WAR 08-29-2015-to-09-04-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

[Housecarl]

(178) 08-07-2015-to-08-14-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...14-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(179) 08-15-2015-to-08-21-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...21-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

(180) 08-22-2015-to-08-28-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...28-2015_____****THE****WINDS****of****WAR****

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/29/us-afghanistan-blast-idUSKCN0QY09U20150829

World | Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:26am EDT
Related: World, Afghanistan

Two large explosions heard in Afghanistan's Kabul

KABUL

Two large explosions were heard in Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Saturday, but the cause was not immediately clear.

(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/29/us-nigeria-spy-cell-idUSKCN0QY06020150829

World | Sat Aug 29, 2015 4:28am EDT
Related: World, Africa

Nigeria says uncovers Boko Haram spy ring at Abuja airport

ABUJA

Nigeria has uncovered a spy cell run by militant Islamist group Boko Haram at the international airport in the capital Abuja apparently aimed at selecting targets for attack, the country's national security agency said.

In a statement late on Friday, the Department of State Services (DSS) said it discovered the ring on Monday and was working with aviation authorities to pre-empt any attack.

President Muhammadu Buhari has made halting Boko Haram's six-year-old insurgency a priority, but a Reuters tally shows the jihadist group has killed more than 700 people in Nigeria in bomb attacks and shootings since he came to office on May 29.

The DSS said it had arrested a 14-year-old boy who said he had been instructed to spy on the airport's security procedures, including passenger screening and boarding processes, and report what he had learned.

It said the man who directed the boy had not been located.

"The service, in liaison with the aviation security of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, disrupted a spying network mounted by the Boko Haram terrorists," DSS spokesman Tony Opuiyo said in the statement.

"The service is working closely with major aviation stakeholders, especially the Aviation Security Department, to forestall any possible attack and to ensure adequate security at the airports."

Boko Haram, whose insurgency mainly focuses on the northeast, has carried out some attacks in Abuja including the bombing of the U.N. headquarters in the city four years ago, which killed 23 people.

The insurgents have waged a bloody campaign to create a state adhering to strict Islamic law in the northeast of Africa's most populous state that has left thousands dead and forced around 1.5 million people to flee their homes since 2009.

Boko Haram scattered earlier this tear after an army counter-offensive ousted it from most of the territory it had gained. But the jihadists have since returned to a strategy of selective attacks in which they have bombed or fired on targets in public places such as markets and places of worship.


(Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/29/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0QY04520150829

World | Sat Aug 29, 2015 4:53am EDT
Related: World, Syria

Local Syrian ceasefires break down as shelling resumes

BEIRUT

A ceasefire in a Syrian town near the Lebanese border and in two villages to the north has broken down after renewed heavy shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Saturday.

The truce between the Syrian army and the Lebanese group Hezbollah on the one side, and Syrian insurgents on the other, came into effect on Thursday in the western town of Zabadani and the Shi'ite Muslim villages of Kefraya and al-Foua in the northwest.

Local ceasefires in Syria's four-year conflict have tended to be fragile, and U.N. attempts to forge larger truces in other parts of the country, notably in the northern city of Aleppo, have come to nothing.

The ceasefire in the three areas had been extended late on Friday but had collapsed by the morning, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Britain-based Observatory.

Insurgents fired around 200 shells into areas in and around Kefraya and al-Foua early on Saturday, and Syrian warplanes carried out raids elsewhere in the province, he said.

Sources on both sides said talks were continuing despite the ceasefire breach. The negotiations on the rebel side have been led by the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group.

The sides had discussed evacuating the wounded from the three areas under the ceasefire but so far none have been transported out, the Observatory said.

Zabadani has been at the center an offensive by Hezbollah and the Syrian army against insurgent groups. The area is important to the Syrian government because of its proximity to the capital Damascus and the Lebanese border.

The two villages, in the province of Idlib, have been under attack by insurgents. The area borders Turkey and is mostly rebel-controlled after advances against the military this year.


(Reporting by Sylvia Westall and Mariam Karouny; editing by John Stonestreet)

 

[Lilbitsnana]

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For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/29/us-afghanistan-blast-idUSKCN0QY09U20150829

World | Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:26am EDT
Related: World, Afghanistan

Two large explosions heard in Afghanistan's Kabul

KABUL

Two large explosions were heard in Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Saturday, but the cause was not immediately clear.

(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Steve Herman ‏@W7VOA 29m29 minutes ago

Steve Herman retweeted Abubakar Gharzai

Update on blasts in Kabul, #Afghanistan:

Steve Herman added,

Abubakar Gharzai @AbubakarGharzai
@BethanyMatta Heard it was a demining controlled explosion

 

[Lilbitsnana]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/29/us-mideast-crisis-syria-idUSKCN0QY04520150829

World | Sat Aug 29, 2015 4:53am EDT
Related: World, Syria

Local Syrian ceasefires break down as shelling resumes

BEIRUT

A ceasefire in a Syrian town near the Lebanese border and in two villages to the north has broken down after renewed heavy shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said on Saturday.

The truce between the Syrian army and the Lebanese group Hezbollah on the one side, and Syrian insurgents on the other, came into effect on Thursday in the western town of Zabadani and the Shi'ite Muslim villages of Kefraya and al-Foua in the northwest.

Local ceasefires in Syria's four-year conflict have tended to be fragile, and U.N. attempts to forge larger truces in other parts of the country, notably in the northern city of Aleppo, have come to nothing.

The ceasefire in the three areas had been extended late on Friday but had collapsed by the morning, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Britain-based Observatory.

Insurgents fired around 200 shells into areas in and around Kefraya and al-Foua early on Saturday, and Syrian warplanes carried out raids elsewhere in the province, he said.

Sources on both sides said talks were continuing despite the ceasefire breach. The negotiations on the rebel side have been led by the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group.

The sides had discussed evacuating the wounded from the three areas under the ceasefire but so far none have been transported out, the Observatory said.

Zabadani has been at the center an offensive by Hezbollah and the Syrian army against insurgent groups. The area is important to the Syrian government because of its proximity to the capital Damascus and the Lebanese border.

The two villages, in the province of Idlib, have been under attack by insurgents. The area borders Turkey and is mostly rebel-controlled after advances against the military this year.


(Reporting by Sylvia Westall and Mariam Karouny; editing by John Stonestreet)

AFAIK, it was only a 48 hr temporary ceasefire to begin with. It was supposed to end at 6 AM Saturday (Syria time).

tweet I posted on the 26th:

Jewish Feed ‏@JewishFeed 16m16 minutes ago

BREAKING: 48h Cease-fire declared between #Hezbollah #SAA & #Ahrar #JN in Zabadani starting 6 am this morning until 6 am Saturday morning

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/show...AEL-heating-up-again...&p=5750911#post5750911

 

[Housecarl]

Steve Herman þ@W7VOA 29m29 minutes ago

Steve Herman retweeted Abubakar Gharzai

Update on blasts in Kabul, #Afghanistan:

Steve Herman added,

Abubakar Gharzai @AbubakarGharzai
@BethanyMatta Heard it was a demining controlled explosion

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/29/us-afghanistan-blast-idUSKCN0QY09U20150829

World | Sat Aug 29, 2015 7:07am EDT
Related: World, Afghanistan

Controlled explosions shake Afganistan's Kabul

KABUL

Two large explosions heard in Afghanistan's capital Kabul on Saturday were controlled blasts by deminers, the city's deputy police chief said.

Sayed Gul Agha Rohani told Reuters that police were questioning the demining team because it had not warned authorities in advance of their activity.

(Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel and Abdul Aziz Ibrahimi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/a-military-game-of-chicken-in-the-south-china-sea/

A Military Game of Chicken in the South China Sea?

The South China Sea problem has been militarized and internationalized: what now?

By Piin-Fen Kok
August 28, 2015

571 Shares
23 Comments

Despite China’s protestations against discussing the issue, the South China Sea was front and center at this month’s meetings between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other regional players in Kuala Lumpur. Amid criticisms of China’s island-reclamation activities, the U.S. and China continued to trade accusations that the other is militarizing the South China Sea. Meanwhile, China maintained its objection, to no avail, to internationalizing the South China Sea issue through the involvement of non-ASEAN members.

The ship has sailed on both fronts. Now, more than ever, the South China Sea has become both a military and international issue. Given how all parties appear to have dug deeper into their positions, the situation looks unlikely to change anytime soon.

While Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi told his ASEAN counterparts that China has halted its reclamation of artificial islands on atolls and reefs in disputed parts of the Spratly Islands, it is proceeding with the construction of military installations on some of those islands.

Alarmed by the unprecedented scale on which China has conducted its reclamation activities (and is seeking to project force from these reclaimed features), the U.S., the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and others have engaged in a flurry of maritime patrols and joint exercises. The Chinese navy itself recently conducted large-scale air and sea drills, although it states that those were routine drills planned far in advance and not aimed at any third parties.

Southeast Asian countries are also building up their maritime military capabilities as part of a broader trend of increased defense spending in the region. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, defense expenditures in Southeast Asia rose by 44 percent, in real terms, between 2005 and 2014, reaching $35.9 billion in 2014. Vietnam, whose territorial claims overlap the most with China among all Southeast Asian claimants, increased its defense spending by 128 percent during this period and by 9.6 percent in 2014 alone.

Efforts to manage and contain tensions in the South China Sea are also now involving players beyond the territorial claimants—China, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei—and, for that matter, ASEAN, which is still negotiating a code of conduct with China.

The U.S. involved itself several years ago, when then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at an ASEAN Regional Forum meeting in Hanoi in July 2010 that the United States has a “national interest” in freedom of navigation and would be willing to facilitate multilateral talks on the South China Sea issue.

Japan, which is involved in a territorial dispute with China in the East China Sea, has lent its political support to Vietnam and the Philippines, has proposed to participate in surveillance patrols in the area, has provided a patrol vessel to Vietnam and may do likewise to the Philippines—actions that could threaten Japan’s tenuous rapprochement with China. Australia, India and most recently, Britain, have also voiced concerns about the situation in the South China Sea.

Given the $5 trillion in global trade that passes through the South China Sea, the international attention is unsurprising, especially if the ability to navigate vital shipping routes could be compromised. However, the varying definitions of “freedom of navigation,” particularly as it relates to permitted (especially military) activities in exclusive economic zones (EEZs), have been an ongoing source of contention, prompting China to articulate its position on the limits to freedom of navigation following the ASEAN meetings.

Between the U.S. and China, such differences have already given rise to several dangerous incidents at sea and in the air over the years. These include the deadly collision between a U.S. navy EP-3 surveillance plane and a Chinese J-8 fighter jet in 2001, the 2009 harassment of the USNS Impeccable by Chinese vessels, and more recently, the buzzing of a U.S. navy P-8 plane by a Chinese J-11 fighter jet in 2014. (All these episodes occurred off the coast of Hainan.)

