly of China’s “100-year horizons”. One senior western diplomat, with a more immediate timeframe in mind, says, “The worst-case scenario is that they [China] develop this web of bases to give them a kind of control over strategic waterways all the way into the Med.”

 . . . 

In financial terms, China is already what one official in the region describes as the “major show” in town. Following the model it has employed throughout Africa — offering billions of dollars in financing in exchange for access to resources — China is helping to bankroll a targeted $12.4bn of spending on huge infrastructure projects including the Doraleh port and a new railway to Ethiopia. Amid the boom in construction, Djibouti’s growth rate is likely to surpass 7 per cent this year. But the investments are having “limited trickle-down effects”, according to the International Monetary Fund. Nearly two-thirds of the population lives in poverty, and half the labour force is unemployed. In the absence of many skilled domestic workers, Chinese labourers have been flown in.

Loans from China for a water pipeline and the new railway from Ethiopia — agreed before talk of a military base — come to $814m, half of the country’s annual GDP. In 2013 the IMF suspended discussions with Djibouti because of its concerns over debt vulnerability; last year it warned of “elevated solvency risks”. Finance minister Dawaleh tells me he recently travelled to Beijing, seeking to negotiate easier repayment plans. Djibouti’s public and publicly guaranteed debt burden is likely to reach 81 per cent of GDP next year, mostly as a result of Chinese financing.

“We don’t want the Americans to leave but the Chinese invest billions of dollars in our infrastructure; that’s what the Americans are not doing,” foreign minister Youssouf explains. “So we are trying to keep the balance to see where our interest lies, as a small country with very limited resources.”

In early 2014, Djibouti and China signed an agreement to allow the Chinese navy — which *contributes to international anti-piracy operations — to use its port. Beijing made no official comment when President Guelleh said, last May, that Djibouti was in talks with China to establish a military base. In November, China confirmed only a naval *“support facility” destined for Djibouti, with a spokesperson saying, “It will help China’s military further carry out its international responsibilities to safeguard global and regional peace and stability.” Even in February this year, announcing the start of work on the project, China referred only to “logistical facilities” for naval rest and resupply. The Chinese embassy in Djibouti turned down my requests for an interview with the ambassador.

But when I speak to Youssouf, he is candid and happy to provide details of the deal he and President Guelleh have struck with China. “The terms of the contract and agreement are very clear and they are the same for each and every country that requested military presence in Djibouti,” he tells me in his office in the capital.

China will, he says, pay $20m a year for a 10-year lease for the military base, with an option to extend for a further 10 years. There will probably be “a few thousand” troops and military staff at the site, along with its own naval berth at the new port. It would use the base to protect its national interest — monitoring its merchant vessels passing the Bab el-Mandeb Strait that leads to the Suez Canal, and for its navy to refuel and restock — much as the French did more than 150 years ago. Youssouf also says that China, which is slated to build a second major airport in the country, would have as much right to use drones as the US and French. China’s foreign ministry declined to respond to faxed questions from the FT about the terms of the new base.

“The Americans have enough technology, enough fighter aircraft, enough drones [here] to control each and every piece of this land and even beyond,” says Youssouf. “Why should the Chinese not have the right to also use those materials . . . to preserve and protect their interest in the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb. Why?”

Official comments from those potentially affected are clipped: “We follow the situation about the Chinese base very closely,” says Tatsuo Arai, Japan’s ambassador to Djibouti. Youssouf admits that both Japan and the US have “expressed their worries” to both him and President Guelleh about the arrival of a Chinese military presence so close to their own, and its potential capabilities.

“Those preoccupations and worries expressed by the Americans and others are groundless, for us at least,” Youssouf tells me, deriding the west’s “hypocritical vision of our common interest”.

“We can host Chinese bases as we can host American bases . . . They might have conflicting interests elsewhere but here they cannot have conflicting interests, because the strait of Bab el-Mandeb is vital for each and everyone in the world,” he says. “There is no conflict of interest when it comes to global peace. China has no interest in doing anything [bad]. Everybody knows that nobody can take any action that could jeopardise the maritime traffic . . . This is a vital lifeline for the whole of international trade.

“We tried to reassure [the Americans and Japanese ], saying don’t worry, the same agreement we signed with them is the one we signed with you. So there is no reason to worry.”

 . . . 

That sense of equivalence may be precisely what is worrying the US. America, after all, is undertaking in Djibouti what Ambassador Tom Kelly tells me is “the biggest active military construction project in the entire world . . . It’s number one of everything we’re doing.” In his office at the US embassy, a monolith in sand-blown Haramous (what counts as the city’s upmarket district), the 54-year-old Kelly is unambiguous about the country’s vital role, describing Djibouti as “at the forefront of our national security policy right now”.

“The greatest threat to the US is terrorism, and we’re right on the front lines here,” he says. “It is an extremely important counterterrorism platform for the United States; within striking distance of two active affiliates — AQIP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] and al-Shabaab in Somalia.”

The US runs special ops across the continent as well as drones from Djibouti, protects 16 embassies in the region and fights al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia, Yemen and further afield. The country is also a key point for monitoring and securing trade routes. At Obock, a sleepy fishing port at the mouth of the Bab el-Mandeb Straits, the US has installed a surveillance centre.

From here, Djibouti can monitor southern access to the Suez, track seafaring traffic, patrol coastal waters and protect maritime borders. The US built a naval pier here in 2009 and conducts counterterrorism training and houses radar equipment in the nearby Ras Bir lighthouse.

The US presence is growing; $1bn is being spent on expanding its base, bulking up its presence for the long term. While the drone site has been moved to Chabelley, 10km south-west of the capital, the main US base in the city still has what operatives call a “secret side”, with a covert compound dedicated to special operations, targeting not only AQIP and al-Shabaab but also the main branch of al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army and Isis. As US troops withdraw from Afghanistan, Djibouti is now the active centre for what US soldiers at the camp refer to as “g-wot”: the global war on terror.

“Guys who come back can’t believe how much bigger it’s got,” one of the 4,500 troops and contractors living inside the base tells me. Unlike the French, they are allowed to leave the base only rarely during their downtime. Camp conditions approximate to, in the words of one resident, “adultday caree”. US forces eat at Combat Café, watch films at the Oasis Movie Theatre, play ping pong, poker and Xbox 360 in the gaming room, go to the gym and crack gags instructing each other to “have a Djiboutiful day”.

Japanese troops, whose anti-piracy mission numbers several hundred, sometimes visit for a game of soccer or touch rugby to alleviate what one Japanese soldier described to me as a dismal time coping with heat and boredom. Japan’s base also finds ways to remind cooped-up soldiers of home: I was treated to a tour that included a room filled with manga comics, traditional Japanese communal hot baths and the rare prospect of sushi.

The confines of the camp are in contrast to the freer life downtown. My own interest was piqued when a Somali friend described Djibouti as “Mogadishu meets Las Vegas”. The country, which a diplomat calls “one of the sentinels of moderate Muslim societies”, goes more or less by the secular French penal code, a leftover from colonial days. Compared with neighbouring Somalia’s practice of sharia, it is relatively liberal. Women rarely wear the full niqab, some shirk a headscarf completely. They meet for late-night sheeshas, guava juice and gossip beside the quay in the hot night air. Many have boyfriends, even if they shield it from their families.

“You can have your private life in Djibouti. That’s why we’re not like Somalia,” an impassioned 30-year-old woman tells me, saying it was down not to French influence but to “the Djiboutian mentality”. “We are much more open, more free. We don’t talk about sex ever but it goes on out of marriage. As long as you don’t bring shame on your family, your private life is free.”

Djibouti’s nightclubs stay open until 4am, with police carefully shepherding revellers to avoid clashing with the call of the muezzin as worshippers attend morning prayers. I watch a group of five Frenchmen — all swagger, sleeves rolled up, hands in pockets — rolling out of l’Historil, a bar-restaurant, heading for the bright lights of the disco zone. Another group of French soldiers passes through the metal detectors to enter Shams, a nightclub rammed with revellers lit by disco balls. The outlines of the Statue of Liberty and a bare-breasted woman hang on the walls; 13 waitresses stand elbow to elbow serving drinks at the red-lit bar.

While parts of the city and many Muslims are dry, drinking is common. “Everyone here drinks and if they don’t, they drink in private,” one Djiboutian jokes to me over his whisky. Alcohol is sold in bars and the state licenses a clutch of tightly controlled booze importers.

Larry Modi is among them. The Christian son of an enterprising Indian runaway and an Ethiopian woman, the 67-year-old has run a supermarket in Djibouti City for many years. Warm and avuncular, with soft features, big round eyes and greying hair, he greets me at 11.30am with an offer of “champagne?”, pouring glasses for us both. His shop features floor-to-ceiling shelves of beer, gin, vodka and more. He is beloved by generations of soldiers and his office has the military memorabilia — gifts from soldiers serving out their time in this peculiar way station — to prove it; the French made him an honorary Legionnaire.

 . . . 

The cultural quirks of a country that appears to welcome all belie Djibouti’s repressive political climate. A London judge last month, *ruling on a corruption case brought by Djibouti, painted a picture of President Guelleh’s regime as “capricious”, “cavalier” and on occasions “reprehensible”. Diplomats whose troops rely on the president’s welcome describe him as the crafty, powerful and impressive leader of a centralised autocracy, one stop short of dictatorship.

Human-rights activists decry a series of abuses. The government routinely suppresses the opposition, “harassing, abusing and detaining government critics”, says the latest report from the US state department, published last year, which also censures Djibouti for conducting torture, arbitrary arrest and detention of demonstrators, opposition members and journalists.

In 2011, the state put down a series of protests that hinted at the beginnings of Arab Spring-like uprisings. In December last year, police clashed with the opposition, killing at least seven and wounding dozens. Today the opposition protests against vote-rigging and harassment.

“There’s a lack of freedom, people are desperate, poor — it creates a lot of discontent. People are patient but there’s a limit,” Daher Ahmed Farah, spokesman for the opposition coalition group Union for the National Salvation, tells me.

Opposition figures such as Farah, a 54-year-old who goes by his initials “Daf”, have been *followed, arrested and tortured. They meet and speak with the furtive glances and low voices borne of well-informed paranoia. Daf himself has been arrested more than 25 times since 2013, he says.

When I meet him one afternoon, we go to an empty café until a lone man comes and sits right next to us and, Daf feels, listens in. We lower our voices, move tables, and finally we leave.

That evening, I receive a call from reception to my hotel room. “There are some visitors here to see you.” I was not expecting any. I go downstairs to see a man wrapped in a skirt, wired on khat, and his adjunct dressed in a camel flannel uniform. “Come with us,” says the man in the skirt.

“Hello. Greetings. How can I help?” I ask, attempting a smile. “Police. Come with us.” I say I do not think it wise for us to have this conversation — or perhaps it is an arrest — at night, in the dark, in an unknown location, and could we pursue this tomorrow. They insist.

I manage to alert my back-up contacts before the police take me to what turns out to be the city’s central commissariat. Along with two other men, a colonel questions me at length, asking why I met with the opposition, what Daf said and who introduced us. I demur.

He directs the same questions to me again and again, especially the last, in a bad comedy of repetition, peppering his inquisition with the admission that it is perfectly legal for me, an accredited journalist with the right visa, to meet the perfectly legal opposition. The whole thing lasts four hours.

Back in my hotel room, I do not sleep for what is left of the night. I relate the tale the next day to a diplomat. “It’s intimidation,” he tells me.

In May 2014, Djibouti’s assumption that it was a well-protected island of peace in a troubled region was shaken when al-Shabaab launched a double suicide attack on a downtown restaurant popular with locals and westerners. One person was killed and dozens wounded.

Being targeted not only for sending troops to fight al-Shabaab in Somalia but also for hosting foreign bases — the attack took place in the same month that Djibouti signed its extension agreement with the US — was a shock to a country that had until then considered itself off-limits.

“Djibouti is calm, peaceful — a Djiboutian can never do that, they like peace too much — but, if someone is prepared to die, you can’t stop them,” says a member of the government’s antiterrorism group, which comprises 160 security officers and 600 civilians linked into a reporting network. “It was a wake-up call,” says the agent. “We have totally reorganised policing and protection along the border. Now we pick up communications — we see the value in *talking to people and we’re much more alert.”

Djibouti’s belief that it stands to benefit from being the linchpin for an international coalition against terrorism clearly brings its own risks. But foreign minister Youssouf insists that the country has not wavered “from our belief that globalisation means everything”. Djibouti’s security role also helps establish a modicum of leverage distinct from populous, landlocked Ethiopia, on which it has always been seen as dependent. “Everyone said Djibouti would be swallowed by Somalia or Ethiopia but in the end we are the umbilical cord for Ethiopia, and now they and the Chinese see us as that,” says Youssouf, concerned to dispel the notion that Djibouti exists solely to service the Ethiopian economy.

The US has tried to enlist China as friend not foe in the military field in Africa, suggesting integrated operations in areas such as landmine clearance and peacekeeping training. China turned down a request for a joint demining programme but it participates in international anti-piracy missions and some naval exercises. The US hopes to encourage greater co-operation. Djibouti could, if it goes well, become a catalyst for what one observer calls “a joint globalised security architecture”. But the flipside augurs ill: well-armed superpowers jostling in a city of closely guarded secrets, raising the stakes on the militarisation of trade routes and security chokepoints. Managing the existence of both a US and a Chinese military base in the same country “will be a challenge for all involved”, says ambassador Kelly.

For Djibouti, the answer is clear. “For many *years Japanese, Italians, Germans, French and Americans are just coexisting in this very small land,” says Youssouf. “So why should it be different in the future?”