Even as external parties have become more vocal about their concerns, they have made it a point to distinguish between taking an interest in managing the situation and choosing sides on the territorial claims themselves. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel drew that distinction when he remarked that the U.S. remains neutral about the merits of the sovereignty claims but is “not neutral” when it comes to the resolution of disputes in accordance with international law. Yet he has also shown how delicate that balance is, having previously publicly questioned the legal validity of the nine-dashed line, which forms the basis of China’s territorial claims.

A greater source of potential conflict is what now appears to be an increasing propensity of all parties to turn to military deterrence to defend their interests in the South China Sea. This trend will be difficult to reverse as long as each side perceives others to be raising the stakes—which makes the implementation of maritime confidence-building measures (CBMs) all the more important at this juncture.

The most significant CBM would be a binding code of conduct between ASEAN and China, negotiations on which are proceeding slowly. On the more immediate front, China and ASEAN are reportedly in discussions to establish a hotline to deal with emergencies in the South China Sea. The United States and China are making good on their November 2014 agreements on two sets of military confidence-building measures, regarding the notification of major military activities and rules of behavior for air and maritime encounters. As part of this process, both governments are aiming to agree on an annex on air-to-air encounters by September 2015, to complement the rules on at-sea encounters that have already been agreed upon.

More broadly in the region, the U.S., Chinese and other navies have begun practicing the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea during joint exercises or routine maritime operations.

But CBMs alone are not sufficient if the default position is still to undertake risky behavior. Such risky behavior could be in the form of reckless or aggressive actions by vessel crew that lead to inadvertent conflict. Tensions could also escalate when parties act on threat assessments based on suspicion or a lack of clarity regarding the other’s strategic intentions.

In short, CBMs that seek to avoid or mitigate the risk of maritime clashes need to be accompanied by efforts to facilitate an environment that constrains the tendency for conflict. Such efforts could include: toning down inflammatory rhetoric and breaking the vicious cycle of alternately ratcheting such rhetoric up and down; encouraging constructive behavior, or at least discouraging (or refraining from) provocative behavior (the latter is formalized in the ASEAN-China Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea); and maintaining open channels of communication through which all sides are willing to explain their respective positions on the issues and talk to, not past, one another.

As the meetings in Malaysia showed, those are tougher to materialize: Harsh rhetoric abounded, and the countries could not agree on the halting of provocative actions. Yet, an alternative would be a much more dangerous scenario that would allow such differences to play out in a game of military “chicken” in and above increasingly crowded waters.


Piin-Fen Kok is director of the China, East Asia and United States program at the EastWest Institute. This piece was originally published on the EastWest Institute website.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm..........

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2015/08/south-koreas-militarization-as-seen-on-facebook/

South Korea's Militarization, as Seen on Facebook

Younger South Koreans tend to be “national security conservatives,” and their social media posts reflect this.

By Steven Denney
August 28, 2015

575 Shares
16 Comments

Katherine Moon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, observed in a recent interview on Japan-South Korea relations that “South Korea is one of the most militarized societies in the world.” Given its perception of vulnerability and the prerogative of nation building (and nation maintaining), conscription in South Korea has been mandatory since 1965. The current Conscription Law, although modified several times since its implementation, is still a defining characteristic of South Korean society.

Among other studies, Seungsook Moon’s Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea explores the politics of belonging and identity in South Korean society. Moon shows how an anti-communist national identity was cultivated and men instrumentalized by the state through mandatory conscription. Women were treated as reproducers of the nation – a “good wife and wise mother,” as the saying goes.

While the growth of South Korea’s civil society, and efforts to make a more inclusive, less-militaristic society have somewhat succeeded, it would be wrong to suggest that South Korean society is no longer militarized, as Katherine Moon points out. Indeed, as I argue in my comparison of theatrical reproductions of Ahn Jung-geun and the Clint Eastwood film American Sniper, both South Korea and the United States share the common characteristics of glorifying battle and valorizing violent struggle.

Some notable effects of South Korea’s militarization may have shown themselves in some of the responses to North Korea’s most recent provocation. A Chosun Ilbo article from August 23 showcases messages posted on Facebook and other SNS from military reservists in their 20s and 30s (service in the reserves is compulsory for a number of years following the end of mandatory service). The messages underscore what seems to be an eagerness among young South Koreans to defend the republic against a bellicose North Korea.

One highlighted comment reads, “I am waiting. All you need to do is call. Loyalty! [Loyalty, or chungseong, is uttered when saluting.]“ Other comments highlighted include, “I am ready to do battle at any time,” and “Don’t forget about me just because I am a reservists; you will see me in Pyongyang.”

While some may dismiss the Chosun article for over-exaggerating the representativeness of a handful of online comments, recent data shows that younger South Koreans are “national security conservatives.” Seoul National University sociology professor Kim Seok-ho, in a Chosun Ilbo article entitled “Koreans in their 20s More Patriotic,” suggests this conservative disposition may be a response to the events of 2010: “Because they experienced the sinking of the Navy corvette Cheonan and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in their teens or early adulthood, they may have developed conservative and nationalistic views.”

It is yet to be seen whether the militaristic attitude reflected in the online comments and the broader conservative attitude among young South Koreans is a new normal. It is, however, something to closely watch.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......Remember this being bounced around in the US as an option in dealing with the illegal immigration problem......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/28/iran-s-surprising-new-foreign-legion.html

Persian Patriots

08.28.154:00 PM ET

Iran’s Surprising New Foreign Legion

Want to become an Iranian citizen? A new law is about to make that a whole lot easier—but you’re going to have to fight for it—literally.

One of the foremost critiques of U.S. President Obama’s Iran deal is that the promise of more than $100 billion in sanctions relief will invigorate the Islamic Republic with funds to continue its covert wars throughout the Middle East. Even the president noted at a recent White House press conference Iran’s “support for terrorism” and “its use of proxies to destabilize parts of the Middle East.” The Islamic Republic of Iran, since its founding in 1979, has sought to “export the Islamic revolution”— which its leaders see as still unfolding. Indeed, Iran has shown no signs of dialing back on these efforts in the region since the nuclear accord was announced.

Now Iran’s parliament is considering a new law that will give Iran more fighters for questionable military pursuits.

The following is adapted from an article by Nargess Tavassolian published on IranWire.

Iranian members of Parliament have taken steps to award foreign nationals with citizenship in exchange for the small price of taking up arms for Iran.

Proposed amendments to Iran’s Civil Code under the name “Facilitating Naturalization of non-Iranian Veterans, Warriors and Elites” will offer citizenship to foreigners who join Iranian military units—be it border patrol, militias confronting the so-called “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria, groups involved with public order operations, or any of Iran’s less “official” military initiatives, including support for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Under the amendments, “revolutionary heroes” can become citizens without undergoing existing naturalization requirements.

Parliamentarians who signed the bill say those who “serve the revolution,” including people who have contributed to Iran’s scientific progress, will be entitled to easier access to the citizenship they deserve. Yet human-rights activists and lawyers say the amendments are part of a political and militaristic strategy to entice immigrants, who have resided illegally in the country since 1979, into fighting Iran’s proxy wars.

The amendments are part of a political and militaristic strategy to entice immigrants, who have resided illegally in the country since 1979, into fighting Iran’s proxy wars.

If passed, the amendment to Article 980 will allow a new working group—the Committee for Granting Naturalization to non-Iranian Veterans, Warriors and Elites—to decide if a non-Iranian “revolutionary” will be granted Iranian citizenship. The MPs who tabled the bill on January 12 include several conservative parliamentarians who are currently waiting for their amendment to be reviewed.

Who does this new law affect and what is it really trying to achieve?

“After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan [in 1979], the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran opened its doors to Afghans, arguing that Islam does not recognize any borders,” explains Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human-rights lawyer and 2003 Nobel Peace laureate. “At that time, around 4 million Afghans came to Iran, but only around 10 percent of them managed to obtain residency permits.” The rest, she explains, remained illegally, and were thus denied basic rights which citizens enjoy. “At that time,” Ebadi continues, “Iran had begun an eight-year war with Iraq and was naturally in need of inexpensive labor. Iran took advantage of illegal Afghan workers to satisfy this need.” But when the war ended, the policy remained.

Decades later during the Arab Spring upheaval in the region, the Iranian government became deeply involved in attempts to stabilize Iraq and Syria. But it was important, Ebadi states, for Iran not to be seen to be intervening. To do this, it chose to use Afghans, who were residing illegally in Iran, in its proxy wars, offering residency permits as incentives. As further encouragement, she says, “MPs introduced a new bill that would grant naturalization to non-Iranians who fought in these proxy wars on behalf of Iran.”

Under the current law, individuals “who have rendered services or notable assistance to public interests in Iran” may apply for citizenship. Nationality is also available to “those who have Iranian wives by whom they have children, or who have attained high intellectual distinctions, or who have specialized in affairs of public interest.” These applicants do not need residency before applying—but they do still need the approval of the Council of Ministers. And now, under the new proposals, not only will “veterans, warriors and elites” not need residency, but they will also no longer have to wait for the Council of Ministers to approve their naturalization.

Ebadi says that the inclusion of the term “elites” in the proposed bill is actually an attempt to conceal the real objective of the law, and the agenda of those who drafted it: fueling proxy wars. It is obvious, she argues, when looking at who the committee will be comprised of, that any such applications are unlikely to be successful, especially given that “the majority of its members are not representatives of Iran’s scientific community and hence are not qualified to decide on such matters.”

Many members of the so-called elite have found the scientific and political environment in Iran to be so impoverished that they have chosen to leave, resulting in a significant brain drain. “It is really a pity that some people who bear the title of representative sit in parliament and, instead of thinking about Iran’s national interest and reputation, are more interested in enabling war in the region,” said Ebadi.

Legal expert Mousa Barzin Khalifeloo agrees that if approved, the bill could have negative consequences for Iran. Barzin notes that countries who attempt to raise their nation’s human capital “facilitate naturalization for businessmen and women. Some countries, in order to bring in expertise, give certain advantages to foreign scientists and elites. But it is obvious by looking at this draft naturalization law that the Iranian government wants to ‘give privileges to non-Iranians who cooperate on military or intelligence issues with the Iranian government.’” Barzin says this strategy becomes even more evident when considering “the high number of non-Iranians who have cooperated with the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Sepah).”