Katrina Manson is writing a book about money and influence in Africa. She is the FT’s former east Africa correspondent and has spent 12 years reporting from the continent. Additional reporting by Charles Clover in Beijing

Photographs: Nichole Sobecki

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/04/03/bashar_assads_pivot_to_palmyra.html

April 3, 2016

Bashar Assad's Pivot to Palmyra

By Paul Salem
Comments 4

Paul Salem is the Vice President for Policy and Research at the Middle East Institute. This piece has been published in collaboration with the Institute. The views expressed here are the author's own.

There are currently three tracks in the Syrian civil war: the cessation of hostilities between the government and the opposition; the negotiations in Geneva; and the war against the Islamic State group. The cease-fire is barely holding, and the war on ISIS is moving forward, but the talks in Geneva are fully stalled. The Assad regime's move late last month to recapture the ancient city of Palmyra from ISIS is related to all three tracks.

The pause in fighting declared in late February proved surprisingly durable, until a few days ago. The opposition was already dispirited and exhausted in the face of a sustained Russian-backed offensive, and thus welcomed -- and have largely stuck to -- the cessation. On the regime side, the Russian insistence on the cease-fire, followed by the partial Russian withdrawal, indicated to President Bashar Assad that Russia had reinforced the regime's battlefield positions, but would go little further in engaging in an open-ended war against the opposition. At the same time, the Russians have indicated their willingness to be more engaged in the fight against ISIS.

The cease-fire and the evolving Russian position affected Assad's strategy. His intention had been to maintain Russian help until a full battlefield defeat of the opposition, while leaving the fight against ISIS for a later stage. With the first lane closed, he was forced to reevaluate.

President Vladimir Putin announced the partial withdrawal of Russian forces from Syria on the same day that world leaders were meeting in Geneva for scheduled peace talks, with the Kremlin calling for "an intensification of the process for a political settlement" to the conflict. But the Assad government has effectively refused to negotiate. Assad himself has said that the war will continue until the regime subdues all of Syria, and his officials have insisted that any talk of a political transition is off the table. The government delegation doesn't even recognize the opposition as a negotiating partner, referring to them regularly as "terrorists."

With Assad being the clear spoiler at Geneva, to the ire of both Russia and the West, the campaign to retake Palmyra deftly shifted attention from Assad's unwillingness to negotiate, to Assad's role in defeating ISIS.

Indeed, there are already politicians and commentators in Europe and the United States who have forgotten how Syria and ISIS got to where they are today, and are now rushing to embrace Assad. They are mistaking the cause for the cure. While the Assad regime can play an important role in the war on the Islamic State, and the main institutions of the Syrian state must endure through any political agreement, only a serious resolution of the Syrian political conflict -- including a political transition and the eventual expiration of Assad's presidential term -- will stabilize the country and ultimately defeat not only ISIS, but the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front as well.

Furthermore, while Assad's forces took Palmyra, other groups were moving against ISIS strongholds elsewhere. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which include Kurdish YPG forces and allied Sunni and Christian militias, moved closer to the ISIS capital of Raqqa. Other rebel units backed by the United States and Gulf states have pushed toward ISIS strongholds in Deir Ezzor and Dabiq. With the cease-fire freeing up fighting capacities on both sides, the war against ISIS in Syria appears to have finally begun in earnest. All sides will be scrambling to gain territory as this fight proceeds.

Although the regime has finally decided to engage the Islamic State group after allowing it to flourish for three years, it faces constraints. Palmyra was relatively close to the capital and fairly easy to capture. Campaigns to reclaim Raqqa or Deir Ezzor will be far more challenging. The regime's own fighters are stretched thin and exhausted from five years of combat; they are still willing to fight and risk death in defense of strongholds in Damascus, Aleppo, and the Alawite coastline, but embarking on ambitious campaigns in the north and east of the country will be a very difficult sell.

Among the regime's allies, Russia now regards the war on ISIS as the priority and has proven willing to provide extensive air support. But the Syrian government's Iranian and Hezbollah allies will be less enthusiastic about providing manpower. They have indicated a firm commitment to defending the core territories of the regime, but have expressed little enthusiasm for ambitious campaigns further afield. The defeat of ISIS in Syria will have to be a multiplayer affair with a role for the regime, but also important roles for the Kurdish and Arab rebel militias. Indeed, Interfax has reported that Russia and the United States are discussing concrete military coordination to liberate the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa.

Assad's recapture of Palmyra is, nevertheless, an important blow against ISIS. It has also enhanced Assad's position by shifting attention from his past brutality and his refusal to negotiate, to his belated role as a player in the war against ISIS. His role will be important, but one shared with rebel groups. And while the war against the Islamic State may draw attention away from a much need political resolution, if and when the campaign against ISIS is completed, the question of political change in Syria will then return front and center. Both the regime and the opposition will gain credit and territory in the fight against ISIS, but they will eventually have to sit down again to find agreement at the end of it. Assad can be part of the start of the negotiations, but it is difficult to envision a deal that will allow him to retain his seat indefinitely.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-security-attack-idUSKCN0X00QL

World | Sun Apr 3, 2016 12:13pm EDT
Related: World

One reported dead in blast claimed by Islamic State at police station south of Riyadh

An improvised explosive device planted next to a police station south of the Saudi capital Riyadh killed one person, the Saudi Interior Ministry said in a statement carried on state news agency SPA on Sunday.

The ministry said at least three police cars were damaged in the explosion at a parking lot on Saturday night that killed an expatriate man, but gave no further details on who was behind the attack.

An Islamic State affiliate, calling itself the Nejd Province branch of the organization, claimed responsibility for the blast, which took place in al-Dilam, a small city located about 100 km (62 miles) south of Riyadh.

The group said in a statement earlier on Sunday it had set off two explosive devices in front of the police station and caused damage to vehicles, but did not specify casualties.

Saudi Arabia has been hit by a spate of deadly shootings and bomb attacks since last year, many of them laid at the door of Islamic State.

The group is bitterly opposed to Gulf Arab rulers and is seen as trying to stir up sectarian confrontation on the Arabian peninsula to bring about the overthrow of the ruling dynasties.


(Reporting by Ali Abdelatti,; Writing by Katie Paul,; Editing by Sami Aboudi and Andrew Bolton)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-russia-syria-turkey-idUSKCN0X10XT

World | Mon Apr 4, 2016 6:48am EDT
Related: World

Turkey must stop meddling in other states' affairs, end support of terrorism, Russia says

Russia said on Monday that Turkey should stop its interference into the internal affairs of neighboring nations and support of terrorism.

"In general, it is important for our Turkish neighbors right now to aim at ending their meddling in the internal affairs of other states, be it Iraq or Syria," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

"There are enough facts and evidence that Turkey continues this interference and supports terrorism."

Lavrov's also said that Ankara's statement expressing its strong support for Azerbaijan in renewed fighting over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region was "one-sided".


(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nagorno-karabakh-fighting-idUSKCN0X10LX

World | Mon Apr 4, 2016 7:15am EDT
Related: World

Azerbaijan says three of its servicemen killed in Nagorno-Karabakh clashes


Three Azeri servicemen were killed in fresh fighting with Armenian-backed separatists over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region on Monday, Azerbaijan's Defence Ministry said.

Dozens were killed on both sides at the weekend in the biggest flare-up of violence over the region in years, creating a risk that the conflict, frozen for two decades, could again erupt into full-out war.

Accounts from both sides indicated the fighting was not at the same level of ferocity as at its peak on Saturday, but there was still large-caliber fire being exchanged.

The separatist military said it had destroyed an Azeri army unit, while Azerbaijan said it had struck a separatist command point, causing several casualties. Reuters could not independently verify those assertions.

Azerbaijan's defense ministry said that it had halted its attacks but that separatist forces were still "aggravating the situation", attacking Azeri positions and shelling nearby settlements, forcing Azeri forces to defend themselves.


Related Coverage
› France says Nagorno-Karabakh mediators to meet on Tuesday in Vienna

The separatists, who are ethnically Armenian, and their backers in the Armenia government, said Azerbaijan was the aggressor.

An Azeri army unit was "encircled and fully destroyed on the southern flank of the front", Armenian Defence Ministry spokesman Artsrun Hovhannesyan wrote on his Facebook page.

Nagorno-Karabakh, which lies inside Azerbaijan but is controlled by ethnic Armenians, has run its own affairs with heavy military and financial backing from Armenia since a separatist war ended in 1994.

The heavily-militarized contact line that separated Azeri and separatist forces had for years remained largely static, though there were intermittent exchanges of gunfire and occasional casualties.

However, at the weekend there was a dramatic escalation, with tanks, missile systems, artillery, and helicopters being used. Azerbaijan said it had seized two separatist-held villages from which it said it had been taking fire, though the separatists disputed that account.


(Reporting by Nailai Bagirova and Hasmik Mkrtchyan; Writing by Maria Kiselyova and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Christian Lowe)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-greece-returns-idUSKCN0X107Q

World | Mon Apr 4, 2016 7:15am EDT
Related: World, Afghanistan, United Nations, Turkey

Migrants sent back from Greece arrive in Turkey under EU deal

DIKILI, Turkey/LESBOS, Greece | By Dasha Afanasieva and Karolina Tagaris


Migrants sent back from the Greek island of Lesbos began arriving in Turkey on Monday under a disputed European Union scheme aimed at closing the main route by which a million people poured across the Aegean Sea to Greece in the last year.

Under a deal denounced by refugee agencies and human rights campaigners, Ankara will take back all migrants and refugees who enter Greece illegally, including Syrians, in return for the EU taking in thousands of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey and rewarding it with more money, early visa-free travel and progress in its EU membership negotiations.

Two Turkish-flagged passenger boats carrying 131 migrants arrived in the Turkish town of Dikili early on Monday, accompanied by two Turkish coast guard vessels with a police helicopter buzzing overhead, a Reuters witness said.

A coastguard official on the Greek island of Chios told Reuters that 66 people, most of them Afghans, were also sent to Turkey on a third boat early on Monday.

The aim of the EU-Turkey deal is to discourage migrants from perilous crossings, often in small boats and dinghies, and to break the business model of human smugglers who have fueled Europe's biggest migration wave since World War Two.

A few hours after the first boat of returnees set sail from Lesbos, Greek coast guard patrol vessels rescued at least two dinghies carrying more than 50 migrants and refugees, including children and a woman in a wheelchair, trying to reach the island.

"We are just going to try our chance. It is for our destiny. We are dead anyway," said Firaz, 31, a Syrian Kurd from the province of Hasakah who was traveling with his cousin.

Asked if he was aware that the Greeks were sending people back, he said: "I heard maybe Iranians, Afghans. I didn't hear they were sending back Syrians to Turkey... At least I did what I could. I'm alive. That's it."

A group of 47 mainly Pakistani men were also intercepted by the Turkish coast guard on Monday and taken to a holding center next to Dikili's port, a Reuters witness said.


Related Coverage
› EU: Turkey met legal requirements for taking back migrants from Greece
› First Syrian refugees land in Germany under new EU-Turkey deal

Under the pact, the EU will resettle thousands of legal Syrian refugees directly from Turkey - one for each Syrian returned from the Greek islands. German police said the first Syrian refugees arrived by plane on Monday under the deal.


PROTESTS

A few dozen police and immigration officials waited outside a small white tent on the quayside at Dikili as the returned migrants disembarked one by one, before being photographed and having their fingerprints taken behind security screening.



Related Video


Video

Migrants board boats in Lesbos awaiting deportation

The returnees from Lesbos were mostly from Pakistan and some from Bangladesh and they had not applied for asylum, said Ewa Moncure, a spokeswoman for EU border agency Frontex.

Asked if Syrians would be returned, she said: "At some point, but I don't know when."

Turkish EU Affairs Minister Volkan Bozkir said there were no Syrians in the first group coming from Greece, but that when they did begin to arrive they would be sent to the southern city of Osmaniye, around 40 km (25 miles) from the Syrian border.

For non-Syrians, Turkey would apply to their home countries and send them back systematically, Bozkir said in an interview with Turkish broadcaster Haberturk.

Rights groups and some European politicians have challenged the legality of the deal, questioning whether Turkey has sufficient safeguards in place to defend refugees' rights and whether it can be considered safe for them.


Related Coverage
› Syrians coming from Greece to be sent to southern Turkey: Turkey minister
› No Syrians present in first group of migrants arriving from Greece: minister

Turkey insists it is meeting its international obligations. The EU was determined to get the program under way on schedule despite such doubts because of strong political pressure in northern Europe to deter migrants from attempting the journey,

There were small protests as the returns got underway.

On Lesbos, a small group of protesters chanted "Shame on you!" when the migrant boats set sail as the sun rose over the Aegean. Volunteer rescuers aboard a nearby boat hoisted a banner that read: "Ferries for safe passage, not for deportation."

Each migrant was accompanied on Lesbos by a plainclothes Frontex officer. They had been transported in a nighttime operation from the island's holding center to the port. Greek riot police squads also boarded the boats.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and rights groups have said the deal between the European Union and Turkey lacks legal safeguards. Amnesty International has called it "a historic blow to human rights", and was sending monitors to Lesbos and Chios on Monday.

More than 3,300 migrants and refugees are on Lesbos. About 2,600 people are held at the Moria center, a sprawling complex of prefabricated containers, 600 more than its stated capacity. Of those, 2,000 have made asylum claims, UNHCR said.


(Editing by Nick Tattersall, Tom Heneghan and Paul Taylor)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesco...rom-the-nuclear-security-summit/#5936d8a972ab

Apr 3, 2016 @ 08:00 AM 2,434 views

Fallout From The Nuclear Security Summit

James Conca, Contributor
I write about nuclear, energy and the environment

The Nuclear Security Summit that just ended Friday in Washington, D.C. wrangled over several thorny nuclear proliferation and terrorism issues, and involved over 50 countries. But the two countries on everyone’s mind were China and Russia. China, because they have started on the world’s largest nuclear build-up in 50 years. And Russia, because they decided not to attend at all.