As Ebadi suggests, the law will work against some of the most vulnerable people in Iran, sending many of them straight to the battlefield. And, at the same time, other hardline policies continue to drive those with skills, expertise, and innovation out of the country to seek a better future, despite the fact that these intellectual “elites” are the real crusaders the Islamic Republic needs.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2015/08/29/weekly_recon_823-829_108421.html

August 29, 2015
Weekly Recon: 8/23-8/29
By Blake Baiers

Welcome to the Weekly Recon. On this day in 1945 US forces under General George Marshall landed in Japan. This advance guard of 150 American technicians landed at Atsugi airfield, near Yokohama. For the first time, the Allies set foot on Japanese soil. Their arrival has been delayed for 48 hours by the forecast of a typhoon.

This week saw a lot of buzz about weapons systems. A major, long awaited, contract was awarded, an epic close-air-support ‘battle royal’ was announced, and the global arms market heated up.

JLTV Goes to Oshkosh – For now

So long as you haven’t been in a coma for the past four days, you have probably been inundated with myriad articles letting you know that the Army’s Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) contract went to Oshkosh Defense. The contract is for an initial batch of 17,000 vehicles, but the Army hope to buy ~49,000 vehicles by 2040. The Marines are to get 5,500 of the first batch of JLTVs, but they do not plan to purchase any more of the vehicles so to divert funds to their planned Amphibious Combat Vehicle (ACV). Whether or not the Wisconsin company will keep the contract is up in the air. There is still a chance a different design could be produced in Indiana or Arkansas.

The Oshkosh design, which it calls the L-ATV, is a scaled down version of the company’s M-ATV that was used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. The award of this contract helps to lock down Oshkosh’s preeminence in the world of military trucks. Oshkosh was awarded contracts for both medium and heavy trucks within the past year. Having won the JLTV contest, Oshkosh will supply trucks across the size spectrum for the Army and Marines, leaving little room for competition.

Oshkosh’s JLTV competitors, Lockheed Martin and AM General (the producer of the Humvee), have the option to contest the award of the contract, but neither company has filed such a request to the Government Accountability Office yet.

Both companies planned to produce their vehicles in the districts of Congressional heavy hitters from both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, so they will have ample support in Congress should a fight over the contract be sparked.

AM General’s factory is located in Mishawaka, IN, nestled in the district of Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., a member of the House Armed Services Committee. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, could also step in to defend AM General.

Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., represents the district that Lockheed Martin planned to build their JLTV in, had it been awarded the contract. Cotton is an outspoken member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and said the following in a statement released after the JLTV award was announced:

“I am disappointed the Army did not select Lockheed Martin to build the JLTV,” he said.” I am confident the work and infrastructure Lockheed Martin put in place to bid on this project will bring other economic benefits. And as Lockheed Martin explores their next steps, we stand ready to assist them however we can.”

Time will tell what happens with the JLTV, and who will produce it in the end. The only thing that is for sure is that the sun has set on the era of the Humvee, for Americans at least.


F-35 vs. A-10 vs. Scorpion -- Should Textron Get its ‘Rocky’ Moment?

Earlier this week it was announced that the A-10 would to go head to head with the F-35 in a test to compare each aircraft’s close-air-support (CAS) capabilities. The test is scheduled for 2018, a necessary delay since the F-35’s gun will not be operational until 2017.

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Welsh initially wrote off the test as “silly,” only to later come out in support of the exercise saying it, “is the only way to ensure a new weapon system meets the requirements we established.”

This challenge can be compared to the mid-1980s ‘classic’, Rocky 4. The low-tech, but sturdy crowd favorite, the A-10 (Rocky), will go up against the state-of-the-art, shiny new wonder-weapon, the F-35 (Capt. Ivan Drago), in a high profile fight.

Much like Rocky, the A-10 has been called too old to stay in the fight. Also like Rocky (and Sylvester Stallone), the A-10 is doing its best to hide its age. Several A-10s have been deployed in recent months to Europe, as a show of force to deter Russian aggression, and the Middle East, to combat ISIS.

Although the aircraft has recently been deployed, and is a revered CAS platform, the Air Force is still trying to retire it by 2019. Should that happen, there would be a void in CAS capabilities that many fear the F-35 cannot fill. If the 2018 test gives credence to these fears, the Air Force could be in hot water with the other branches that depend on their life-saving CAS.

Back to the Rocky 4 analogy - what if the A-10 played the part of Apollo Creed, and not Rocky? Perhaps a new Rocky could emerge from the field of alternatives as a more capable CAS platform than the F-35. The only way to know for sure is to allow other competitors into the 2018 test.

Take for example the Textron-AirLand Scorpion, the option most comparable to the A-10. It is readily available and relatively cheap. The F-35 is slated to cost an average of $135M per unit, while the Scorpion costs only $20M per base unit. The Scorpion costs around $3,000 per flight hour, an operational cost much cheaper than the A-10 and F-35. It is also cheaper to maintain, as it uses several off-the-shelf commercial aviation parts. These attributes have drawn the attention of foreign buyers. Bulgaria and the United Kingdom have both shown interest in the aircraft.

The Air Force has hinted that it is looking for an A-10 replacement - could the Scorpion fit the bill? There’s only one way to find out.

Big Week for Global Arms Trade

This week saw a lot of activity in the global arms market.

It may be a bad time to buy European food goods in Russia, but it appears to be a good time to buy weapons systems from Moscow. China is in nearing the closure of a deal to buy Russian Su-35s. Indonesia is also buying Su-35s. Iran plans to also buy Russian fighter jets, and is still in talks with Russia to buy S-300 missiles, which has the Pentagon upset. Pakistan bought Russian helicopters, and has shown interest in Russian fixed-wing trainer aircraft. Bangladesh, too, is purchasing Russian made helicopters, with assistance from Moscow. Belarus plans to purchase Russian trainer aircraft. Russia’s weapons deals in the Middle East threaten to shake up the regional market. Russia is seeking to land more arms deals by courting buyers at its MAKS-2015 Airshow.

South Sudan was in the news this week after President Salva Kiir signed a peace deal to end the country’s 20-month long civil war. A UN report was released showing that Chinese and Israeli weapons imports had been fueling that conflict. The South Sudanese military had also been flying Russian made Mi-24 Hind helicopters, which it did not operate before the outbreak of the war.

Weapons deals emerged elsewhere, too: Thailand is buying helicopters from Europe. Pakistan is buying AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters from Bell Helicopters, through the Pentagon. France is being courted by at least 12 nations to purchase its Mistral-class ships after their sale to Russia was canceled in response to the latter’s actions in Ukraine. Australia is looking to possibly acquire Japanese submarines.

If you would like to continue the weapons sales theme into your weekend, Lord of War is now streaming on Netflix.


Defense World

NORTH KOREA: Before the deal between North and South Korea was reached, Pyongyang ordered 70% of the nation’s submarine fleet to deploy. After a deal was reached the subs began returning to their bases.

U.S. NAVY: Politicians and analysts are calling for a larger Navy, but can the U.S. afford it?

CHINA/US: Climate change and U.S. military strategy, a potential for cooperation with the Chinese.

NORAD: After recent breaches by small aircraft, NORAD tested radar vulnerabilities in the Washington DC area in an effort to combat the threat of gyrocopters and ultra-light aircraft.

U.S./S. Korea: The U.S. will send B-2 Bombers to Guam in support the Republic of Korea.

INTELLIGENCE: The Pentagon is investigating whether or not intelligence reports on ISIS were ‘skewed.’

INTELLIGENCE: The U.S. spy agencies are like old-school porn – but that’s changing.

HI-TECH: The U.S. Military got a guidebook to the ‘cloud.’

U.S. MILITARY: Number One Priority: Nuclear Deterrence.

NATO: The U.S. and NATO members are preparing for hybrid warfare.

SAUDI ARABIA/YEMEN: Saudi ground forces have entered Yemen for the first time.

U.S. NAVY: The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower has left the Norfolk Shipyard after undergoing 2 years of repairs.

U.S. Military: A new approach to combat training for troops is being fielded that is designed to help combat PTSD.

UKRAINE: The Ukrainian military fell short of its most recent conscription goals, which threatens another round of conscription, or possibly a draft.

IRAQ: Suicide bombing kills 2 Iraqi generals.

PENTAGON: The Pentagon denies that it is reviewing the number of F-35s to be purchased.

PENTAGON: Defense contractors are saying that the Pentagon moved too fast on new cyber rules following recent data breeches, and that contracts will now be retroactively rewritten.

LOCKHEED MARTIN: Lockheed Martin was fined $4.8M for using taxpayer money to fund lobbying efforts to secure a federal contract.


National Security - 2016

Here is where the 2016 candidates stand on the Iran Deal.

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz will hold a joint anti-Iran rally on Capitol Hill.

Is Donald Trump the person to solve the Israel-Palestine dispute?

Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., laid out an aggressive foreign policy agenda in a speech at the Citadel, told Obama he should call off China’s Xi Jinping’s state visit to the U.S., and had an exchange of words with Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations, on the Morning Joe.

Marco Rubio also criticized the Chinese leader’s visit this week.

In 2011 Vice President Joe Biden implored President Obama not to give the go-ahead for the SEAL raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden, a fact that could hurt him in a 2016 Run.

Ben Carson has called for the use of drones to destroy caves along the U.S.-Mexican border so to deny individuals from illegally entering the country, but not to kill anyone.

Jeb Bush called for the end of sequestration of the military.


Word on the Hill

The Senate Cyber-Security bill hinges on 22 amendments.

Retired Generals and Admirals sent an open letter to congress urging lawmakers to reject the Iran nuclear deal. The deal seems imminent, however, as now critics of the deal are in agreement that defeat is on the horizon and they move to avoid a filibuster so to save face and maintain any political points secured in their speaking out against the deal.


Acquisition Alley

PENTAGON: The Department of Defense’s first partnership with a Silicon Valley was announced this week, and will be for the procurement of flexible electronics. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter visited Silicon Valley to make the announcement, where wary ‘techies’ apprehensively greeted him.

U.S. ARMY: The U.S. Army is set to choose a new landing craft.

BIG DATA: The Pentagon is making a big bet on big data.

RAYTHEON: The Patriot Missile system is getting updated radar to help stay ahead of adversaries.

RAYTHEON: The AIM-9X Sidewinder missile, generally and air-to-air missile, was tested as a ground based surface-to-air weapon system.

LOCKHEED MARTIN: Lockheed has moved forward with its blended wing hybrid transport jet design.

BOEING: Boeing was awarded a $1.49B contract to build an extra 13 P-8A Poseidon maritime surveillance aircraft.

BOEING: The U.S. Air Force is reviewing the KC-46 schedule after recent setbacks.

BOEING: This week Boeing showed off its new, compact drone killing laser cannon.

SOF: Special Operations Forces are interested in ‘motopeds.’

POLARIS: Polaris has begun delivering a new batch of off-road vehicles for use by U.S. Special Operations Command troops.