The fourth Nuclear Security Summit, in the series begun by the Obama administration, showcased definite successes, particularly the significant global reduction in nuclear weapons, the global reduction in nuclear material stockpiles, the increased security on nuclear facilities, the dozen countries that are now free of weapons-grade materials, a newly-amended nuclear protection treaty, and the historic nuclear deal with Iran that has, so far, gone as planned.

Front and center were potential nuclear terrorist threats, not surprising given last week’s Brussels attack and the terrorist’s surveillance of nuclear scientists and facilities. However, terrorist threats are still much less likely than state threats, such as North Korea and Pakistan, or the possibility of a new nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

The absence of Russia was troubling from several perspectives. They have the most nuclear weapons and nuclear materials in the world and they are a key player in the success of the Iran nuclear deal. But Russia’s economy continues to deteriorate, leading to crumbling nuclear infrastructure and a lack of funding for nuclear scientists and inspectors. Corruption and organized crime are endemic which leads to fears of nuclear materials smuggling.

But with respect to China, there was both good and bad.

On the plus side, there is no doubt that China is committed to help thwart nuclear terrorism and rogue states, and is serious about nuclear safety and security. China and the U.S. issued a joint statement on nuclear security cooperation, committing each country to working together to “foster a peaceful and stable international environment by reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism and striving for a more inclusive, coordinated, sustainable and robust global nuclear security architecture for the common benefit and security of all.”

The United States and China proudly heralded the successful completion and official opening of the international Nuclear Security Center of Excellence in Beijing two weeks before the summit. This Center will greatly assist implementing global nuclear security.

President Obama and President Xi Jinping were also upbeat in announcing another significant step in their joint climate efforts, signaling that both countries will sign the Paris Agreement on April 22nd and take the domestic steps needed to join the Agreement as early as possible this year.

However, the failure to restrain North Korea, and China’s military build-up in the South China Sea, caused some anxiety at the summit. Even though President Xi has declared that China would not pursue militarization of these strategic waterways, it appears that they are doing just that. The neighboring countries of the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam are getting nervous.

China has a strong interest in nuclear security. China plans to spend over a trillion dollars to become the world’s largest producer of nuclear power. They will build 40 new reactors by 2020, another hundred by 2030, and over 200 additional reactors by 2050. Their new Five-Year Plan puts China on track to meet this ambitious schedule.

In just the last week, two of the new Chinese CPR-1000 nuclear reactors began supplying electricity to the grid – one at the Hongyanhe Nuclear Power Plant in China’s Liaoning province and one at the Ningde Nuclear Power Plant in China’s Fujian province.

The rush to expand nuclear power comes from China’s tremendous air pollution from existing coal-fired power plants. Coupled with the need to double their energy production in order to move the rest of their population into the middle class, it is no wonder nuclear, and many other forms of generation, is being ramped up so much and so fast.

Not only does China want to replace its old coal fleet with new nuclear, it wants to become the leading exporter of nuclear technology as well, including heavy components in the supply chain where the real global bottleneck on nuclear expansion is. Their recent nuclear deals in the U.K. and Europe are indications that this path is bearing fruit.

At the same time, China is building up their nuclear weapons capabilities. China’s defense spending is twice that of Russia, and second only to the United States, although it is a match for the U.S. as a percentage of its GDP.

China is expanding its sophisticated conventional weapons, modernizing its nuclear arsenal, deploying new mobile land-based missiles, and constructing a submarine fleet for their new ballistic missiles that will be launched from sea. In addition, China is testing long-range high-precision conventional weapons and multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle technology (Carnegie).

Keep in mind that weapons expansion goes hand in hand with economic expansion. Every nation or kingdom in history has done so, first as a matter of survival, and then as a matter of expansion. Whether it was steel weapons in the Iron Age, the emerging cannon in the 14th century, or nuclear weapons in the 20th, all major powers think they must have the most destructive, most modern way to destroy its competitors or perceived enemies.

The U.S. intelligence community predicts that in 20 years, China will be the largest nuclear nation in the world, producing over a trillion kWhs a year from nuclear power, will have almost a billion middle class, and will have sufficient nuclear weapons to deter even the United States.

We need to continue these nuclear security summits. We need to develop a truly global nuclear security system that draws in all countries of the world, superpowers and rogues. And one that will last well beyond the Obama Presidency.

Dr. James Conca is a geochemist, an RDD expert, a planetary geologist and professional speaker. Follow him on Twitter @jimconca and see his book at Amazon.com

 

[TammyinWI]

Thanks, Housecarl. Please get well soon; sounds like you are doing the right things to do that...prayers sent up.

 

[Housecarl]

Thanks, Housecarl. Please get well soon; sounds like you are doing the right things to do that...prayers sent up.

Thanks TammyinWI,

I'm "getting there". Stopped in late last night at my regular diner, got a mixed scrabble with spinach, went to the Safeway, restocked on V8 "V Fusion" and Coricidin and back to bed until a little while ago when the cat said it was "breakfast time".

___

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/art...ons_under_a_veneer_of_cooperation_109218.html

April 4, 2016

Obama-Xi Meeting: Tensions Under a Veneer of Cooperation

By Bonnie S. Glaser

When President Obama and Xi Jinping met on the margins of the fourth Nuclear Security Summit in Washington DC, both leaders struck a positive tone in their opening remarks.

Obama reiterated that the US welcomes the rise of a peaceful, stable, and prosperous China, and emphasised shared US and Chinese interests on North Korea, nuclear security and climate change. For his part, Xi Jinping recounted numerous areas of bilateral cooperation and stressed China’s willingness to explore strengthening military-to-military ties, people-to-people exchanges, and cooperation on counter-terrorism, law enforcement, cyber security, economy and trade, and the Korea nuclear issue. In passing, both presidents acknowledged the existence of disagreements, but neither dwelled on them. The signing of two joint statements further signaled their concerted efforts to advance cooperation: both leaders committed to sign the Paris Climate Change Agreement on 22 April and to take respective domestic measures that would enable joining the Agreement as early as possible this year, and agreed to work together to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism and strive to create a robust global nuclear security architecture.

Beneath this veneer of common interests and cooperation, however, there was evident tension. The most contentious issue was the South China Sea. Irked by US naval operations in recent months inside 12 nautical miles of Chinese-occupied land features in the South China Sea, Xi Jinping warned that China would not accept violations of its sovereignty in the name of freedom of navigation, according to China’s official Xinhua news agency. Xi also called on Obama to 'strictly' abide by the US pledge to remain neutral on sovereignty issues in the South China Sea and instead contribute in constructive ways to promoting peace and stability. Although Obama’s remarks were not reported, he likely underscored the principles of non-militarisation and resolving disputes in accordance with international law. He may have also cautioned China’s leader to not undertake new dredging projects. Less than two weeks ago, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson hinted that Chinese activity around Scarborough Shoal could be a sign that China is preparing to conduct more land reclamation.

Despite shared opposition to North Korea’s nuclear weapons and agreement to tighten sanctions on Pyongyang in UNSCR 2270, Xi Jinping voiced strong opposition to the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, in South Korea. Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told reporters that deployment of THAAD would 'undermine China’s security interests' and affect the Asia-Pacific region’s 'strategic balance.'

President Obama likely asserted the right of the US and South Korea to take steps to assure their security in the face of advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. He may also have reiterated an offer to provide Beijing with a briefing on THAAD’s technical capabilities to assuage Beijing’s concerns that it could provide radar coverage over Chinese territory and degrade China’s nuclear deterrent. In recent months, China has snubbed the offer, preferring to put pressure on Seoul to refuse to allow deployment of THAAD on its soil.

President Obama also raised US concerns about human rights. No details surfaced following the meeting, but it is likely that the US president voiced concerns about new efforts by the Chinese Communist Party to restrict freedoms of speech, association, and religion, impose constraints on civil society, and increase imprisonment and torture of rights advocates. Xi Jinping likely told Obama to focus his attention on America’s problems and refrain from interfering in China’s domestic affairs.

Despite clear signals from the US that President Obama will not repeat his earlier endorsement of Xi’s goal of building a new model of major country relations, the Chinese president insisted that realising that goal is a 'priority for China’s foreign policy'. He even went so far as to explicitly reiterate the call for respecting each other’s 'core interests and major concerns', a formulation that is widely viewed by Americans as unworkable.

Just as Xi has stubbornly refused to give up his proposal for a 'new model' of bilateral relations, he is unlikely to alter course on other contentious issues. US-China friction in the coming years is likely to be most serious in the South China Sea. The final nine months of Obama’s tenure will likely be rocky as China seeks to make more gains in the South China Sea and the US conducts more frequent and more complex Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs). Although Washington hopes that the pending UNCLOS Tribunal ruling in Manila’s case against China will moderate Beijing’s behavior, it may be met with Chinese defiance, especially if there is no US-led effort to compel compliance. President Obama’s successor will inherit this challenge.

The South China Sea is now a test both of how China will behave as it emerges as a great power and US willingness to proactively enforce a rule-based order.


This article originally appeared at The Lowy Institute Interpreter.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0403-mcmanus-nuclear-danger-20160403-column.html

Opinion/Op-Ed

Column The new nuclear arms race

By Doyle McManus•Contact Reporter
April 3, 2016, 5:00 AM
Comments 16

Former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, one of the nation's wise men on national security, delivered an arresting message last week: We're about to find ourselves in a new nuclear arms race.

“The danger of a nuclear catastrophe today is greater than during the Cold War,” Perry said.

The danger stems not only from terrorist groups like Islamic State, which would gladly steal or buy nuclear material on the black market, but also from the huge nuclear arsenals the United States, Russia and other big powers maintain more than 20 years after the end of the Cold War. Those nuclear forces are bigger than they need to be — almost 16,000 warheads in all. And they still include hundreds of missiles on hair-trigger alert.

“We've avoided a catastrophe more by good luck than by good management,” Perry told a meeting at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan think tank.



In 2007, Perry joined with former Sen. Sam Nunn and former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz — two Democrats, two Republicans — to urge that the U.S. make the abolition of nuclear weapons a formal goal. President Obama embraced the idea, negotiating a treaty with Russia to cut both countries' arsenals.

But since that 2010 pact, progress toward nuclear disarmament has virtually stopped. Both Russia and the U.S. have launched expensive plans to modernize their nuclear forces, reaffirming the weapons' central role in national security. In Obama's case, the modernization program, which will cost an estimated $355 billion over 10 years, was the price of winning Republican votes in the Senate to ratify the 2010 treaty.

As Russia builds new weapons, Perry said, “I have no doubt that the United States will follow suit.”

So Perry is trying to revive a proposal that a handful of arms control advocates have floated in previous years: The U.S. should eliminate all of its 400-plus land-based nuclear missiles.

For decades, U.S. nuclear strategy has relied on a “triad” of weapons platforms: land-based missiles or ICBMs, manned bombers and submarines.

The basic idea was redundancy: If one system was knocked out by an enemy, the others would still be available.

Over the years, however, U.S. nuclear submarines have become virtually undetectable. Stealth bombers are difficult for opponents to find, as well.

The land-based missiles, by contrast, are more vulnerable. They're stuck in one place. Their locations are known to the Russians and other potential enemies.

That means they face a dilemma known as “use it or lose it.” If an apparent attack against U.S. missile bases is detected, officials will have only a few minutes to decide whether to launch the missiles in response, or lose them.

And that makes them susceptible to false alarms — which actually occurred several times in both the U.S. and Russia during the Cold War. (Luckily, officers realized that their radar was malfunctioning.)

That vulnerability is still there. “The way to solve it is simply to eliminate the ICBMs,” Perry said.

It's an unorthodox suggestion, and there are counter-arguments, of course — mainly that ICBMs provide insurance if an adversary somehow knocked out every submarine and every bomber.

But the doctrine sometimes sounds more like force of habit.

“It has worked for us for decades,” Air Force Secretary Deborah James told a congressional committee last month. “The ICBMs are considered responsive, the sea-launched are considered survivable, and the bombers ... are flexible.”

I think Perry has the better argument. The case for keeping land-based missiles is weak. The danger they present is real.

But what I'd mostly like to see is a serious debate on these issues among the candidates for president.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has said he thinks the modernization plan is a waste of money. Hillary Clinton has suggested that she's worried about the cost, but hasn't taken a firm position. Sen. Ted Cruz has said he wants to spend more money on defense, including nuclear weapons.

And Donald Trump? When conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump for his position on the nuclear triad last year, the businessman was flummoxed.

“For me, nuclear is just the power,” Trump replied. “The devastation is very important to me.”

We deserve better answers. It's a matter of survival.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Twitter: @doylemcmanus

_

Comments....

The818
If you haven't read the book "Command and Control" by Eric Schlosser, go borrow it from a library or buy it.

You'll be left with the sinking feeling that the human race only survived the last century by the grace of God.

10 hours ago (edited)
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Ultrabomb

Nuclear weapons make war so potentially destructive it makes leaders want to avoid it. Why would anyone want to get rid of them? I'm glad there weren't any more arms reduction treaties after New START. New START itself was a mistake. A treaty requiring further reductions would've been another one.
And why is anybody worried about a false alarm leading to an ICBM launch? We've had ICBM's deployed since 1958 and it's obviously never happened. The fact that there have been false alarms is a testament to the ability of the people at NORAD and its Russian counterpart to tell a false alarm from an actual attack.« less

11 hours ago
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the_clowns

ISIS will use dirty bombs. Those containers loaded with nuclear explosives--dirty bombs. A soda can, loaded with nuclear explodes, might one day explode next you. Governments--Russia, US--will use missiles to launch nuclear weapons.

14 hours ago
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Max Plank

If a little is good, then more is better and too much just fine.

15 hours ago
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Stu707

US preemptive concessions are always popular on the left. The 2010 Start Treaty requires the US and Russia to reduce deployed warheads to !,550. We have reduced our arsenal to 1,538 warheads. Russia has increased its deployed warheads to 1,648. Further, the State Department says Russian officials have sought to prevent US weapons inspectors from checking warheads per the 2010 treaty.
Russia and China have road mobile ICBM launchers and Russia is developing a rail mobile system.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-doubling-nuclear-warheads/« less

16 hours ago
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affableman

It doesn't really make sense to have land-based ICBMs anymore but I think we're wedded to the concept of a strategic triad and the Air Force doesn't want to give up any turf.