CYBER: As vehicles become more reliant on technology, fear of hacking and the need for vehicle-level cybersecurity is on the rise.

RUSSIA: The Russian military has plans to revive Soviet-era armored trains.

GERMANY: The German Army will begin replacing the G36 rifles of its soldiers on active duty with HK417 rifles to correct accuracy issues with the G36 until a final decision on a replacement can be reached.

PAKISTAN: The Pakistani nuclear arsenal may very well be the 3rd largest in the world.

JAPAN: The Japanese Navy has launched an Izumo-Class Helicopter Carrier.


Quartermaster’s Closet

The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) has been updated for the 21st century battlefield.

Magpul released a new double-duty front sight post.

President Obama announced a pay increase for military personnel of 1.3% in 2016.

Sightmark released a new line of pistol-lasers.

Tailgating season is upon us, so make sure to get your Battle Mug, complete with picatinny rails and M-4 carry handle.

Check out Beretta’s M4, the civilian version of the military’s M1014.

If you’re in the market for an AR-15, don’t expect to find one at Walmart.

Make sure to pick up a Chest Rig tie, made in the USA by transitioning veterans in a vocational rehabilitation program.

If your spice cabinet is short on saffron and you need to restock, look no further than Rumi Spice, a veteran owned and operated company that imports Afghan saffron directly from farmers.


Blake Baiers is an Assistant Editor at RealClearDefense. You can follow him on Twitter at @BlakeBaiers.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://news.yahoo.com/coalition-pounds-yemen-rebels-sets-sights-capital-130555105.html

Coalition pounds Yemen rebels, sets sights on capital

AFP
4 hours ago

Aden (AFP) - Warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition hit Yemen rebel positions Saturday as reinforcements reached pro-government forces preparing for an anticipated advance towards the capital, military sources said.


Related Stories

1. Yemen loyalists take back another province from rebels AFP
2. Gulf-backed government loyalists advance in Yemen AFP
3. More than 80 killed in heavy fighting for key Yemen city AFP
4. Yemen army recruits 4,800 southern fighters: officer AFP
5. UAE condemns rebel 'occupation' of Yemen embassy AFP

Apache helicopters struck a base occupied by rebel forces near Bayhan, in the southern province of Shabwa, hours after fighter jets targeted a convoy of the Iran-backed Huthi rebels in the area, a military source said.

Warplanes also pounded arms depots in the rebel-held capital Sanaa, according to witnesses.

Bayhan borders the eastern province of Marib, where military reinforcements have arrived from neighbouring Saudi Arabia to bolster forces loyal to exiled President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, military sources said.

Armoured vehicles have crossed the Wadia border point in Hadramawt province, heading to Marib, where loyalists are preparing a large offensive, a military official told AFP.

The coalition has also deployed eight Apache helicopters that will be based at the Safir oil fields, the official said.

The operation, aimed at driving the Huthis out of Marib and pushing west towards the capital, will begin in the next few days, the official said requesting anonymity.

Bolstered by coalition air power and newly trained troops, Hadi loyalists have driven rebels out of Yemen's second city Aden and four other southern provinces and are now fighting for control of the third city of Taez.

In March, Huthi rebels and troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh advanced on Aden, where Hadi had taken refuge after escaping house arrest in Sanaa.

Hadi later fled to Riyadh, which assembled an Arab coalition that mounted a fierce air campaign against the rebels.


View Comments (19) .

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150829/ml--lebanon-the_latest-7eb975b94f.html

The Latest: Lebanese group threaten to escalate protests

Aug 29, 12:26 PM (ET)

(AP) A Lebanese anti-government protester holds a placard, during a demonstration against...
Full Image

BEIRUT (AP) — Here are the latest developments regarding Lebanon's protest over the country's ongoing trash crisis (all times local):

---

7:15 p.m.

The main group behind the protests in Lebanon has called for the resignation of the Lebanese environment minister over the country's garbage crisis and says it is giving the government 72 hours to begin responding to its demands.

A spokeswoman for the "You Stink" group says the group will escalate its protest actions by Tuesday evening if the government does not respond. It also demanded that the interior minister be held responsible for police brutality against protesters last weekend.

In a speech before thousands of protesters in Beirut, Rasha Halabi said protesters will continue pressuring the government until the election of a president and a new parliament.

---

6:30 p.m.

Thousands of protesters are marching in Beirut, blasting music, chanting and waving signs. One says, "I want the sectarian system to fail." Another reads, "Remove garbage from the street. They are the garbage. We are the street."

Organizers are lining up in a chain between sections of protesters. They said earlier Saturday that they are deploying 500 volunteers to coordinate with security forces and help prevent violence that marred rallies last weekend.

Protester Maya Mahfouz says people are fed up. The 28-year-old TV producer says, "We are making a point. For once, we won't be silent anymore."

She says there is a mix of hope and skepticism about whether the protests will change Lebanon's dysfunctional power-sharing political system and end government corruption. But she says at the very least, authorities can remove the garbage piled in the streets.

---

5.35 p.m.

Thousands of people are gathering amid tight security in downtown Beirut, ahead of a major rally to protest government corruption and the country's dysfunctional political system.

At least two or three armored personnel carriers were deployed around the prime minister's office Saturday. A man over a megaphone chanted: "Declare it a revolution!"

Saturday's protest is expected to be the largest of demonstrations that began last week over garbage piling up in the streets of Beirut, following the closure of a main landfill. But the government's failure to resolve the crisis has evolved into wider protests against a political class that has dominated Lebanon since the end of the country's civil war in 1990.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150829/lt-venezuela-colombia-497c56195d.html

Venezuela extends border closure despite Colombia's protests

Aug 28, 8:26 PM (ET)
By HANNAH DREIER

(AP) Demonstrators hold a sign that reads in Spanish "For peace and justice, no...
Full Image

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro on Friday broadened a crackdown on Colombian migrants and border smugglers that has drawn strong rebuke by Colombian leaders and international organizations.

Speaking at a rally in Caracas, Maduro expanded the state of emergency and border closure he called last week to more cities on the western edge of the socialist South American country and said he would send an additional 3,000 soldiers to the area.

He said he was open to meeting with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to discuss the mounting tensions between the two neighboring countries wherever and whenever his counterpart chooses, but was leaving the next day for a trip to Asia.

The spat erupted when Maduro shut a major border crossing last week to combat what he says are rampant smuggling and paramilitary activities near Colombia, and declared a state of emergency in six western cities. On Friday, he extended the decree to more municipalities.

(AP) Soldados venezolanos vigilan un puesto de control cerca de Ureña, Venezuela, en la...
Full Image

Venezuelan officials have deported more than 1,000 Colombian migrants and another 5,000 have left voluntarily, with some carrying all of their belongings across a muddy river on a frantic moving day.

On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called on both sides to work to resolve the crisis, and put extra emphasis on Venezuela's responsibilities.

"We urge the Venezuelan authorities to ensure that the human rights of all affected individuals are fully respected, particularly in the context of any deportations," said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia rebel group also issued a statement from Havana, where it is negotiating a peace deal, saying it supported Venezuela's actions.

A meeting of the two countries' foreign ministers on Wednesday failed to bear fruit, and on Thursday, both countries recalled their ambassadors for consultations, the diplomatic equivalent of lodging a complaint.

(AP) A homemade poster with the figure of a skeleton drawn with battledress and a message...
Full Image

Santos called for an emergency meeting of the Union of South American Nations and the Organization of American States, saying, "We want to tell the world what is happening." The organization is expected to meet to discuss the situation next week.

Colombian critics and government opponents inside Venezuela say the crackdown is an attempt by Maduro to distract attention from soaring inflation and supermarket shortages in the oil-rich nation.

The state of emergency allows Venezuelan officials to search homes without a warrant and to break up public gatherings. Some departing Colombians have complained of abuses at the hands of the military in recent days, charges the administration denies.

With two border crossings closed, the underground economy has come to a halt, satisfying Venezuelan officials who have long blamed transnational mafias for widespread shortages. It also has jeopardized the livelihood of tens of thousands of poor Colombians who depend on the black market.

Many businesses are closed in Venezuela because Colombians cannot get to work, while on the Colombian side of the border, residents in Cucuta complain of long gas station lines as the security offensive cuts off trade, legal and otherwise, between the two nations.

(AP) Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro dances with first lady Cilia Flores during a...
Full Image

On Friday, Santos said officials had ordered a hike in the price of gas in the city, and barred gas stations from closing to ensure that the lines die down.

In Caracas, thousands of government supporters snarled traffic as they marched to the presidential palace in support of the new measures, which they said were not aimed at Colombian migrants themselves. Maduro danced onstage to live music and told cheering supporters that he had waited long enough for Colombia to rein in the violence and crime seeping over the border.

"What do you want me to do? How long will Colombia ignore the problems that are theirs and only theirs?" he said.

__

AP writers Cesar Garcia and Libardo Cardona in Bogota, Colombia contributed to this report.

---

Find Hannah Dreier on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hannahdreier

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150829/af--chad-boko_haram-9daf354e6e.html

Chad executes 10 Boko Haram members 1 day after verdict

Aug 29, 12:46 PM (ET)
By DANY PADIRE

N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP) — Chad executed by firing squad 10 members of Boko Haram on Saturday, the security minister said, marking the first use of the death penalty since the country bolstered its anti-terror measures last month.

The 10 men were sentenced to death on Friday after being convicted of crimes including murder and the use of explosives. They were killed at around 11 a.m., Ahmat Mahamat Bachir, the security minister, said Saturday.

Those killed included Bahna Fanaye, alias Mahamat Moustapha, who Chadian officials have described as a leader of the Nigeria-based group.

Chad has vowed to take a leading role in a regional force to fight Boko Haram that is also expected to include soldiers from Cameroon, Benin and Niger in addition to Nigeria. Boko Haram has targeted Nigeria's neighbors in regular attacks this year.

In June and July Chad's capital, N'Djamena, was rocked by a series of suicide attacks that killed dozens of people — the first such attacks since Boko Haram threatened the country earlier this year.

In one attack, suicide bombers on motorcycles targeted two buildings in the capital. In another, a man disguised as a woman wearing a burqa detonated a bomb outside the city's main market.

Last September, Chad drew praise from rights groups for a draft penal code that abolished capital punishment. The International Federation for Human Rights said at the time that the country had observed a moratorium on the death penalty since 1991 with the exception of nine executions that took place in November 2003. But anti-terror measures approved by lawmakers last month in response to the recent attacks brought the death penalty back.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150829/as-afghanistan-e3925e65c8.html

Gunbattles between rival Taliban factions leave 5 dead

Aug 29, 7:17 AM (ET)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Gunbattles between rival Taliban factions left at least five dead in southern Afghanistan, a top official with the insurgent group said Saturday as its members meet in Pakistan to resolve a leadership crisis following the death of its former leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

It was the first confirmed report of deadly Taliban infighting after an announcement last month that Mullah Omar had been dead for more than two years. Mullah Omar's family objected after his former deputy, Mullah Akhtar Mansoor, was named the new Taliban leader and rivalries have spilled into violence, said Ahmad Rabbani, head of a committee trying to reunify the group.

Rabbani spoke from the Pakistani city of Quetta, where hundreds of Taliban loyalists are meeting in an effort to resolve the split.

The five deaths came after Taliban commander Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, loyal to Mullah Omar's family, led hundreds of gunmen against Mansoor supporters in the southern Afghan province of Zabul, where the Taliban have long had a fighting presence, Rabbani said.

Rabbani said his committee hoped to reach a decision on who should lead the Taliban — whose leaders have been based in Pakistan since their regime was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion in 2001 — by Tuesday.

Meanwhile, at least 13 police were reported killed in separate attacks in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

Col. Asadullah Ensafi, the deputy police chief in eastern Ghazni province, said at least eight officers were killed and 15 wounded in separate Taliban attacks on police checkpoints Friday in Andar and Qarabagh districts.

Insurgents have intensified attacks on police checkpoints in recent months, as they typically have few men and are vulnerable. Casualties have soared.

Separately, Ensafi said an Afghan forces airstrike killed 16 insurgents and wounded 17 late Friday in Ghazni's capital.

The war with the Taliban has been particularly tough this year for Afghan forces, who are fighting without international combat troops backing them up after the U.S. and NATO pulled out last year.

Separately, in the Chora district of southern Uruzgan province, five police officers were killed when their vehicle hit roadside bomb, said Abdul Qawi, the Chora police chief.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150829/as-pakistan-0f116aed17.html

Pakistan army kills 14 suspected militants near Afghanistan

Aug 29, 12:35 PM (ET)

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The Pakistani military says its latest airstrikes in a troubled tribal region near Afghanistan have killed 14 suspected militants.

The military says in a statement that 14 "terrorists" were killed in Saturday's airstrike in Shawal, a town in North Waziristan where the army launched a ground operation this month to eliminate local and foreign insurgents.

The military gave no details and did not elaborate on the nationalities or identities of the slain men.

The Pakistani army has been carrying out a major military operation in North Waziristan since June 2014 and it says security forces have cleared more than 90 percent of the region and killed more than 3,000 militants. The army has lost nearly 300 soldiers in the region in the past year.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.business-standard.com/ar...-partner-post-n-deal-iran-115082900778_1.html

China major partner post n-deal: Iran

IANS | Tehran August 29, 2015 Last Updated at 21:48 IST

Iran considers China its major partner in the country's development in the aftermath of the nuclear deal reached in the Austrian capital of Vienna last month, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said here on Saturday.

From the beginning of the current Iranian government, "I had some meetings with the Chinese president including the meeting in Shanghai conference, where we held comprehensive discussions. We also met in Bishkek of Kyrgyzstan and in the recent trip to Russia," Xinhua quoted Rouhani as saying.

"Fortunately, our relations with China are at good levels ... and the trend of our relations is progressive," Rouhani said.

"There are myriad of plans ahead in Iran in which the Chinese can participate and have a share," he said.

Rouhani referred to the recent nuclear deal between Iran and the world powers, saying that based on the deal, for instance, Iran's heavy water Arak reactor should be improved and modernized with the participation of China and one of the P5+1 countries, probably the United States.

Also, "Iran and China have formed seven working groups which are tasked with studying the development of our future relations, and I hope that we would be able to materialize the plans in the agenda of ties," he said.

China is one of the most important countries in the world and Iran is determined to develop its ties with the country as well as with other regional states, he added.

In his recent trip to China, Iranian Vice President Ali-Akbar Salehi said that Iran looks forward to expanding practical cooperation with China in various fields.

Salehi, also head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said Iran is fully ready to foster its nuclear cooperation with China, according to official IRNA news agency.

China has played a constructive role in the process of past negotiations over Iran's nuclear issue, he was quoted as saying.

Salehi said relations between Iran and China have entered a new stage following the nuclear deal, adding that the two countries have held several negotiations on the construction of a number of 100-megawatt multi-dimensional power plants by China in Iran.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......Between this and the new coalition gov't with the Kurdish Party things are a changing it looks like, though I wouldn't count the chickens just yet......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...s-conduct-first-joint-airstrikes-against-isis

Turkey, U.S., Conduct First Joint Airstrikes Against ISIS

August 29, 2015 4:55 PM ET
Scott Neuman

Turkish warplanes have conducted their first airstrikes against the self-declared Islamic State in Syria as part of a U.S.-led coalition against the extremist group.

The joint airstrikes were carried out late Friday, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.

As The Associated Press notes, they come after "months of hesitation" that over what role NATO member Turkey would play in the anti-ISIS coalition. However, last month, Ankara agreed to become a more active participant.

Although Turkey launched unilateral airstrikes last month, Friday's operations were the first done in concert with U.S. warplanes.

"Our fighter aircraft, together with warplanes belonging to the coalition, began as of yesterday evening to jointly carry out air operations against [Isis] targets that also constitute a threat against the security of our country," a spokesman for the foreign ministry said. "The fight against the terrorist organisation is a priority for Turkey."

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Turkish jets were "fully integrated" with the coalition campaign.

"We commend Turkey for its participation in counter-[ISIS] air operations alongside other coalition nations in the international campaign to degrade and ultimately defeat [ISIS]," said Cook said, according to the AP.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/0...ment-vote-on-nuclear-deal-says-it-should-not/

Iran president opposes parliament vote on nuclear deal, says it should not become obligation

Published August 29, 2015
·Associated Press

TEHRAN, Iran – President Hassan Rouhani has opposed a parliamentary vote on the landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers, saying terms of the agreement will turn into legal obligation if it is passed by the house.

Rouhani said at a news conference Saturday that the deal was a political understanding reached with world powers, not a new pact that requires parliamentary approval.

A special committee of the parliament has already begun studying the deal before putting it to a vote. But the legality of such a move is in doubt because the government has not prepared a bill to parliament for vote on.

Rouhani said the Supreme National Security Council, the country's highest security decision-making body, is already studying the agreement.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150829/ml--islamic_state-b6a56ee6a9.html

IS cracks down on western Iraqi town after rare protest

Aug 29, 4:14 PM (ET)
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

(AP) In this Thursday, Aug. 27, 2015 photo, Iraqi security forces, backed by Sunni and...
Full Image

BAGHDAD (AP) — Islamic State militants moved on Saturday to stamp out dissent in a remote western Iraqi town, detaining at least 70 and tying dozens of residents, including tribal leaders, to streetlight poles as a punishment, security officials said.

The crackdown followed a rare street demonstration on Saturday to protest the extremist group's execution of a local resident, they said. The protest by hundreds of residents in Rutbah, in Anbar province, was triggered by the execution earlier on Saturday of Munir al-Kobeisi, a civil servant, for killing an IS member. The killing was part of a long-running blood feud between two local clans.

Eid Amash, a spokesman for Anbar's provincial government, confirmed al-Kobeisi's execution and the subsequent protest.

Relying on sketchy information from Rutbah, in Iraq's far west near the Jordanian border, the officials said they didn't know the whereabouts of the detained residents. The militants, they said, tied two residents to each light pole and that the town was gripped by fears that the group would carry out mass executions.

Elsewhere in Anbar, much of which is under IS control, a roadside bomb on Saturday hit a border guard convoy making its way to the border crossing of Trebil on the Jordanian border, security officials said.

Five officers were killed in the attack — which bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group, whose militants are active in the area near the Jordanian and Syrian borders.

The officials also said a pair of roadside bombs killed five people and injured 19 south and west of Baghdad on Saturday. Also in the capital, assailants using pistols fitted with silencers killed two people in the Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad before they fled in a car.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

 

[Lilbitsnana]

posted for fair use
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...source=twitter

Sun Aug 30, 2015 5:49am EDT
Related: World, Japan
Huge protest in Tokyo rails against PM Abe's security bills

TOKYO | By Kiyoshi Takenaka
People hold placards and shout slogans as they gather to protest against Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security bill outside the parliament in Tokyo, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 30, 2015.
Reuters/Kyodo

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered near Japan's parliament building on Sunday to oppose legislation allowing the military to fight overseas, the latest sign of public mistrust in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security policy.

In one of Japan's biggest protests in years - organizers put the crowd at 120,000 - people of all ages braved occasional rain to join the rally, chanting and holding up placards with slogans such as "No War" and "Abe, quit".

Demonstrators swarmed into the street before parliament's main gate after the crowd size made it impossible for police, out in heavy numbers, to keep them to the sidewalks. A second nearby park area also filled with protesters.

The rally was one of more than 300 this weekend in Japan protesting Abe's move to loosen the post-war, pacifist constitution's constraints on the military.

"Sitting in front of TV and just complaining wouldn't do,"

said Naoko Hiramatsu, a 44-year-old associate professor in French and one of the Tokyo protesters.

"If I don't take action and try to put a stop on this, I will not be able to explain myself to my child in the future," said Hiramatsu, holding a four-year-old son in her arms in the thick of the protest.

Abe in July pushed through parliament's lower house a group of bills that let Japan's armed forces defend an ally under attack, a drastic shift in Japan's post-war security policy.

The bills are now before the upper chamber, which is also controlled by Abe's ruling bloc and aims to pass the legislation before parliament's session ends on Sept. 27.

Abe's ratings have taken a hit from opposition to the security bills. Media surveys showing those who oppose his government outnumber backers, and more than half are against the security bills.

"We need to make the Abe government realize the public is having a sense of crisis and angry. Let's work together to have the bills scrapped," Katsuya Okada, head of Japan's largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, told the Tokyo rally.

The demonstration was the biggest in Tokyo since the mass protests against nuclear power in the summer of 2012, after the March 2011 Fukushima atomic disaster.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Linda Sieg; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

 

[Sacajawea]

I wasn't sure where to ask this... but perhaps this is as good a place as any.

Has anyone compared the video from the Tianjin explosion, with the large bomb used in Ukraine last year? I'm not sure why or if it matters; just something that crossed my mind. I'm wondering if they're the same kind of explosion, or if different - what those differences are. I don't know who's the expert on this stuff around here.

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.forbes.com/sites/donaldk...-threat-chinese-said-dont-rain-on-our-parade/

Aug 29, 2015 @ 7:23 PM 4,483 views

Why N.Korea Caved On War Threat: China Warned, 'Don't Rain On Our Parade'

Donald Kirk, Contributor
Asia news from Korea's nuclear crisis to Indian foreign policy.