The problem is the Air Force has been bungling the hell out of taking care of those nukes and that's a scary thing. They don't want to give it up but they don't pay as much attention to it as they should.

Getting rid of nukes would be nice but we live in the real world, not a dream one. That's just not going to happen until something really bad happens and we develop the technology that can make certain no one is cheating.

That said, we could get along fine with fewer but those are going to need to be modernized...« less

20 hours ago
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Mike 64

Fixed silo ICBM's do seem like a bad idea. If they're becoming obsolete maybe a new mobile system would be better and cheaper.

20 hours ago (edited)
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John2011

Thank you Doyle. Nuclear weapons represent the greatest danger facing humanity and it gets short shrift in general because people think the problem has been significantly mitigated. They are wrong. Get rid of the ICBM's and make it multi-lateral. Agreed. The world, and America, will be a safer place. And The Reality TV Celebrity won't have to learn what the Nuclear Triad means...as he fades away to irrelevancy.

21 hours ago

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Forestntrees

“For me, nuclear is just the power,” Trump replied. “The devastation is very important to me.” -Donald Trump, our potential next president. You be the judge.

21 hours ago
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Shrillary Rotten Clinton

Yes, Cruz has it right...a strong military.

Who wouldn't want that for the USA? (excepting, of course, current Marxist occupant of White House).

21 hours ago

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affableman

@Shrillary Rotten Clinton

Cruz would use nukes to hurry up the rapture...

21 hours ago (edited)

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Brianontheranch

"In 2007, Perry joined with former Sen. Sam Nunn and former Secretaries of State Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Shultz — two Democrats, two Republicans — to urge that the U.S. make the abolition of nuclear weapons a formal goal. President Obama embraced the idea, negotiating a treaty with Russia to cut both countries' arsenals."

Anyone who pushes this has an opinion I have no interest in. IMO the presence of nukes kept us from the battlefield against the USSR throughout the post WWII time period. Further, that Genie is WAY out of the bottle. We'd never be able to trust our adversaries to keep their end of the bargain.« less

21 hours ago

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Fansince58

The Soviets were well aware of the risk to fixed positions of their ICBMs, since a knockout strike was a few minutes away for them. Their missiles are on mobile launch platforms and can be moved from point to point to frustrate targeting schemes.
Spy satellites are supposed to be able to keep track of the numbers and places of launch vehicles to keep the US and Russia from cheating on the arms limitations agreement.

21 hours ago

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John in Irvine

Land-based missiles are clearly the most vulnerable. In the 70s (?) there was a proposal to switch to a new generation missile, the MX, with mobile launchers which could be moved between multiple silos. I believe that went away with the non-proliferation agreement. Today, modernizing the land-based missiles is expected to be EXTREMELY pricey, since the system is now so old. It may be time for it to go.

22 hours ago

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Slytherin Drumpf

Trump favors nuclear proliferation. The world would be a more dangerous place with Trump holding the codes and supplying weapons grade plutonium to various governments.
23 hours ago
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SpokaneSage

Doyle McManus continues his unblemished career as a "useful idiot". Uncle Joe would be so proud of his little bearded tool.
23 hours ago

 

[Housecarl]

The real meaning of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei's missile warning
Started by Dennis Olson‎, Today 06:34 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ian-Supreme-Leader-Khamenei-s-missile-warning

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US seizes thousands of Iranian weapons, including grenade launchers, in Arabian Sea
Started by Dennis Olsoný, Today 06:37 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ns-including-grenade-launchers-in-Arabian-Sea


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.stripes.com/news/us-navy-seizes-weapons-cache-in-arabian-sea-1.402646

11 minutes ago

US Navy seizes weapons cache in Arabian Sea

By Chris Church
Stars and Stripes
Published: April 4, 2016

MANAMA, Bahrain — The U.S. has seized an illicit shipment of arms, including machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, that officials said originated in Iran and were intended for Houthi rebels in Yemen.

It was the third seizure of weapons by international naval forces in the Arabian Sea in a month, U.S. 5th Fleet said in a statement. In all three instances, the weapons were assessed by U.S. officials to have originated in Iran.

Iran backs the Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen, who are fighting the internationally recognized government, which is backed by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia, Iran’s chief rival in the region. A cease-fire is set to take effect on Sunday, followed by peace talks in Kuwait.

Last year, the U.N. Security Council imposed an arms embargo against the Houthis. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies have repeatedly accused Iran of flouting the ban, something Tehran has always denied.

The coastal patrol ship USS Sirocco “intercepted and seized” a cache of weapons March 28th in a “small, stateless dhow,” 5th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Kevin Stephens said in a statement. The shipment included 1,500 AK-47s, 200 RPG launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely assisted in the seizure after the weapons were discovered by Sirocco’s boarding team, Stephens said. The dhow and its crew were allowed to depart once the weapons were seized. The weapons were in U.S. custody, Stephens said.

Eight days earlier, the French navy destroyer FS Provence seized a shipment of arms that included nearly 2,000 AK-47s, 64 Dragunov sniper rifles and nine anti-tank missiles.

The Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Darwin intercepted a dhow on Feb. 27 carrying a similar cache of arms.

In early March, a Houthi official rejected a suggestion by an Iranian military official that Iran might send military advisers to support the Houthis, the Reuters news agency reported. Houthi representatives were in Saudi Arabia at the time for talks.

The Houthi leader has said the rebels were prepared to continue fighting if the latest round of talks failed. More than 6,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which also involves al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. The Islamic State also has sought to exploit the chaos in Yemen to establish a foothold.

“We continue to operate and conduct maritime operations in the Arabian sea,” Stephens said. “We are continuing to do what we have been doing and continue to expect to have success. It’s clear these operations are making a difference.”

church.chris@stripes.com

Twitter: @CChurchSripes

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.voanews.com/content/iraq-suicide-attacks/3268164.html

News / Middle East

Suicide Attacks Kill 24 in Iraq

VOA News
April 04, 2016 8:32 AM

A series of suicide bombings Monday killed at least 24 people and wounded 60 others across Iraq.

Several of the blasts targeted Iraqi troops and paramilitary fighters.

One bombing hit a security checkpoint in a northeastern Baghdad suburb, while another struck pro-government fighters north of the capital in Mashahdeh.

In the south, an attacker also detonated explosives at a restaurant popular with militia fighters in the city of Nassiriyah, and another hit the city of Basra.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. Islamic State militants have frequently used suicide bombings against Iraqi security forces.

March was an especially deadly month for Iraqi security forces and pro-government militias with acts of terror and violence killing 544 troops, according to U.N. data.

That was the highest number of deaths since August, and only four months have registered more Iraqi troop deaths since Islamic State militants swept through large areas of northern and western Iraq in mid-2014.

The U.N. said about 1,500 Iraqi civilians were also killed in the first three months of this year with more than 4,300 people injured.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-congo-violence-idUSKCN0X10LF

World | Mon Apr 4, 2016 9:05am EDT
Related: World, Congo, Africa

Gunbattles rock Brazzaville in wake of disputed Congo election

BRAZZAVILLE | By Christian Elion

Gunbattles rocked the capital of the Congo Republic on Monday, shattering a relative calm that had followed President Denis Sassou Nguesso's re-election in a disputed poll last month.

The fighting between security forces and unidentified gunmen was some of the worst to hit Brazzaville since 1997, when Sassou Nguesso returned to power after months of urban warfare between rival militia groups in the capital.

He had previously ruled the oil-producing country from 1979 until he lost an election in 1992.

Witnesses said young opposition supporters chanted "Sassou, leave!", erected barricades near the main roundabout in southern Brazzaville's Makelekele neighborhood and set fire to the local mayor's office and police headquarters.

The gunfire broke out in the opposition strongholds of Makelekele and Bacongo at 3 a.m. local time (0200 GMT) and lasted until 6 a.m. It resumed around 8 a.m. and intensified in late morning as military helicopters patrolled southern Brazzaville, witnesses said. Heavy weapons fire could be heard.

Hundreds of residents of southern Brazzaville, some carrying their possessions on their heads, fled their neighborhoods on foot toward the north of the city.


Related Coverage
› Congo government blames militia opposed to president for Brazzaville attack

Government officials could not be reached for comment, but state television said people who rejected the president's victory in the March 20 election were responsible.

"The people woke up this morning in fear because there was gunfire. The reason for that is that there are people who contest these elections," said a presenter on Tele Congo.


ELECTION FRAUD ALLEGED

The channel said the government was expected to make a statement on the violence.

Sassou Nguesso won re-election on March 20 after pushing through constitutional changes in an October referendum to remove age and term limits that would have prevented him from standing again.

At least 18 people were killed by security forces during opposition demonstrations before the referendum.


Related Coverage
› Congo violence caused by people who contested election: state TV

Opposition candidates say the election was a fraud and have called for a campaign of civil disobedience. A general strike last week was largely observed in southern Brazzaville but ignored in the north of the city, where Sassou Nguesso is popular.

The U.S. State Department said after the election it had received numerous reports of irregularities and criticized the government's decision to cut all telecommunications including internet services during voting and for days afterwards.

On Monday the U.S. embassy said on its Facebook page there was heavy gunfire and it would provide only limited operations.

There was no immediate comment from the opposition. The father of Guy Kolelas, who came second to Sassou Nguesso in the March election, was a crucial figure in the 1997 civil war and sporadic clashes with the government in the years that followed.


(Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Andrew Roche)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://atimes.com/2016/04/chinas-silk-road-leaves-india-stranded-in-its-region/

China’s Silk Road leaves India stranded in its region

By M.K. Bhadrakumar on April 4, 2016 in Asia Times News & Features, China, India, South Asia

The Chinese foreign ministry has announced that the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe will pay an official visit to China starting April 6. The expectations in Colombo are that the four-day visit will advance the Sino-Lankan relations “to a new level”.

President Xi Jinping will receive Wickremesinghe, who will be accompanied by six cabinet ministers – in charge of foreign affairs, transport and civil aviation, special projects, city planning and water supply,housing and construction, development strategies and international trade.

The visit aims at charting out a new phase of economic partnership – especially in the infrastructure sector, which comes within the ambit of China’s Silk Road strategies. The two countries have also been negotiating a free trade agreement.

Interestingly, Chinese Communist Party is set to establish formal ties with Sri Lanka’s ruling party, the right-wing United National Party.

These are definitive signs that clouds over the Sino-Lankan relationship following the ‘regime change’ in Colombo last year (much to the elation of India and the United States) are lifting. The recent decision by Wickremesinghe’s government to give the go ahead for the controversial Chinese-funded $1.5 billion port city development project in Colombo testified to ‘business as usual’ in the bilateral ties.

The imperatives working on both sides are understandable. Sri Lanka faces acute economic difficulties. The West preaches democracy and human rights but is reluctant to loosen the purse strings to help the island’s economy. Sri Lanka is cash-strapped and needs all the investments that China can make.

China is not perturbed about Wickremesinghe’s ‘pro-West’ image. Beijing places confidence in Colombo’s record of non-aligned and independent foreign policies.

Arguably, China feels comfortable that Wickremesinghe is a votary of the free market. The more the market forces come into play, the merrier it becomes for Chinese businessmen in the Colombo environs.

What China really needs is a level playing field where it can give a run for the money to the West – and even to India. China’s One Belt One Road initiatives and Sri Lanka’s developmental priorities enjoy complementarity. Clearly, a zero sum mentality is unwarranted.

From the perspective of regional politics, Wickremesingh’s visit to China comes closely on the heels of Nepali Prime Minister K. P. Mishra Oli’s seven-day tour of China last month. Beijing has offered to help Nepal create trade and transit routes and build rail links bypassing India as well as supply petroleum products. All of that helps Nepal to stand up to pressure from India.

Indeed, Oli’s visit to China – and Wickremesinghe’s forthcoming visit – highlight that India’s neighborhood policies face an unprecedented challenge today. India can no more take for granted its pre-eminence in the region.

Importantly, Indian diplomacy needs to understand that respect and influence cannot be extracted but need to be earned, and the sort of crude pressure tactic that New Delhi instinctively resorted to recently against Nepal can prove counterproductive.

Wickremesinghe’s forthcoming visit to China underscores that in the final analysis even a regime change in Colombo provided no guarantee that India’s neighbors can be kept away from the attractions of the One Belt One Road.

Of course, in geopolitical terms, Beijing’s future moves in Sri Lanka are fraught with profound consequences for India’s security interests. The point is, there is a ‘big picture’ in all this.

Thus, China’s comfort level is noticeably high that the new government in Myanmar led by Aung San Suu Kyi may give the green signal to the project approved by Naypyitaw last December for the construction of a deep-water port and special economic zone by a Chinese consortium in Kyaukphyu on the Bay of Bengal, with a 1200 km roadway and railway linking it with Yunnan province of China. (Kyauphyu is also to be linked to Kunming by dual oil and gas pipelines.)

Kyauphyu (Myanmar), Chittagong (Bangladesh), Hambantota (Sri Lanka), Maldives, Gwadar (Pakistan) – these form a chain in the sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. And they dovetail with China’s Silk Road strategies.