U.S. army Sergeant Eric Flynn knew what he was talking about when I encountered him behind an M2A3 Bradley — a “fighting vehicle” that looks like a tank – at a live-fire drill before thousands of mostly South Korean spectators about 20 miles below the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. “We’ll see if war pops up,” he remarked laconically as U.S. and South Korean warplanes bombed targets in the Seung-jin fire drill field, a vast playground for war games in which tanks rumbled and roared and 150-mm cannon boomed on cue. He wasn’t worried — “not with China telling everyone to back down.”

That assessment from the field level summed up the most compelling reason for North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un to send his number one deputy, Vice Marshall Hwang Pyong-so, to the “truce village” of Panmunjom in the middle of the DMZ about 40 miles north of Seoul. That’s where U.S., Chinese and North Korean generals signed the armistice that ended the Korean War in July 1953, and it’s also where Hwang and South Korea’s national security adviser, Kim Kwan-jin on August 25 signed another historic agreement that ended the threat of a shootout across the DMZ between beefed-up North and South Korean forces.

North Korea several days earlier had given South Korea 48 hours to stop the mega-loudspeaker broadcasts that had been inundating the North Koreans across the zone since two South Korean sergeants three weeks earlier stumbled on North Korean mines planted on the southern side of the DMZ. One of them lost both legs, the other one leg. The South rhad tesumed the broadcasts, cancelled by agreement with the North 11 years earlier, after the North denied complicity in setting the mines.

Kim Jong-un, however, had one all-important reason for backing down — and it wasn’t the threat of the Americans and South Koreans bringing all that firepower down on his outsized but outgunned military establishment. He knew pretty well that the U.S. and South Korea, engaging in annual war games, weren’t about to declare the second Korean War even after he convened the military commission of his ruling Workers’ Party, declared his own “semi-state of war” and ordered troops along the DMZ to be “battle ready.”

The overriding consideration was not the Americans but the Chinese. However the North Koreans hate to admit it, they can’t start a war if the Chinese aren’t on their side. The reasons are totally obvious. North Korea gets all its oil from China. Coal can generate the power to keep the lights on when and where absolutely necessary. Wood is burned in canisters in the backs of trucks as fuel for engines — a trick learned from the Japanese when they ruled the Korean peninsula — and used for home heating in the terrible winter.

Oil, however, accounts for 80%-90% of North Korea’s energy needs. Impoverished people scrounge for scraps in mountains stripped of trees, but machinery, motor vehicles, planes and ships consume oil. North Korea’s 1.1 million troops, underfed and ill-equipped, could not wage war for more than a few weeks, if that, without massive infusions of extra fuel that China is not about to provide.

The Chinese, moreover, had one immediate compelling reason for wanting the North Koreans to hang on in Panmunjom for as long as it took to defuse the crisis. This week, on Thursday, September 3, the Chinese are staging what may be the grandest parade in their history — an extravaganza marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. President Xi Jinping will be there, showing off before his people and the world. The last thing he needs is obstreperous North Koreans messing up the show with a war.

From the Korean viewpoint, the occasion is all the more significant since South Korea’s President Park Geun-hye will be there along with a bunch of other world leaders including Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. North Korea’s relations with China are so terrible that Kim Jong-un hasn’t been there once since taking over from his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011.

Instead Kim is sending Choe Ryong-hye, formerly defense minister and vice marshal, who lost out to Hwang Pyong-so in a power struggle but survives as secretary of the Workers’ Party. While Park will meet Xi for a crucial summit the next day, Choe will content himself, at best, with chatting with lesser officials who undoubtedly will express their relief that the threat to the “stability” of the Korean peninsula is over.

The Chinese amply made their point by parading tanks and self-propelled projectiles — 150-milimeter cannon — through the streets of Yanji, the capital of the ethnically Korean Yanbian region above Chiuna’s Tumen River border with North Korea. China’s defense ministry dismissed reports that this show of force had anything to do with keeping the North Koreans in line as “purely hype,” but that claim was pro forma. The North Koreans to be hyper-sensitive to Chinese on maneuvers along their border even if ostenibly for ”training.”

War was not likely, said Specialist Brett Beale, with Sergeant Flynn on the Bradley, “as long as China has everyone on its leash.” He did allow though, “With what happened with the two Korean soldiers, there’s a higher chance of something happening.”

North Korea’s expression of “regret over the recent mine explosion” may have been less than an apology but was “meaningful” enough for the South Koreans to shut down their loudspeakers after three days of talks. South Korea, of course, had to consider Chinese pressure too. The Chinese presumably made clear to the South they too had to come to terms — for the sake of South Korea’s enormous trade and investment relations with China, not to mention the pressure China brings to bear on the North.

Gazing down on his troops from the incline above, Major General Ted Martin, commander of the Second Infantry Division, with aviation, armored and artillery brigades astride North Korea’s historic invasion route to Seoul, was optimistic. “Hopefully we’ll be able to maintain the armistice,” he told me.

Sooner or later, of course, there’ll be another crisis. “It’s a very volatile area,” General Martin observed as U.S. and South Korean F16s and 15s swept over the hills, black smoke billowing from where their bombs had fallen. “Tensions are high.”

 

[vestige]

Gunbattles between rival Taliban factions leave 5 dead

Sometimes...you can find a glimmer of good news in this mess.

bump

 

[Housecarl]

Gunbattles between rival Taliban factions leave 5 dead

Sometimes...you can find a glimmer of good news in this mess.

bump

Yeah, the other is the body count considering the numbers reportedly involved. It goes either to "dedication" or skill.

 

[fairbanksb]

Apocalypse NOW: The battle sites that ISIS predict will bring about the end of the world

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/601641/Islamic-State-apocalypse

DERANGED Islamic State (ISIS) leaders have predicted the world will come to a brutal and bloody end with an almighty clash between jihadist and 'infidel' armies in the heart of Europe.
By Tom Batchelor
PUBLISHED: 08:01, Sun, Aug 30, 2015 | UPDATED: 10:25, Sun, Aug 30, 2015

The savage terror group was founded on the belief that all civilisations will crumble in an imminent apocalypse, with their wild theory also identifying four likely locations for a battle they claim will bring about the end of the world.

Three of those sites exist in the Middle East, including two in Syria and one in Israel.

But the fanatics have also pinpointed Italy's capital Rome as the site of another great clash between their soldiers and the West.

Rome, the Eternal CityThe Eternal City - Rome - is on the ISIS hitlist
The Eternal City - Rome - is on the ISIS hitlist

"The Muslim armies are supposed to take over Rome, and eventually they are supposed to take over the whole world," explained William McCants, a US expert on jihadism, who has written a new book on the ISIS obsession with the apocalypse.

They see this battle as culminating soon in the great clash between the Muslim army of the Islamic world and the Christian armies of the West

William McCants, terror expert

"The group believes that Muslims will conquer the Italian capital in the course of conquering the entire world. There will be an ultimate victory for Islam and then the end of the world comes."

ISIS may claim that the end is nigh, but unsurpisingly their senior leaders - such as US most-wanted Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi - have failed to put an exact date on it.

In fact, according to the terror group, the apocalypse doesn't have a fixed date.

The ISIS expert told Express.co.uk: "They don't put any dates on it, what they do is peg it to events and geographic locations that are mentioned in Islamic prophecy."

Key among those locations is the tiny town of Dabiq in northern Syria, which the murderous regime believes will host a "major apocalyptic showdown with the armies of the infidel".

ISIS claim the battle will erupt in a field outside the small town, which in 2004 recorded a population of just 3,000 people.

ISIS evens named its terrorist propaganda and recruitment magazine after the settlement, which lies around six miles from the Turkish border.

Related articles
Map of the regionEXPRESS
Map of the region

Jihadists believe the Prophet Muhammed is said to have remarked that "the last hour will not come" until an army vanquishes the Romans at "Dabiq or Al-A'maq".

Also highlighted as a potential flashpoint is a town just outside the Syrian capital Damascus, while Jerusalem in Israel also gets a mention as the potential epicentre of an apocalyptic clash.

But most worrying to those in the West is the suggestion that Rome could also be targeted.

Fanatics have taken chilling pictures of ISIS sympathisers posing with jihadi signs in the Italian capital, with extremists warning that they are counting down to "zero hour" when they will strike.

Jerusalem in Israel is also listed as the site of an apocalyptic battle

The group has threatened to bring in Sharia law in the city and even promised to throw gay people from the Leaning Tower of Pisa - not realising the structure is nowhere near Rome.

There have also been threats made against the Pope, whose official residence is in the Vatican City.

"In their propaganda, they see themselves waging a war against a crusader alliance, between the US and the UK and other countries of the West that is seeking to eradicate Islam," Mr McCants said.

"They see this battle as culminating soon in the great clash between the Muslim army of the Islamic world and the Christian armies of the West.

"And this confrontation is going to take place along the eastern Mediterranean - so Jerusalem, Damascus and Aleppo - but they will also take the fight to Rome."
And ISIS supporters believe the final battle could be coming sooner rather than later.

According to their theory, "nations gathering under 80 flags will confront the Muslim armies".

For many jihadists, the alliance of Western and other powers against ISIS in bombing raids over Iraq and Syria is seen as the fulfilment of that prophecy.
Mr McCants said ISIS fanatics are constantly counting the number of nations that have pledged to fight against ISIS.

And to date, more than 60 nations have committed to fight against the terror network.

It means that were a handful more countries to join the growing anti-ISIS alliance, jihadists could act on their terrifying prediction.

Islamic State has destroyed antiquities and monuments in Iraq and there are fears it might now devastate Palmyra including Fakhreddin's Castle
Members of the Islamic State group have captured the ancient town raising fears that the extremists will destroy its archaeological sites that have stood for two millennia
Palmyra, home to one of the Middle East's most famous UNESCO world heritage sites, was under full control of militants on Thursday after troops withdrew to nearby bases

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.spectator.co.uk/feature...at-for-sending-troops-back-to-iraq-has-begun/

Here we go again: the drumbeat for sending troops back to Iraq has begun

Thought ‘humanitarian intervention’ was dead and buried? No such luck. It’s taking pride of place in the American election

145 Comments Simon Jenkins 29 August 2015

Is it going to happen again? Will the next 12 months really see western armies return to Iraq?

Last year was meant to signal an end to wars of intervention that dominated the world stage at the turn of the 21st century, attacks by powerful western states mostly against weak Muslim ones. It was assumed that Washington and London would draw a curtain over the most shambolic foreign policy adventures of modern times. The West would stop trying to reconfigure political Islam. Troops would return to base. Barack Obama and David Cameron were emphatic: ‘No more boots on foreign soil.’ As Cameron told Parliament last year after being stopped from intervening in Syria, ‘I get it.’

Yet the old tic, the twitch to intervene, has not gone away. Last October, despite his Commons rebuff, Cameron told his party conference that Islamic State was ‘a danger to Europe’ which he could not ignore. ‘There is no walk-on-by option,’ he said, though he did then walk on by. Since then he has plundered the lexicon for adjectives to hurl at Isis: vile, loathsome, evil, inhuman, odious. Like Tony Blair and George Bush, he sees terrorism as an ideology rather than a form of coercion. To him the Tunisian beach murders last June were said oddly to pose ‘an existential threat to Britain’.

Following his spring election victory, Cameron let it be known that he wanted Parliament to reverse its vote on Syria. It was then revealed that British pilots had been secretly involved in bombing Syria all along, in defiance of Parliament. Cameron was unrepentant. Like Blair, he craves covert liaison with Washington in matters of war and peace.

Britain’s leaders are at least consistent in their military adventurism. America is whimsical. It is hard now to recall Bush’s 2000 election rhetoric against what he and his aide Condoleezza Rice dismissed as wimpish ‘humanitarianism’ and ‘nation-building’. Blair was ridiculed for his interventionism. The world was not America’s business. The Somalia fiasco of 1993 was enough. There would be no more of the ‘101st Airborne leading kids to school’.

September 11 reversed all that. Bush became a born-again crusader and initiated an era of shock and awe which, by 2014, had engulfed the Muslim world from Pakistan to the Sahara. Governments were undermined or toppled, fuelling a fierce Islamist backlash, leading in turn to a refugee flood on a scale not seen since the 1940s.

By the time Bush left office, the Iraq and Afghanistan expeditions were widely discredited. I have counted some 200 books on them, barely one of which rates them with favour. The end was signalled by Obama’s 2008 election and his popular promise to bring troops home. Even the growth of Sunni militancy under Isis did not see an interventionist revival. Over the course of 2014 polls showed a solid 55 per cent of Americans against ‘boots on the ground’. Muslims should look after their own.

In the past year that has totally changed. The lame-duck Obama has had to send forces to support the helpless armies of Baghdad and Kabul. He wages a token air war against Isis-held territory that he is in no position to occupy or govern. Trapped by his military-industrial lobbyists into launching drone attacks across the region, he seems oblivious of the aid they offer Isis recruitment.

Iraq has now secured pride of place in the forthcoming American presidential election. Last year’s polls have gone into reverse, with more than half of recent Pew and Rasmussen surveys now in favour of a ground war against Isis. The latest CNN poll put Donald Trump well ahead of his rivals, with double the support offered Jeb Bush largely as he is seen as the candidate ‘to best handle Isis’.

The defining feature of the wars of intervention was media-induced mission creep. Each tended to start with sanctions and bombing, ‘intervention lite’. These were the fool’s gold of intervention. Subsequent Pentagon assessments of bombing campaigns were highly critical of their contribution to any strategic goal. Bombs tend to entrench a regime and draw people behind it. They are highly destructive, making it hard to restore administration afterwards. The past year’s bombing of Isis has reinforced its claim as champion of Islam’s defiance of the West, clouding its role in the Sunni war against the Shia. The longer Isis holds power across Sunni Iraq and Syria, the more its neighbours will move towards accommodation.

The question now is how long can London and Washington tolerate weekly Isis atrocity videos. The western media lacks any self-restraint in publicising them, such that Isis is said to regard them as a far more potent way of drawing attention to itself than the occasional act of terrorism. The clear objective is to goad the West into sending armies back to the desert and renewed entrapment. Nothing has changed since Gladstone was browbeaten into sending Gordon to disaster in Khartoum.

American election candidates are responding as if on cue. Every one wants to take on Isis. Jeb Bush, hounded by Trump, declared last week that ‘the world is slipping out of control’. Only he could safely restore it. Hillary Clinton has attacked Obama’s plea that ‘We don’t do stupid’ as ‘not an organising principle’. She demands that he ‘fill the vacuum’, whatever that means.

Islamic State cannot pose any serious threat to any western state, yet the media is happy to accept politicians who pretend it does. Eisenhower’s ‘military–industrial complex’ should today be renamed the military–industrial-media one. For all the condemnation of Blair over Iraq, it should be remembered that every daily paper (except the Mirror) supported his call for force, including initially the Guardian.

In America, Fox News is hugely influential in setting the foreign policy agenda. It reincarnates Randolph Hearst’s belief that wars were good for circulation, retorting to a journalist who doubted there would be war over Cuba, ‘You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war,’ which he did. From another round of atrocities, it is a short step to transport jets roaring over Lakenheath air base and new carpets in Baghdad’s Camp Liberty.

There is little appetite in Britain for a return to Iraq. In the Commons last month, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon asserted, ‘Britain will not send ground forces into Iraq or Syria because it will be used by Isis as anti-western propaganda.’ He failed to explain why this did not apply to British pilots. But every British deployment in the wars of intervention began with similar denials of mission creep. Cameron has been making it very hard for Britain not to join an American reoccupation force.

In none of the wars of intervention was there any plausible casus belli, beyond the presence on television of ‘bad guys’. Kosovo was said to be humanitarian, but was effectively a war of partition. Afghanistan was punitive, but mutated into ‘rebuilding’ a nation — Britain’s Clare Short was even flown out to eradicate the opium crop. Iraq was claimed as a matter of ‘Britain’s national security’, but in reality was a simple decapitation of a dictator. Libya was ‘to avert a Srebrenica in Benghazi’, but soon changed into taking one side in a civil war — probably the wrong one.

I can find no truth to the left-wing claim that the wars were about securing oil. Even the most evil oil regime has to sell oil, and we have to buy it. Nor were the victim states significant harbours of terrorism. Most countries are that in some shape or form. In Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq it was only boots on the ground that altered the outcome, for good or ill. But the longer the boots stayed, the more likely was defeat, either in battle or in failing to resolve the anarchy that followed victory. ‘Wars among the peoples’ are rarely won by outsiders.

The conservative American Cato institute ran a regular analysis of the wars and their outcomes. It reached a clear conclusion. They were all wars of choice. The selected enemies ‘posed no existential threat to any western state’. Attempts to rebuild them proved ‘extremely costly, most of them fail and most erode American power’. The war in Iraq alone was estimated to have cost three trillion dollars.

Yet war still has the best tunes. Until the end Suez was popular in Britain, Vietnam in America. Foreign adventures have long appealed to insecure leaders. Callaghan said privately he was mortified that ‘I never had a Falklands.’ During Libya, Cameron yearned for a chance to play Henry V, with the help of his interventionist foreign policy aide, Ed Llewellyn. He still dives for his Cobra bunker at the slightest whiff of cordite and emerges speaking cod Churchill. Those who have no experience of war seem to crave it.

But Iraq, again? It is hardly to be believed. Must we join Kipling and watch as ‘the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire’?


Simon Jenkins’s Mission Accomplished? The Crisis of International Intervention is published next month.Simon Jenkins is a former editor of the Times and the London Evening Standard, and a columnist for the Guardian.

This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated 29 August 2015

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.defenseone.com/management/2015/08/now-natos-prepping-hybrid-war/119687/?oref=d-skybox

Now NATO’s Prepping for Hybrid War

August 27, 2015 By Marcus Weisgerber

Like the US, the alliance as a whole is readying forces for a full range of combat scenarios — and planning a historically complex exercise.

NATO is preparing to hold its most complex military drills in decades — perhaps since the Cold War — as it readies allied troops for a range of hybrid combat scenarios that they might face in coming years.

Tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of aircraft, ships and submarines are expected to participate in the October-November exercises in and around Spain, Portugal and Italy. The last time NATO assembled so many forces for a wargame was in 2002; this year’s event is considered even more complicated.

“We need forces prepared to do their job and it appears that their job is more and more demanding,” French Air Force Gen. Jean-Paul Paloméros, leader of the NATO command that coordinates alliance training, told reporters in Washington Wednesday. “In terms of intensity, this exercise is stronger than NATO has been training [for], perhaps since the end of the Cold War.”

Called Trident Juncture 2015, the exercise will simulate many types of scenarios that have popped up over the past 13 years, including cyber attacks and ballistic missile defense. By contrast, NATO forces have spent most of the past decade fighting counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the Army conducted a similar hybrid-style exercise in California, one of its own most complex drills in more than a decade. That exercise is part of a larger push by Army leaders to prepare units for a high-end war, a form of combat that received short shrift as hundreds of thousands of troops waged counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The goal of Trident Juncture is to re-train in maneuver warfare, “which is an expertise that we have lost for the last two decades because of the nature of operations in which we were involved,” Paloméros said.

The alliance now plans to run exercises like Trident Juncture every three years. “This is ambitious enough and it gives us the time to prepare, to plan and to take the full benefit of this big investment,” Paloméros said. The next exercise like this will take place in Northern Europe – Norway, the Baltic Sea and North Sea – and will include an Article 5 scenario, in which the alliance must respond to an attack on a NATO country.

More than 36,000 NATO troops from 27 alliance member countries and seven partner nations will participate in Trident Juncture, along with more than 140 aircraft, 60 ships and submarines.

The exercises will begin in mid-October with aerial combat drills in Italy before shifting to land and amphibious combat exercises in Spain and Portugal in early November. The alliance agreed to hold this exercise at its 2012 summit in Chicago, before Russia invaded Ukraine and put NATO on high alert.

The exercise will test the alliance militaries against a range of threats, including Afghanistan-type scenarios, cyber attacks, ballistic missile defense and a humanitarian crisis.

“We tried to inject the hybrid approach,” Paloméros said.

The drill include scenarios that NATO forces could face: fighting better-equipped and more traditional militaries, like Russia. Air defense and anti-access drills are parts of the exercise.

“Those are very demanding risks and threats that we have to face almost all around the globe because a lot of countries are putting a lot of money to reinvest in their defense,” Paloméros said. “We must take that into account in the NATO equation.”

Europe’s southern border and migrant trafficking from Africa and the Middle East has been a major concern of the NATO brass in recent years. Today, Austria found the decomposing bodies of dozens of suspected migrants in a truck, the New York Times reported. Military officials fear militants could find their way into Europe though these types of smuggling operations.

“In our vision of the future, we thought the south was really concerning,” Paloméros Paloméros said.

The French general, who is retiring in coming weeks after more than 40 years in the military, touted previous NATO training for allowing some alliance members to rapidly and easily coordinate with one another during the airstrike campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

 

[vestige]

From#26:

The savage terror group was founded on the belief that all civilisations will crumble in an imminent apocalypse, with their wild theory also identifying four likely locations for a battle they claim will bring about the end of the world.


Is this when the fabled raghead will rise from the well?