But India has snubbed the One Belt One Road strategy. The Indian foreign ministry sponsored a Track II platform in New Delhi last month where India’s Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar virtually admonished Beijing and explained how India would have gone about the One Belt One Road (if only it had the money.) Without mentioning Beijing or the South China Sea, Jaishankar hit out:
•The interactive dynamic between strategic interests and connectivity initiatives – a universal proposition – is on particular display in our continent. The key issue is whether we will build our connectivity through consultative processes or more unilateral decisions… But we cannot be impervious to the reality that others may see connectivity as an exercise in hard-wiring that influences choices. This should be discouraged, because particularly in the absence of an agreed security architecture in Asia, it could give rise to unnecessary competitiveness. Connectivity should diffuse national rivalries, not add to regional tensions…Indeed, if we seek a multi-polar world, the right way to begin is to create a multi-polar Asia.
•A constructive discussion on this subject should address not just physical infrastructure but also its broader accompanying facets. Institutional, regulatory, legal, digital, financial and commercial connections are important, as is the promotion of the common cultural and civilizational thread that runs through Asia. Nurturing connectivity also requires a willingness to create arrangements which lead to higher levels of trust and confidence. A connected Asia must be governed by commonly agreed international norms, rules and practices. We need the discipline and restraint that ensure standards of behavior, especially by and between States that jostle to widen their respective spaces in an increasingly inter-connected continent. Respect for the global commons should not be diluted under any circumstances. Much depends on the commitment of nations to uphold freedom of navigation and peaceful resolution of disputes. There should be no place for use or threat of use of force.

India’s mandarins are bristling because they have no Plan B, while China presses ahead with the Silk Roads in its backyard. There was always the option available to exploit the One Belt One Road to India’s advantage, but then, Indian diplomacy instead opted to retaliate by moving against Chinese interests in the South China Sea – and ganging up with Japan.

The efficacy of such an approach is debatable, since India has differences and disputes to manage with China, which calls for a robust bilateral track. It is discernible that Beijing takes note of the Indian ‘tilt’ toward the US’ rebalance strategy.

The Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last held a bilateral meeting with Xi in July during the BRICS summit in Ufa, Russia. They probably made eye contact at Paris in November (Climate Change Conference) and at Washington last week (Nuclear Security Summit). But there was no ‘bilateral’.

Ambassador MK Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001). He writes the “Indian Punchline” blog and has written regularly for Asia Times since 2001.

Copyright 2016 Asia Times Holdings Limited

 

[Housecarl]

Japanese Gov't Legal Watchdog - No specific ban on Nuclear Weapons in Constitution
Started by Housecarl‎, 03-19-2016 05:09 AM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ecific-ban-on-Nuclear-Weapons-in-Constitution


For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.ibtimes.com/japans-const...s-shinzo-abes-government-after-donald-2347884

Japan's Constitution Allows Nuclear Weapons, Says Shinzo Abe's Government After Donald Trump Comments

By Julia Glum @superjulia On 04/04/16 AT 9:21 AM

Japan's constitution does not ban the country from having nuclear weapons, contrary to popular belief, government officials under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe insisted recently.

Japan's executive branch, called the Cabinet, wrote in a response to lawmakers' inquiries Friday that the nation could own and use nukes, the Asahi Shimbun reported. But it then noted that the government "firmly maintains a policy principle that it does not possess nuclear weapons of any type under the three non-nuclear principles.”

The statement concerned Article 9 of Japan's constitution, which condemns war and establishes the country as a pacifist nation. The 1947 regulation prohibits Japan from having a traditional military and also renounces offensive weapons, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The provision has been reinterpreted over the past few decades, most recently by Abe, who in 2012 started his second period as prime minister. In July 2014, Abe allowed Japan's Self-Defense Forces to become more assertive and militarily assist foreign countries, in part to strengthen the relationship between Japan and the United States, the New York Times reported.

Last week, Abe's government referenced a 1978 address by Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda suggesting nuclear weapons were constitutionally OK, the Asahi Shimbun reported. “Even if it involves nuclear weapons, the Constitution does not necessarily ban the possession of them as long as they are restricted to such a minimum necessary level,” it read.

Jun Okumura, a scholar at Tokyo's Meiji Institute for Global Affairs, told the South China Morning Post the recent announcement was likely "something of a surprise to the Japanese public." But residents might not need to worry: Yasuhisa Kawamura, a representative of the Japanese foreign affairs ministry, declared at a Nuclear Security Summit Friday that "it is unthinkable that Japan use or possess nuclear weapons," USA Today reported.

Japan's defense mechanisms also made international news recently when American presidential candidate Donald Trump suggested Japan and South Korea start to protect themselves "against this maniac in North Korea" instead of relying on U.S. troops, according to CNN.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://time.com/4280169/russia-nuclear-security-summit/

Why Russia Is Rebuilding Its Nuclear Arsenal

Simon Shuster @shustry
8:20 AM ET

Vladimir Putin skipped the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington last week—one more sign that Russia isn't interested in cutting its arms

On Friday evening, at the end of the final nuclear security summit of his tenure, President Barack Obama took a swipe at his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, for standing in the way of nuclear disarmament. Obama’s remark was pointed, calling out Putin by name, and it cast a rare bit of light on the personal clash between the two presidents on an issue that both of them see as central to their legacies.

“Because of the vision that he’s been pursuing of emphasizing military might,” Obama told reporters at the summit, “we have not seen the type of progress that I would have hoped for with Russia.”

Video

This was putting it lightly. Over the course of Obama’s presidency, Russia has managed to negotiate deep cuts to the U.S. arsenal while substantially strengthening of its own. It has allegedly violated the treaty that limits the deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe and, in the last few years, it has brought disarmament talks with the U.S. to a complete standstill for the first time since the 1960s. In its rhetoric, Moscow has also returned to a habit of nuclear threats, while in its military exercises, it has begun to practice for a nuclear strike, according to the NATO military alliance.

But of all these stark reversions to the posture of the Cold War, nothing expressed Russia’s position on nuclear disarmament more clearly than Putin’s decision to skip the nuclear summit in Washington last week. Apart from North Korea, which was not invited to the talks, Russia was the only nuclear power not to send a senior delegate.

The snub was no surprise. It was announced back on Nov. 5 in a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, which offered a curious explanation. By influencing the policies of global watchdogs like the International Atomic Energy Agency, “Washington is trying to take the role of the main and the privileged ‘player’ in this sphere,” the statement said. In part because of this, “we have shared with our American colleagues our doubts about the ‘added value’ of the forum.” Russia therefore saw no need to participate, the Ministry said.

Read More: Obama Says the Risk of ISIS Getting a Nuclear Bomb Is Real

A few days after that statement, the world got a more colorful reminder of Putin’s position on nuclear disarmament. During a meeting at the Kremlin with his top generals on Nov. 10, he accused the U.S. of trying to “neutralize” Russia’s nuclear arsenal by building a missile shield over Europe, one that could knock Russian rockets out of the sky. In response, he said, Russia would have to “strengthen the potential of its strategic nuclear forces,” including the deployment of “attack systems” capable of piercing any missile shield.

As if on cue, a state television camera then zoomed in on a piece of paper that one of the generals was holding in his hand. It showed the plans for a nuclear device codenamed Status-6, complete with a curt definition of its purpose: “to create an extensive zone of radioactive contamination” along the enemy’s coast, rendering it uninhabitable “for a long time.”

Asked to comment the following day, Putin’s spokesman claimed the image had appeared in the nightly news by mistake. But the Kremlin’s mouthpiece newspaper then followed up with details. The warhead inside Status-6, it said, would likely be covered in cobalt, an element which would “guarantee the destruction of all living things” once it was irradiated and scattered by a nuclear explosion.

Vladimir Dvorkin, a retired major general of the Russian strategic rocket forces, remembers such designs from his days developing nuclear submarines for the former Soviet Union. “It’s an old Soviet brainchild,” he told me by phone from Moscow. But he never expected to see it revived. In the 1990s and during first two years of Putin’s presidency, Dvorkin headed the main nuclear research directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The emphasis throughout those years was on cooperating with the U.S. to secure nuclear stockpiles and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.

The reemergence of Status-6—even if more as a propaganda ploy than as an actual weapon—shows just how far relations have fallen since then. “The idea is to creep up on the seaboard of the United States and set off a massive nuclear explosion,” says Dvorkin. “It’s being revived in order to spook the West.”

Few in the West had expected to hear such spook stories again. For Americans, a nuclear arms race is the stuff of Cold War fiction. But for Russians, or at least their leaders, the world still looks much as it did in the age of the nuclear arms race.

Read More: Don’t Let Vladimir Putin Destroy NATO

That became clear to many of Obama’s top advisers soon after his Administration took office. During a landmark speech in Prague in the spring of 2009, Obama described his vision for a nuclear-free world. The timing and venue were both highly symbolic. Earlier the same week, the newly-elected President had come to Europe for a summit of the NATO alliance, which had just extended membership to two more formerly communist nations, Albania and Croatia, moving the military bloc deeper into Moscow’s former zone of influence.

Prague, too, had been a key Cold War battleground, and as Obama pointed out at the beginning of his speech, few people could have imagined in those years that the Czech Republic would eventually become a NATO member in 2004, standing as proof that Russian dominance of Eastern Europe was receding. “The Cold War has disappeared,” Obama told the city square packed with his Czech admirers. Yet the existence of nuclear weapons, he said, was its “most dangerous legacy.” He promised to work towards abolishing them.

The previous week, the White House had begun talks with the Kremlin on an arms reduction treaty it called New Start. But the two sides came to the table with very different ambitions. “We wanted to get rid of as many nuclear weapons as we could,” says Michael McFaul, who was then serving as Obama’s top adviser on Russian affairs. The Kremlin did not seem to share that dream. During one round of talks at the Defense Ministry in Moscow early in 2010, Obama’s Prague speech came up in some idle conversation, McFaul says, and the Russians started laughing. “They said, ‘Yeah, of course you guys want a nuclear-free world, because then you would dominate the world with your conventional weapons. Why would we ever want to do that?’”

For Russia, the Cold War had never simply disappeared. It had resulted in defeat and the loss of empire, leaving Russia’s rival of more than 40 years to dictate the terms of peace in Europe. By the time Putin took power in 2000, the only vestige of his country’s superpower status was its nuclear arsenal, which was still the biggest in the world. So he began to use it as a crutch.

“Even in the darkest days of the Russian military, when they weren’t able to afford to pay their soldiers and fly their airplanes, they paid close attention to the readiness and modernization of their nuclear forces,” says David Ochmanek, who served as a U.S. Air Force officer during the Cold War and, between 2009 and 2014, was the Pentagon’s top official for force development. “Their doctrine reflected this,” he says.

Read More: Putin’s Wily Syria Tactics Pay Off

In one of his first acts as President, Putin adopted a new military doctrine in the spring of 2000, one that rejected the Soviet pledge never to launch a nuclear weapon first. His reasoning was simple: only Russia’s nukes could counter the vastly superior strength of U.S. conventional weapons. So he lowered the bar for using nuclear weapons in situations “critical to national security.” This meant that if Russia ever felt badly outgunned in a military conflict, it could launch a nuclear missile to even the score and make the enemy back off. That doctrine was still in place when the U.S. and Russia began negotiating the New Start treaty.

But Putin’s position in Russia had changed. In 2008, the constitution prevented him from seeking a third consecutive term as President. So he moved over to the nominally less powerful role of Prime Minister and ceded the presidency to his protégé, Dmitri Medvedev.

Obama saw this as an opportunity. He and Medvedev had taken office within a year of each other, and Obama had made it one of his foreign policy priorities to improve—or “reset”—troubled relations with Russia. Nuclear arms reduction was at the core of this agenda, and the two leaders pursued the talks with notable warmth and enthusiasm. From behind the scenes, however, Putin and his generals set rigid parameters for Medvedev. Even with a new president, the balance of power in Russia had never really changed.

“I always called Medvedev Putin’s lawyer,” says Gary Samore, who was then the White House coordinator for arms control and a lead negotiator of the treaty. “It was very clear who was calling the shots.”

As the negotiations moved ahead, Samore saw the Russians advancing two core priorities. Most of their nuclear warheads were still deployed in static, Soviet-era silos dug into the ground, and these could easily get taken out if the U.S. were ever to launch a surprise attack against Russia. “They were very vulnerable to a pre-emptive first strike,” says Samore. What Russia needed most from the New Start treaty was a chance to get rid of this vulnerability and regain nuclear parity with the U.S. “Their priority first and foremost was to limit our capabilities,” he says, “and to buy time for the Russians to go through their strategic modernization program.”

Obama was prepared to allow that. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. security concerns had shifted away from the threat of nuclear war with Russia. The bigger American fear was the possibility that Moscow would let some of its nukes fall into the hands of terrorists, says Ivo Daalder, who served as U.S. ambassador to NATO during negotiations on the New Start treaty. “Russia as a military security concern wasn’t really on the agenda,” Daalder says. “The focus was really on cooperation.”

In particular, Obama needed Russia’s help on Iran, whose nuclear program the West did see as a major security threat. “So to me there was a very clear quid pro quo,” Samore says. “We very consciously and deliberately were prepared to give the Russians strategic parity in exchange for cooperation on other key issues, Iran being the most important.”

Both sides got what they wanted. In the spring of 2011, Obama returned to Prague to sign the New Start treaty with Medvedev, and that same day, Russia agreed to support another round of Western sanctions against Iran. The pain of these sanctions proved instrumental in getting Iran to give up its nuclear weapons program four year later, perhaps Obama’s most notable foreign policy achievement.

On paper at least, the New Start treaty also looked impressive. Both sides agreed to cut their arsenals of long-range nuclear missiles in half and to reduce the number of warheads by around three-quarters. But in practice, the New Start treaty allowed Russia to scrap many of its old silo-based missile systems while pushing ahead with a wholesale upgrade of its broader arsenal. “The treaty does not prevent you from modernizing,” says McFaul, who went on to become the U.S. ambassador in Moscow from 2011 to 2013. “In terms of parity, they felt like they needed to modernize, whereas we didn’t feel that way.”

It will still take Russia at least until the end of this decade to complete its nuclear modernization program. But it is off to an impressive start. Moscow is building a new generation of long-range nuclear bombers, truck-mounted ballistic missiles and nuclear-armed submarines. In the past two years, Russian officials and state-run media have routinely boasted about the fruits these efforts, often under giddy headlines like this gem from the Sputnik news agency: “Rail Phantom: Russia developing invisible death trains with nukes.”

This seems far from the spirit of Medvedev’s term as president, which ended in 2012 with Putin’s return to the Kremlin’s top post. The New Start treaty, Medvedev told me in mid-February, “was a great achievement in Russian-U.S. relations, and it was good for the international situation.” Later in our interview, he added: “It’s a shame that things began to take a different path after that.”

In the the foreseeable future, Medvedev said, Russia would have no choice but to develop weapons like Status-6 to balance against the enormous advantage the U.S. enjoys in conventional arms. (Washington spends more than seven times as much on defense as Russia, which will have to cut its military spending this year, thanks largely to a shrinking economy.) “Isn’t that scary? Yes, it is very scary,” Medvedev told me, referring to these weapons. “If hundreds or thousands of such missiles are used in an attack, the consequences will be just as devastating” as a nuclear strike.

This point came back to the essential paradox of Russia’s position on nuclear weapons. It is the very real feeling of weakness and vulnerability that makes Russia cling to its most destructive and dangerous arms. And until Russia’s leaders are made to believe that the U.S. does not wish them any harm, Obama’s vision of a nuclear free world will never be realized.

Obama admitted as much at the nuclear security summit in Washington. “It is very difficult,” he said at the closing news conference, “to see huge reductions in our nuclear arsenal unless the United States and Russia, as the two largest possessors of nuclear weapons, are prepared to lead the way.” From the start of his tenure, Obama tried to take that lead, likely believing that the Cold War had, as he put it, “disappeared.”

But his most important partners in this effort saw things differently, says Samore, his former adviser. “To some extent Obama didn’t appreciate how the level of Russian paranoia and fear of the United States continued to permeate their defense and security establishment,” he says. “For them it was so old school. He just didn’t see it.” By now, as he prepares to leave office, Obama most certainly does.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.wsj.com/articles/one-year-after-the-iran-nuclear-deal-1459721502

Opinion | Commentary

One Year After the Iran Nuclear Deal

Don’t be fooled. The Iran we have long known—hostile, expansionist, violent—is alive and well.

By Yousef Al Otaiba
April 3, 2016 6:11 p.m. ET
74 COMMENTS

Saturday marked one year since the framework agreement for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—the nuclear deal with Iran—was announced. At the time, President Obama said this agreement would make “the world safer.” And perhaps it has, but only in the short term and only when it comes to Iran’s nuclear-weapons proliferation.

Sadly, behind all the talk of change, the Iran we have long known—hostile, expansionist, violent—is alive and well, and as dangerous as ever. We wish it were otherwise. In the United Arab Emirates, we are seeking ways to coexist with Iran. Perhaps no country has more to gain from normalized relations with Tehran. Reducing tensions across the less than 100-mile-wide Arabian Gulf could help restore full trade ties, energy cooperation and cultural exchanges, and start a process to resolve a 45-year territorial dispute.

Since the nuclear deal, however, Iran has only doubled down on its posturing and provocations. In October, November and again in early March, Iran conducted ballistic-missile tests in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

In December, Iran fired rockets dangerously close to a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz, just weeks before it detained a group of American sailors. In February, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan visited Moscow for talks to purchase more than $8 billion in Russian fighter jets, planes and helicopters.

In Yemen, where peace talks now hold some real promise, Iran’s disruptive interference only grows worse. Last week, the French navy seized a large cache of weapons on its way from Iran to support the Houthis in their rebellion against the U.N.-backed legitimate Yemeni government. In late February, the Australian navy intercepted a ship off the coast of Oman with thousands of AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. And last month, a senior Iranian military official said Tehran was ready to send military “advisers” to assist the Houthis.

The interference doesn’t stop there. Since the beginning of the year, Tehran and its proxies have increased their efforts to provide armor-piercing explosive devices to Shiite cells in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. A former Iranian general and close adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for Iran to annex all of Bahrain. And in Syria, Iran continues to deploy Hezbollah militias and its own Iranian Revolutionary Guard to prop up Syria’s Bashar Assad.

These are all clear reminders that Iran remains the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism—a persistent threat not only to the region but to the U.S. as well. “Death to America” has always been more than an ugly catchphrase; it has been Iranian policy. Iran has orchestrated countless terrorist attacks against Americans: from the Marine barracks in Beirut to Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. During the Afghanistan war, Iran paid Taliban fighters $1,000 for each American they killed.

In Iraq, Iran supplied the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that killed or maimed thousands of U.S. soldiers. And in recent weeks seven Iranian hackers were indicted in a U.S. federal court for a cyberattack against U.S. banks and critical infrastructure.

As Henry Kissinger once said, Iran can be either a country or a cause. Today “Iran the cause” is showing little of the same kind of pragmatism and moderation in its regional policies and behavior as it did in the nuclear talks. Last week, Mr. Khamenei insisted ballistic missiles were key to the Islamic Republic’s future. “Those who say the future is in negotiations, not in missiles, are either ignorant or traitors,” he said.

It is now clear that one year since the framework for the deal was agreed upon, Iran sees it as an opportunity to increase hostilities in the region. But instead of accepting this as an unfortunate reality, the international community must intensify its actions to check Iran’s strategic ambitions.

It is time to shine a bright light on Iran’s hostile acts across the region. At the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Riyadh later this month, the U.S., the U.A.E., Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman should reach an agreement on a common mechanism to monitor, expose and curb Iran’s aggression. This should include specific measures to block its support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah units in Syria and Lebanon, and Iranian-linked terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

If the carrots of engagement aren’t working, we must not be afraid to bring back the sticks. Recent half measures against Iran’s violations of the ballistic-missile ban are not enough. If the aggression continues, the U.S. and the global community should make clear that Iran will face the full range of sanctions and other steps still available under U.N. resolutions and in the nuclear deal itself.

Iran’s destabilizing behavior in the region must stop. Until it does, our hope for a new Iran should not cloud the reality that the old Iran is very much still with us—as dangerous and as disruptive as ever.

Mr. Otaiba is the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the U.S.

 

[Housecarl]

Well this is very likely not going to go over well.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...s/news-story/9e9adbcc8c1a0bd0451395c6567defff

Vietnam seizes Chinese boat as US and Philippines start drills

AP|April 5, 2016 12:00AM

Vietnam’s coast guard in a rare move has seized a *Chinese vessel for allegedly *intruding in its waters, state media reported yesterday.

The Thanh Nien newspaper said the vessel has been towed to the northern port city of Hai Phong, and that the ship, its captain and two sailors, all Chinese, were under the supervision of Vietnamese authorities.

The vessel, disguised as a *fishing boat, was carrying 100,000 litres of diesel oil and was intercepted by the Vietnamese coast guard near Bach Long Vi island in the Gulf of Tonkin on Thursday, it said.

The captain told authorities the fuel was to be sold to Chinese fishing boats operating in the area, it said.

The newspaper said in the last two weeks of last month, the coast guard had chased 110 Chinese fishing boats out of Vietnamese waters.

Vietnam’s coast guard often warns and chases Chinese fishing boats out of its waters but rarely seizes them.

Vietnamese fishermen complain they are harassed, attacked and have had their catches confiscated by Chinese authorities while they fishing in the South China Sea.

Vietnam is locked in a territorial dispute with China in the South China Sea, which is rich in resources.

China claims almost all the South China Sea, where about $US5 trillion ($6.5 trillion) of ship-borne trade passes every year.

Vietnam, China and Taiwan have competing claims over the Paracel islands that are occupied by China, while the three along with The Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei have claimed parts or all of the Spratly islands.

Chinese territorial assertiveness in the region, including recent massive land reclamation of reefs and atolls in the Spratlys and its increased military actions in the two island chains, have raised concerns among neighbours and the US.

A Japanese submarine made a port call in The Philippines at the weekend, the first in 15 years.

One of the newest and largest submarines in the Japanese navy, it was escorted into the former US navy base at Subic Bay by two Japanese destroyers on a tour of Southeast Asia.

Japan is increasing its presence in the South China Sea, sending more ships and planes to allies in Southeast Asia, such as Vietnam and The Philippines.

Meanwhile, The Philippines and the US started military drills yesterday, including simulating the retaking of an island seized by an imaginary enemy in the South China Sea, an exercise likely to rile China.

“The ... exercises caps Manila’s recent attempts to involve outsiders in (a) regional row,” China’s official news agency Xinhua said.

The commentary cited Australia and Japan.

“However, a provocation so fearmongering and untimely as such is likely to boomerang on the initiators,” Xinhua added.

“A big country with vital interests in Asia, the US should first clarify the targets of its Pivot to Asia strategy, which so far has featured no more than unscrupulous inconsistency between fearmongering deeds and peace-loving words.”

The US does not take sides in the territorial disputes but has asserted the importance of keeping sea and air routes open.

US Defence Secretary Ash Carter is to fly to The Philippines next week to observe live-firing of artillery and visit US Navy ships taking part.

AP, Reuters, AFP

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://38north.org/2016/04/rcarlin040416/

Pulling the Rabbit Out of the Hat: Kim Jong Un’s Path Out of the Nuclear Crisis

By Robert Carlin
04 April 2016
Comments 2

Everyone has a pet thesis about what is going on and what will happen on the North Korean issue over the next several months. In mid-January, I laid out what seemed to be six likely possibilities to keep in mind. Ten weeks later, I think we can winnow the choices down to two.

The first possibility is that we are in the middle of a giant North Korean deception operation, and that the Korean People’s Army (KPA) will attack at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, April 28, but doesn’t want anyone to figure that out. That’s only a guess, and not even a good one, but it is pretty much as good as most of the speculation that is going around about sanctions, their effect and how the North is responding.

The second possibility, essentially one of the original six, is that Pyongyang knew where it was going from the point at which it decided on the fourth nuclear test—probably by late November last year; it signaled the goal immediately after the test in a Choson Sinbo article on January 7; and it has continued along that path with remarkable consistently ever since.

What are those signals, and what is the endpoint? Stripped of most of the qualifiers and weasel words, there is now reason to conclude that at some point—and the upcoming seventh party congress would be as good a venue as any—Kim Jong Un plans to declare the success of his byungjin policy and that, having achieved what Pyongyang is portraying as an overwhelmingly strong nuclear deterrent force, to claim that it is now possible for the regime to begin to shift its focus from the military to the civilian economy.

The idea of a declaration of such a shift of resources is not an analytical chimera. It is not a judgment on whether or not the North will actually be able to make such a shift. The key is not whether such a strong North Korean deterrent force is a reality, not even whether Kim believes it, but whether he will set out this position as the philosophical basis for a new direction in policy. It needs to be borne in mind that Kim Jong Il used a similar public rationale in 2000 as the foundation for what became his modest July 2002 economic reforms. In other words, the question is whether the idea that enough has been done on national defense will become an engine for new policies that cannot be justified under old concepts.

In preparation for such a break with previous policy, ever since the vote in the UN Security Council on the new DPRK sanctions resolution in early March, Kim Jong Un has acted according to what he seems to consider a successful playbook, one he used last August. The essence of that was: a crisis erupts; Pyongyang issues harum-scarum statements but essentially cordons them off from the population at large, other than to use them as rallying points to encourage the population to work harder on economic goals; finally, Kim declares a victory “without having fired a shot,” and credits that success to the North’s possession of nuclear weapons.

To put things in the current context, despite a steady stream of high-level, bombastic North Korean statements threatening all manner of mayhem on the South, the North’s domestic media have not rallied the population for anything other than working harder for economic goals in preparation for the upcoming party congress.

Rather than military preparations, the focus has been on what has been termed the “70-day campaign” as the lead up to the congress. Over the past month, there have been several waves of mini-propaganda campaigns against Washington and Seoul designed to get the population’s blood boiling. Each time the emotional level has reached a peak the regime has flipped the switch and brought the focus back to the economic tasks at hand. As a result, unless there is other evidence of concrete preparations to follow through on any of Pyongyang’s frequent threats about preemptive strikes and reducing Seoul to ashes, this does not, at the moment, look like a country preparing for significant conflict.

Simply put, Kim is focused on creating an atmosphere that will support a successful party congress. That congress, not getting into a dangerous escalation with the US, is what will cement his rule. A successful congress, of course, requires, in equal measure, demonstration of an effective shield against external pressure while accomplishing a long list of tangible achievements domestically. For outside observers, the former tends to overshadow the latter, but inside North Korea, there would seem to be no mistaking which has priority.

The pattern of signals the regime has been sending to the domestic audience is by now consistent and unmistakable. Below are a few examples.
On February 28, DPRK media carried a lengthy letter under Kim’s name thanking “1.5 million students and workers” for expressing the will to join the KPA in response to a KPA Supreme Command “crucial statement” several days earlier that had threatened Washington and Seoul with crushing strikes for their plans to launch decapitation operations against the North.

The key to Kim’s letter was not the windup, however, but the pitch. The letter ended with the admonition that students should stay in school and workers at their posts in order to “achieve greatest successes conducive to building a prospering country by waging an unprecedented labor struggle and intensive studying at their workplaces and schools with the feeling that they are in the same trench as the service personnel.”
On March 16, the “government, political parties, and organizations of the Republic” issued a joint statement expressing outrage, again at US-ROK decapitation exercises, and promising to “pulp and bury” those attempting to harm Kim Jong Un. The statement spelled out, “The state law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea specifies that, should the supreme dignity of the country be put in danger, all strike means, including nuclear strike means, must be fully mobilized to preemptively wipe out the countries and objects which have been involved in it directly or indirectly.” The statement ended, however, not with a call to arms but with the by now familiar theme that the way for the people to “protect and defend” Kim was “with a great victory of the 70-day battle. . .”
If there were any doubt which way Pyongyang wanted the domestic winds to blow, two days later, on March 18, North Korean media reported that Kim had appeared at the opening of construction of a major new building project—Ryomyong Street—in Pyongyang. The project was described as developing an area across from Kim Il Sung University for apartment houses for “scientists and researchers including educators of Kim Il Sung University, nursery, kindergarten, laundry, post office and other public buildings and public service amenities. Kim was cited as making a “passionate appeal” to complete construction of the street within this year, noting that:

Construction of the street is not merely for formation of a street but serves as a political occasion of clearly showing the spirit of the DPRK standing up and keeping up with the world, despite all sorts of sanctions and pressure by the U.S. imperialists and their followers, the appearance of the country advancing to realize the great ideal of the people and the truth that the DPRK is able to be well-off in its own way and nothing is impossible for it to do.

Completing the construction, Kim said, would enhance optimism “about sure victory and once again demonstrate our strength . . .”
Perhaps the closest things have come so far to real mobilization-type rhetoric was a carefully scripted but very short campaign that began on March 26 with the “long-range artillery force of the large combined unit of the KPA on the front” issuing an “ultimatum” to Park Guen-hye to apologize and punish those responsible for decapitation planning or face annihilation. That ultimatum (with no deadline specified) was followed up by salvos of supporting statements in the media. Students were said to be “petitioning for military service rather than admission to universities”; workers and farmers were quoted as wanting to join the army to “wipe out the provokers.”

Yet just as this campaign seemed to reach a peak, on March 28, the regime let the air out of the balloon with media reports that Kim Jong Un had appeared at a store and health complex with his wife, hardly an image designed to foster a military mobilization.
On March 28, Rodong Sinmun carried a political essay employing, as these essays do, typically poetic and emotional expressions of sacrifice and allegiance to the leader. Its main message, however, did not waver from the economic priority.

“Today’s 70-day battle toward the Seventh Party Congress is indeed a furnace of struggle that verifies the millions of soldiers and people’s loyalty toward the party and the leader.” The hot imagery continued—“the sweat of increased production dropped amid trials” is “speechless eloquence that proves the life of a peacetime human-bomb warrior who responds to the leader’s call not with words but by presenting his heart.

In other words, essentially picking up Kim Jong Un’s instructions from his letter on February 28, the essay’s message was stay at the machines, work hard and produce.

Looking Ahead

With about a month to go until the US-ROK exercises end, we still have to go over hill and dale, more posturing, and possible missteps on either side. Concern about miscalculation, of course, is the bane of our existence in these situations, and each time it seems to get more worrisome. Maybe this time it is worse. If Kim Jong Un is dancing on the edge of the precipice, he must realize that the drop is steeper than it has been before.

He also knows, however, that once through the joint exercises, the way could be open for him to move into stage two. Kim’s declaration of a “bloodless and warless” victory at the end of the US-ROK exercises will not be a surprise to anyone who has read the March 28 political essay, which notes that is exactly what happened last summer. “In August 2015 again, was it not the same invincible faith that turned the harsh waves of war into nothing and achieved bloodless and warless great victory?”

Here is a new working hypothesis to keep on the table. One can never be sure of the timing of a specific North Korean proposal, nor the vehicle in which it will be presented. In essence, these will be the opening moves:
Kim declares byungjin a success, i.e., a sufficiently strong nuclear deterrent to allow concentration on the economy and, potentially, reduced spending on the military (the latter were, in fact, part of the original byungjin concept as explained in Kim’s March 31, 2013 plenum speech); and
Pyongyang makes a major proposal on replacing the armistice, linking progress on a peace agreement to movement on the nuclear front. This would be put under the umbrella of the need for the “peaceful environment” Kim has several times said was required for economic growth.

Once again, as at the beginning of this drama in early January, Choson Sinbo was used to send an important signal. On March 15, the same day as reports in central DPRK media of Kim Jong Un guiding a test of a missile warhead, the Choson Sinbo carried the third of a three-part series. The article cited the March 9 offer advanced by the Chinese foreign minister for holding “denuclearization negotiations and the discussion of a peace agreement at the same time,” the first time the North has acknowledged the Chinese idea, and seemingly a step back—albeit a small one—from earlier, harsh North Korean criticism in a March 4 government statement of the “big powers” monopolizing the United Nations, “including the United States and fools who follow them.”

Equally, if not more important, the article singled out Kim Jong Un’s remarks from March 9 that, “the real ‘enemy’ that North Korea’s nuclear force has to deal with is nuclear war itself.” It implied that this quotation should be read in the context of a June 2013 National Defense Commission (NDC) statement—which the article went out of its way to note was released only a few months after the declaration of the byungjin line—which had proposed high-level talks with the US, stating that, “The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the behest of our leader and our general, and it is the policy task that our party, state and millions of soldiers and people must accomplish without fail.”

A month later, in July 2013, in a private meeting with an American delegation of former government officials, DPRK officials expressed consternation that Washington did not seem to grasp the importance of the NDC statement.

One Step Beyond

Tactically, Pyongyang might well imagine at the point of a new DPRK proposal for talks, Beijing stepping in and declaring that this was exactly the purpose of the UN sanctions, and, not coincidentally, the essence of China’s proposal for parallel peace and nuclear talks. Indeed, PRC media accounts of Xi Jinping’s meetings in Washington last week with President Obama and Park Guen-hye at the Nuclear Security Summit might be read approvingly by the North. Rather than just indicate full Chinese support for sanctions, they imply that Beijing will also insist that “fully and strictly” carrying out relevant UN resolutions includes efforts to achieve denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through dialogue. That’s the card Kim Jong Un has left to play at a time of his choosing.

--

Reader Feedback

2 Responses to “Pulling the Rabbit Out of the Hat: Kim Jong Un’s Path Out of the Nuclear Crisis”

1. Victor Hsu says:

April 4, 2016 at 12:41 pm

The DPRK has a collective leadership. It is best to avoid speaking about Kim Jong Un as being solely responsible for the DPRK policies. The instances of DPRK policy making process include the NDC, the Politburo, the Workers Party leadership and the US Section of MOFA.

2. Bill Brown says:

April 4, 2016 at 12:29 pm

I agree with Bob on this one. Kim needs to shift gears quickly here or he will be in trouble. And don’t forget the ‘lean’ season is approaching with no aid in sight. Bob also may be right that the line will be a “guns versus butter” shift in resources. If so, it isn’t going to work. Unlike politics and military posturing– playing war without ever having one–economic policy actually matters. North Korea is too unproductive so the pie it has to work with isn’t big enough to simply give a bigger slice to consumption and a smaller slice (lots of luck there) to the military. To get a bigger pie the only choice is privatizing reforms, of which several pilots were timidly pushed forward two years ago. One can hope that the Party Congress will push forward on that front. If not, none of this makes much difference.

 

[mzkitty]

Oh yippee.




2m
Editor's note: As many as 39 people have died in three days of renewed fighting over the breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to an AFP report. The region has been in a so-called "frozen conflict" since a 1994 truce ended fighting between ethnic Armenians, who make up the majority of the land's population, and Azerbaijan, which counts the region as its own. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has warned of a "full-scale war" if fighting escalates further, and an attempted truce called Sunday by Azerbaijan failed to take hold. Mediators from Russia, France and the Unites States will meet to discuss the situation Tuesday, and we will be watching for developments on the diplomatic front and on the ground. - Tricia
End of note

 

[Housecarl]

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http://freebeacon.com/national-security/white-house-slashing-u-s-nuclear-stockpiles/

White House Slashing U.S. Nuclear Stockpiles

BY: Adam Kredo
April 4, 2016 11:34 am

The United States cut its nuclear stockpiles by 20 percent between 1996 and 2013, with more reductions likely to come, according to recently declassified information released by the White House.

Stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, which is used to fuel a nuclear weapon, were cut from 740.7 metric tons to 586.6 metric tons from 1996 to 2013, according to recently declassified information made available by the Obama administration.

¡°This reflects a reduction of over 20 percent,¡± the White House announced. ¡°Moreover, further reductions in the inventory are ongoing; the U.S. Department of Energy¡¯s material disposition program has down-blended 7.1 metric tons of HEU since September 30, 2013, and continues to make progress in this area.¡±

The stockpile reductions are part of an effort by the Obama administration to eliminate nuclear materials and move away from these types of weapons.

The move comes as countries such as Russia and North Korea move to increase their nuclear stockpiles. Russia, for instance, has made several announcements about its intent to boost its nuclear stockpile and number of weapons.

However, the United States is moving in the opposite direction.

As of Sept. 30, 2013, the U.S. HEU inventory stood at 586.6 metric tons.

¡°Of this amount, 499.4 metric tons was for national security or non-national security programs including nuclear weapons, naval propulsion, nuclear energy, and science,¡± according to the White House.

¡°Of the remaining 86.2 metric tons, 41.6 metric tons was available for potential down-blend to low enriched uranium or, if not possible, disposal as low-level waste, and 44.6 metric tons was in spent reactor fuel,¡± the White House said.

The Obama administration said it released this classified data in order to promote nuclear transparency across the globe.

¡°The U.S. commitment to sharing appropriate nuclear security-related information has also been demonstrated by recent actions such as the declassification of information on the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and transparency visits by officials from non-nuclear weapons states to Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories,¡± the White House said. ¡°These actions show that countries can increase transparency without revealing sensitive information.¡±


Gov't shutdown would impact NM national labs, national security
KOAT - Albuquerque, NM
Video
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[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/kicking-down-the-door-ohio-class-subs-vs-chinas-a2-ad-15664

Kicking Down the Door: Ohio-Class Subs vs. China's A2/AD

Cruise-missile submarines are the best answer to Beijing's tactics.

Ben Ho Wan Beng
April 4, 2016
Comments 286

How best could the United States metaphorically “kick down” the anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) “door” of a near-peer adversary during a conflict? This has been an idée fixe for American defense planners during recent years, in view of the rising A2/AD capabilities of strategic competitors such as China. There seem to be no clear answers to this question.

What is quite unanimous, however, in the defense community is that the relatively short striking reach of America’s naval crown jewels—its large-deck aircraft carriers—means that they would have to operate well within the enemy’s A2/AD envelope, rendering the flattops vulnerable to attack. As such, they are unlikely to partake significantly in “first day(s) of war” operations, that is, to be involved in the opening kicks on the adversarial A2/AD door when enemy defenses are at their strongest.

That said, the U.S. possesses two deep-strike capabilities that stand a much better chance of circumventing the access-denial barrier: Air Force stealth bombers, and the navy’s Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles (TLAMs), which is deployed on cruisers, destroyers and submarines. And with regard to the Tomahawk-armed naval platforms, the Ohio-class nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine (SSGN) is undoubtedly the most potent in terms of TLAM capacity, as well as being the most survivable, owing to its extremely low observability. Hence with its stealth and firepower, the Ohio SSGN is arguably the ideal counter–A2/AD naval platform in the U.S. arsenal.

Considerable Firepower

The Ohio SSGNs began life as ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) before they were refitted as underwater Arsenal Ships during the early-to-mid-2000s. During the conversion, twenty-two of the boat’s twenty-four ballistic-missile tubes were modified to receive a special canister that enables the storage and launch of seven TLAMs each, with the other two missile silos being adapted to support special operations for at least sixty-six Navy SEALs.

Following the conversion, the Ohio SSGN can carry 154 TLAMs, which is slightly more than half the total number of missiles expended during Operation Desert Storm. Moreover, the sub can launch its entire arsenal of Tomahawks in as little time as six minutes, making it an ideal platform to deliver a large “pulse” of firepower that would be crucial during the opening stages of a counter-A2/AD campaign. This pulse could be unleashed on air defense, command-and-control, and other key installations that enable the access-denial door to be knocked down. When that happens, carrier planes and the Air Force’s non-stealthy aircraft would then find it easier to “enter” the door in follow-up operations.

It is worth noting that during the deployment of USS Florida to Operation Odyssey Dawn—the first time the Ohio SSGN was in combat—some fifty of the 112 TLAMs that were used to cripple Libya’s air-defense network came from the Florida. Acknowledging the contributions of the TLAM-armed American submarines (the Florida and two smaller attack boats) in softening defenses during the Libyan campaign, then Rear Admiral Rick Breckenridge of the U.S. Navy noted that:

***“This [using subs to fire TLAMs] gets back [to the] principle (that if) we don’t have superiority in the air to have our way at the onset of a crisis, we’re going to need somebody who can penetrate the defenses and soften up the adversary so then we can flow those other forces in to establish air dominance. . . . So in the onset of that campaign. . . the undersea forces. . . were called upon to attack land targets in Libya.”

Tellingly, the Florida fired ninety-three of the 199 TLAMs used during the two-week-long Operation Odyssey Dawn.

In addition, the American SSGN’s large TLAM payload makes it unrivalled in terms of land attack compared to other similarly-armed U.S. Navy assets. To illustrate, the two most numerous nuclear-powered hunter-killer boats (SSNs) in Navy service—the Virginia- and Improved Los Angeles–class—carries only twelve Tomahawks. Similarly, the slated replacement for the Ohio SSGN, the Virginia-class SSN fitted with the Virginia Payload Module (VPM) is armed with a relatively meager forty TLAMs. While the VPM-equipped platforms are essentially SSGNs in all but designation, given that they carry forty missiles, this inventory could be depleted quickly during high-tempo operations against an opponent employing A2/AD measures.

The Ohio SSGN also overshadows its surface brethren in terms of TLAM capacity. While the Ticonderoga-class cruiser has a 122-cell VLS, one must bear in mind that a significant number—definitely more than half—of these cells will be taken up by surface-to-air missiles for fleet air defense. Ditto the Navy’s workhouse: the Arleigh Burke–class destroyer, with its either ninety- or ninety-six-cell VLS.

Given that a typical U.S. carrier strike group comprises a Ticonderoga and two Burkes, their combined Tomahawk payloads might not even match that of just one Ohio SSGN. To be sure, once the submarine fires off its entire inventory of TLAMs, it must return to port for resupply. However, this is also a problem that afflicts the American cruiser/destroyer force, as the U.S. has yet to solve the problem of how to carry out at-sea VLS replenishment. And while carrier aficionados may make the counterargument that the total firepower that could be delivered by the U.S. carrier air wing alone is equivalent to four thousand Tomahawks, such an assertion ignores the fact that the flattop would have to operate close to the enemy, as mentioned earlier.

Low Observability

Getting this immense firepower of the Ohio SSGN to bear on the enemy’s access-denial barrier is then greatly facilitated by the submarine’s stealth. For one, it goes without saying that the submarine is much harder to detect compared to the various U.S. Navy Tomahawk-armed surface combatants, and this eases considerably its penetration into an enemy’s inner sanctum.

Such is the Ohio SSBN’s quieting that Soviet/Russian hunter-killer boats loitering near American boomer bases have often been said to lose contact with their Ohio quarry not long after the former leave port for deployment. And out in the open sea, the Ohios operate almost silently, which is hardly surprising as they were designed to be credible nuclear second-strike platforms.

Moreover, the stealth of the Ohio SSGN means that it could launch its cruise missiles from a position further within the enemy’s A2/AD envelope. TLAM-armed surface ships would hesitate to operate any closer than nine hundred nautical miles (the range of the TLAM) from the enemy’s shore if the latter possesses credible anti-surface systems. On the other hand, the Ohio SSGN does not face this problem; as such, it could operate much nearer to the enemy and concomitantly be able to hit more targets inland.

Critics can contend that the firing of TLAMs would nullify the Ohio’s low-detectability advantage. This is because the launch of a missile underwater is a noisy affair, and the “flaming datum” would give away the position of the submarine, making it susceptible to enemy counter-attack. However, when the Ohio SSGN fires off its TLAMs, “clears datum” and resumes silent running, it becomes once again a virtual shadow in the sea.

The First. . . and Last of Its Kind?

All in all, the Ohio SSGN’s attributes of stealth and firepower makes it a robust candidate for partaking in “first day(s) of war” operations against near-peer competitors. However, the four American SSGNs currently in service are scheduled to retire in the period 2023–26, without a like-for-like replacement. With that, the U.S. Navy will lose a significant amount of its force-projection capabilities. To be sure, the Ohio SSGN’s supposed replacement—the VPM-equipped boat—scores high in the area of quieting, but it simply cannot stack up in terms of firepower, as its TLAM inventory is only one-quarter that of the Ohio.

Prima facie, it would therefore make sense for more Ohio boomers to be reconfigured as cruise-missile platforms. Indeed, such is the utility of the Ohio SSGN that former U.S. Navy captain Jerry Hendrix, a voracious carrier critic, made the point that the money spent on building the new Gerald R. Ford–class flattops would be better spent on acquiring many SSGNs. In the same vein, regular National Interest contributor James Hasik once put forth the case that the U.S. Navy should consider converting two more Ohio SSBNs into TLAM shooters.

Hypothetically, if Capitol Hill made the notional decision to begin such a conversion tomorrow, the two Ohio boomers next in line to be reconfigured—USS Henry M. Jackson (SSBN-730) and USS Alabama (SSBN-731)—will begin their lives as SSGNs only in the period 2018–19. as the conversion process takes two to three years. Given that these two submarines are slated to retire in 2026 and 2027, they will thus serve as SSGNs for less than a decade. Such a decision simply does not make monetary sense, as it costs about $890 million to reconfigure each boomer as a Tomahawk shooter. To spend almost a billion dollars for a platform that will be in active service for less than ten years is simply asinine.

The likelihood of the U.S. converting more SSBNs (even the newer ones from SSBN-732 through SSBN-743, which will retire in 2028–39) is essentially reduced to zilch if we consider the fact that the replacement for the Ohio ballistic-missile sub will enter service only from 2029, and reconfiguring more SSBNs as SSGNs will leave America with a glaring boomer “gap”. As a matter of fact, a top U.S. Navy official has argued that the current number of fourteen SSBNs is barely adequate to sustain the minimum of ten operational SSBNs for strategic requirements.

All that being said, it is virtually a cast-iron certainty that the Ohio SSGN will be the sole class of nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine to serve in the United States Navy. The chances of Washington deciding to have a purpose-built SSGN in the near future are extremely remote, to say the least. This state of affairs could change, however, if the international security system were to experience strategic shocks of seismic proportions, and it is the vehement wish of the author that such events will never happen.

Ben Ho Wan Beng is a Senior Analyst with the Military Studies Programme at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and he holds a master’s degree in strategic studies from the same institution.

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/get-ready-china-america-base-stealth-bombers-asia-15672

Get Ready, China: America to Base Stealth Bombers in Asia?

Dave Majumdar
April 3, 2016
Comments 617

During March, the U.S. Air Force deployed three of its twenty B-2 stealth bombers to the Asia-Pacific region for training. But should the United States consider permanently basing stealth bombers in the region?

In the case of the B-2, logistically it would probably not make any sense to permanently base the aircraft overseas with only twenty aircraft in the total fleet. However, the Pentagon hopes to buy between eighty and 100 new Northrop Grumman B-21 Long Range Strike-Bombers (LRS-B) in the 2020s. As China's power continues to grow, there is a case to made for basing some number of those aircraft in the region.

While American bases in Japan, South Korea and Guam might be vulnerable to Chinese missile attack, if the United States based B-21s in Hawaii, Alaska and Australia, it would shorten the distance those aircraft would have to travel. That would in turn increase sortie generation rates while also reducing the need for tankers if there were ever to be a conflict in the region. That would in turn increase the B-21’s deterrent effect. Basically, shortening the flight time has the same effect as increasing the fleet size.

Basing the B-21 in Alaska or Hawaii would not be a problem—those are on American soil. Both Hickam AFB in Hawaii and Elmendorf AFB in Alaska already host Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors and have facilities for maintaining stealth aircraft. The Air Force also hopes to station Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in Eielson AFB, Alaska, which will also have facilities to maintain stealth aircraft. However, the addition of a large stealth bomber contingent would mean the Air Force would have to expand those bases to host the new B-21.

Basing the B-21 alongside the F-22 and F-35 in the Asia-Pacific region would allow America’s stealth platforms to operate and train together routinely. That would increase the pilots’ familiarity with each others’ tactics and procedures—meaning those aviators would be that much more effective in the event of war. Basing the aircraft in Alaska has the added benefit of access to vast training ranges and the 18th Aggressor Squadron—which makes for more realistic training.

Basing the jet is Australia is somewhat more difficult since Canberra might not necessarily wish to host a unit of B-21s—China is Australia’s largest trading partner. But assuming the Australians agreed to host the stealth bombers, that would open up the possibility of combined training with Canberra’s forces and with those of other regional allies. Australia has vast open spaces for training and it plans to purchase the F-35—which opens up many possibilities.

Long-term, as Beijing grows increasingly powerful and assertive, short-range tactical fighter bases in Japan and South Korea will be increasingly vulnerable to concerted attack. Even Guam is probably not safe. However, Australia, Alaska and Hawaii—while not invulnerable to attack—are relatively safer from a Chinese attack in the event of a war. Thus, the Pentagon should consider the basing the B-21 at Hickam, Elmendorf and Eielson when the bomber becomes operational.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

 

[Housecarl]

The Financial Global Black Hole; The Panama Papers
Started by The Flying Dutchmaný, Yesterday 01:06 PM
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...ial-Global-Black-Hole-The-Panama-Papers/page2
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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-panama-tax-idUSKCN0X10C2

Business | Mon Apr 4, 2016 7:20pm EDT
Related: World, Regulatory News, Breakingviews

Prosecutors open probes as world's wealthy deny 'Panama Papers' links

LONDON/PANAMA CITY | By Kylie MacLellan and Elida Moreno

Video


Governments across the world began investigating possible financial wrongdoing by the rich and powerful on Monday after a leak of four decades of documents from a Panamanian law firm that specialized in setting up offshore companies.

The "Panama Papers" revealed financial arrangements of politicians and public figures including friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin, relatives of the prime ministers of Britain, Iceland and Pakistan, and the president of Ukraine.

While holding money in offshore companies is not illegal, journalists who received the leaked documents said they could provide evidence of wealth hidden for tax evasion, money laundering, sanctions busting, drug deals or other crimes.

The law firm, Mossack Fonseca, which says it has set up more than 240,000 offshore companies for clients around the globe, denied any wrongdoing and called itself the victim of a campaign against privacy. Mossack Fonseca, in a statement posted on its website on Monday, said media reports had "misrepresented the nature of our work."

"We routinely resign from client engagements when ongoing due diligence and updates to sanctions lists reveal that a beneficial owner of a company for which we provide services is compromised," it said.

The law firm added that "excluding the professional fees we earn, we do not take possession or custody of clients' money, or have anything to do with any of the direct financial aspects" of their business operations.

Leading figures responded to the leaks with denials as prosecutors and regulators began a review of the reports from the investigation by the U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).

The U.S. Department of Justice would determine whether there was evidence of corruption and other violations of U.S. law, a spokesman said. A White House spokesman said that "in spite of the lack of transparency that exists in many of these transactions," there were U.S. experts who could find out whether they violated sanctions and laws.

Financial prosecutors in France announced the opening of a preliminary investigation for aggravated tax fraud.

Germany would also “pick up the ball” in the case, a Finance Ministry spokesman said on Monday. Financial market watchdog Bafin is looking into the matter, said a source close to the regulator, which reports to the ministry.

Australia, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands were among other countries that said they had begun investigating the allegations based on more than 11.5 million documents. Banks came under the spotlight over allegations they helped clients hide their wealth offshore.

In Argentina, political opposition parties demanded an explanation from center-right President Mauricio Macri because he served as a director of an offshore company in the Bahamas related to his wealthy father's business in the past.

In a short television interview, Macri denied any wrongdoing and said the company his father founded was legal.


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"It was an offshore company to invest in Brazil, an investment that ultimately wasn't completed, and where I was director," Macri said. "There is nothing strange about this."

In Brazil, where a corruption crisis threatens President Dilma Rousseff's administration, the O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper said politicians from seven parties were named as Mossack Fonseca clients. They did not include politicians from Rousseff's Workers' Party.

Brazil's tax agency said it would verify information about offshore tax avoidance in the documents and could impose fines on undeclared assets in offshore accounts of up to 150 percent of their value.


FORTY YEARS

The documents, covering a period from 1977 until last December, were leaked to more than 100 news organizations around the world in cooperation with the ICIJ.

"I think the leak will prove to be probably the biggest blow the offshore world has ever taken because of the extent of the documents," ICIJ Director Gerard Ryle said.



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Tax probes after Panama Papers leak


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Amid Panama leaks, White House says U.S. values transparency

The Kremlin said the documents contained "nothing concrete and nothing new," while a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said his late father's reported links to an offshore company were a "private matter."

Pakistan denied any wrongdoing by the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after his daughter and son were linked to offshore companies.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko defended his commitment to transparency after lawmakers called for an investigation into allegations in the documents that he had used an offshore firm to avoid tax. Poroshenko purportedly moved his confectionery business, Roshen, to the British Virgin Islands in August 2014 as fighting between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists peaked.

"I believe I might be the first top official in Ukraine who treats declaring of assets, paying taxes, conflict of interest issues seriously," Poroshenko tweeted.

Iceland's prime minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, faced calls for his resignation after ICIJ said he and his wife were connected with a secretive company in an offshore haven. His political opposition filed a no-confidence motion.

"I certainly won't (resign) because what we've seen is the fact that, well, my wife has always paid her taxes. We've also seen that she has avoided any conflict of interest by investing in Icelandic companies at the same time that I'm in politics," he told Reuters TV.

Britain's Guardian newspaper said the documents showed a network of secret offshore deals and loans worth $2 billion led to associates of Putin, including concert cellist Sergei Roldugin, a childhood friend of the president. Reuters could not confirm those details.


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› France opens probe after Panama leaks

Putin's spokesman dismissed the reports as "Putinophobia".

The British government asked for a copy of the leaked data, which could be embarrassing for Cameron, who has spoken out against tax evasion and tax avoidance.

His late father, Ian Cameron, a wealthy stockbroker, is mentioned in the files, alongside some members of his Conservative Party, former Conservative lawmakers and party donors, British media said.

Jennie Granger, head of enforcement and compliance at HM Revenue and Customs, said the government would examine the information "and act on it swiftly and appropriately."

Cameron's spokeswoman declined to comment on whether the leader's family had money invested in offshore funds set up by his father, saying it was a "private matter".

The Australian Tax Office said it was investigating more than 800 wealthy Mossack Fonseca clients and had linked more than 120 of them to an associate offshore service provider located in Hong Kong, which it did not name.

"We regret any misuse of companies that we incorporate or the services we provide and take steps to uncover or stop such use," the law firm's statement said.

Media reports said the leaked data pointed to a link between a member of global soccer body FIFA's ethics committee and a Uruguayan soccer official arrested last year as part of a U.S. probe into corruption in the sport. Mossack Fonseca said it had "no connection or involvement with these matters in any way."

The British-based Tax Justice Network said too many offshore lawyers, accountants and bankers saw it as their role to shield their clients from financial regulations. Director John Christensen said in a statement that the law firm operated with "extreme secrecy and discretion" for their clients, "which was attractive to many clients engaged in tax evasion, fraud, hiding conflicts of interest, and other white collar crimes."

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which has pushed for more transparency on taxes, said Panama "must put its house in order." OECD said it had warned G20 finance ministers before the leaks that Panama was backtracking on a commitment to share information on accounts with other governments.

"The consequences of Panama's failure to meet the international tax transparency standards are now out there in full public view," OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria said in a statement.


(Reporting by Reuters bureaux, Additional reporting by Andreas Kroener in Frankfurt and Matthias Sobolewski in Berlin; Writing by Angus MacSwan and Grant McCool; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Peter Cooney)