(If that is not PC mods feel free to reword or whatever)

 

[Housecarl]

From#26:

The savage terror group was founded on the belief that all civilisations will crumble in an imminent apocalypse, with their wild theory also identifying four likely locations for a battle they claim will bring about the end of the world.


Is this when the fabled raghead will rise from the well?

(If that is not PC mods feel free to reword or whatever)

That's the 12er's of the Shia (re the well), these are Sunni.

 

[vestige]

That's the 12er's of the Shia (re the well), these are Sunni.

They say they all look alike.

 

[Housecarl]

posted for fair use
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...source=twitter

Sun Aug 30, 2015 5:49am EDT
Related: World, Japan
Huge protest in Tokyo rails against PM Abe's security bills

TOKYO | By Kiyoshi Takenaka
People hold placards and shout slogans as they gather to protest against Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security bill outside the parliament in Tokyo, in this photo taken by Kyodo August 30, 2015.
Reuters/Kyodo

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered near Japan's parliament building on Sunday to oppose legislation allowing the military to fight overseas, the latest sign of public mistrust in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's security policy.

In one of Japan's biggest protests in years - organizers put the crowd at 120,000 - people of all ages braved occasional rain to join the rally, chanting and holding up placards with slogans such as "No War" and "Abe, quit".

Demonstrators swarmed into the street before parliament's main gate after the crowd size made it impossible for police, out in heavy numbers, to keep them to the sidewalks. A second nearby park area also filled with protesters.

The rally was one of more than 300 this weekend in Japan protesting Abe's move to loosen the post-war, pacifist constitution's constraints on the military.

"Sitting in front of TV and just complaining wouldn't do,"

said Naoko Hiramatsu, a 44-year-old associate professor in French and one of the Tokyo protesters.

"If I don't take action and try to put a stop on this, I will not be able to explain myself to my child in the future," said Hiramatsu, holding a four-year-old son in her arms in the thick of the protest.

Abe in July pushed through parliament's lower house a group of bills that let Japan's armed forces defend an ally under attack, a drastic shift in Japan's post-war security policy.

The bills are now before the upper chamber, which is also controlled by Abe's ruling bloc and aims to pass the legislation before parliament's session ends on Sept. 27.

Abe's ratings have taken a hit from opposition to the security bills. Media surveys showing those who oppose his government outnumber backers, and more than half are against the security bills.

"We need to make the Abe government realize the public is having a sense of crisis and angry. Let's work together to have the bills scrapped," Katsuya Okada, head of Japan's largest opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, told the Tokyo rally.

The demonstration was the biggest in Tokyo since the mass protests against nuclear power in the summer of 2012, after the March 2011 Fukushima atomic disaster.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka and Linda Sieg; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150830/as-japan-protest-755ffb22ac.html

Mothers, students join Japan's protests over security bills

Aug 30, 12:25 PM (ET)
By MARI YAMAGUCHI

(AP) Protesters shout slogans during a rally in front of the National Diet building in...
Full Image

TOKYO (AP) — Mothers holding their children's hands stood in the sprinkling rain, holding up anti-war placards, while students chanted slogans against Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his defense policies to the beat of a drum.

Japan is seeing new faces join the ranks of protesters typically made up of labor union members and graying leftist activists. On Sunday, tens of thousands filled the streets outside Tokyo's parliament to rally against new security legislation likely to become law in September.

"No to war legislation!" "Scrap the bills now!" and "Abe, quit!" they chanted in one of the summer's biggest protests. Their cries are against a series of bills that would expand Japan's military role under a reinterpretation of the country's war-renouncing constitution.

In Japan, where people generally don't express political views in public, such rallies have largely diminished since the often violent university student protests in the early 1960s. Anti-nuclear protests after the 2011 Fukushima disaster also petered out.

(AP) Protesters stage a rally in front of the National Diet building in Tokyo, Sunday,...
Full Image

Smaller protests were held elsewhere across the nation Sunday. The demonstrations started earlier this year but grew sharply after July, when Abe's ruling party and its junior coalition partner pushed the legislation through the more powerful lower house despite vocal opposition from other parties — and media polls showing the majority of Japanese opposed the bills.

Whether the protests' momentum signals wider social change remains to be seen. They could die out once the summer holiday is over and the legislation is passed, as is widely expected.

But grass-roots groups among typically apolitical groups such as mothers and students — aided by social media — appear to be growing.

A group called Mothers Against War started in July and gained supporters rapidly via Facebook. It collected nearly 20,000 signatures of people opposed to the legislation, which representatives tried unsuccessfully to submit to Abe's office last Friday.

"I'm afraid the legislation is really going to reverse the direction of this country, where pacifism was our pride," said a 44-year-old architect who joined Sunday's rally with her 5-year-old son. She identified herself only as A. Hashimoto, saying politics is still a sensitive topic among parents at her son's kindergarten.

(AP) Protesters stage a rally in front of the National Diet building in Tokyo, Sunday,...
Full Image

"I feel our voices are neglected by the Abe government," she said.

The bills would permit the Self Defense Force to engage in combat for the first time since World War II in cases of "collective defense," when Japan's allies such as the U.S. are attacked, but Japan itself is not.

The upper house is currently debating the bills, and is expected to approve them sometime next month. But even if it doesn't, the legislation will be sent back to the lower house for a second vote that, if passed, would make it law.

Abe's government argues that the changes are needed for Japan to respond to a harsher security environment, including a more assertive China and growing terrorist threats, and to fulfill expectations that it will contribute more to global peacekeeping efforts.

The bills are based on the Abe Cabinet's decision to alter the interpretation of Japan's constitution, drawn up by the occupying U.S. military after World War II, and not the constitution itself, which prohibits the country using force for purposes other than its own self-defense.

(AP) Protesters stage a rally in front of the National Diet building in Tokyo, Sunday,...
Full Image

Dozens of legal experts and other academics have questioned the bills' constitutionality, saying they go beyond what's written in the charter.

The presence of college students in the protests, including a group known as SEALDs, or Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy, has also captured media attention this summer in Japan, where student activists have been nearly extinct for decades.

Half a century ago, 300,000 students, many of them Marxist ideologues, staged violent protests, repeatedly clashing with police, over revising the U.S.-Japan security treaty. Those protests played a role in driving Abe's grandfather, then-prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, out of office after his government approved it.

Yukio Okamoto, former diplomat and political analyst, said he remembers watching massive demonstrations on TV in 1960, when he was a junior high school student. The students almost surrounded the parliament building.

"Compared to 1960, it is much different this time, and there are relatively few young people involved. Our generation and housewives, these people are demonstrating in a much more peaceful manner than 1960," he said.

(AP) Protesters stage a rally in front of the National Diet building in Tokyo, Sunday,...
Full Image

Students today don't like those violent images of activists either. Their weekly Friday evening rallies draw several thousand young people who peacefully chant in hip-hop rhythm to the sound of drums. A group of four students went on a hunger strike last Friday, quietly sitting outside the parliament complex, taking photos with visitors as policemen walked by.

Daisuke Motoki, a 22-year old student at Tokyo's Senshu University, said he joined the hunger strike as a non-violent form of protest to show their determination.

"There seems to be a growing pressure from the university that makes it harder for us to be politically active," he said.

Stephen Nagy, professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo, said today's student protesters are neither political ideologues nor radicals.

"The difference stems from Japan's apolitical post-World War II society, the lack of political diversity and affluence which decreases incentive to be politically active and knowledgeable," he said.

For students, some schools are quite conservative and make it difficult for them to stage rallies, Nagy said, and politically vocal mothers could be marginalized in Japan where women still face obstacles in business and politics.

Etsuko Matsuda, a 40-year-old homemaker from Sendai, in northern Japan, and mother of two, said she has seen too many things going to a wrong direction, including the restart of a nuclear reactor after the Fukushima disaster.

"I think there are a growing number of people like me who realized our have only turned worse under Abe's government," she said. "I hope more people would be interested in politics and speak up."

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150830/as--pakistan-c2f9578b6e.html

Gunmen attack a southwestern Pakistani airport, killing 2

Aug 30, 8:19 AM (ET)
By ABDUL SATTAR

QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen attacked a small airport in restive southwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing two officials, authorities said.

The attackers stormed Baluchistan province's Jewni airport and destroyed navigational equipment there after killing an official on duty and wounding his supervisor, said Pakistani Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Pervez George.

The 10 to 12 assailants abducted a third engineer, whose body was later found nearby, said local police official Abdul Qadeer. He said authorities have launched a manhunt in nearby areas.

The airport was not in service, but provided navigational aid to aircraft in the area, said George.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Baluchistan is the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baluch separatists who want a greater share of the region's mineral resources or outright independence. Islamic militant groups also have a presence in the region, and have targeted both the Shiite minority and government officials and installations.

Jewni airport is some 860 kilometers (530 miles) southwest of Quetta, the capital of the Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150830/af--boko_haram-0772bd9f3e.html

Nigerian official: Boko Haram trying to hit Lagos

Aug 30, 1:09 PM (ET)
By BASHIR ADIGUN

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's Islamic extremist rebels Boko Haram are trying to extend their violent campaign across the country including Lagos, the country largest city, an intelligence official said Sunday

There has been a sudden influx of Boko Haram agents into Lagos and other parts of Nigeria outside the militants' main area in northeastern Nigeria, said Tony Opuiyo, spokesman of the Department of State Services. He said Boko Haram is trying to extend their reach after being pushed out of the urban centers of northeastern Nigeria in recent months.

Security agencies had arrested 14 Boko Haram suspects in Lagos, the capital Abuja and other parts of the country outside the northeast in the past two months, said Opuiyo. Those arrested include cell leaders, some of whom admitted to involvement in recent suicide attacks, he said. Authorities on Friday said they arrested a teenager who was spying on Abuja's international airport for Boko Haram.

Boko Haram's six-year-old uprising has killed an estimated 20,000 people. At least 1,000 people have been killed by the militants' violence since President Muhammadu Buhari was elected in March with a pledge to wipe out the extremists.

Chadian and Nigerian troops have driven the extremists out of some 25 towns held for months in what had been declared an Islamic caliphate. The insurgents, who in March pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, have gone back to hit-and-run tactics and suicide bombings largely in the country's north.

 

[Housecarl]

Well it's rolling now in El Salvador.........

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150830/lt--salvador-violence-809266b118.html

El Salvador officials deactivate powerful car bomb

Aug 29, 9:12 PM (ET)

(AP) In this July 25, 2014 file photo, El Salvador's President Salvador Sanchez...
Full Image

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — A powerful bomb was found in a car parked near El Salvador's security ministry, but experts were able to deactivate it, the country's defense minister said Saturday.

Gen. David Munguia Payes said the bomb contained plastic explosives and would have sprayed glass shards if it had exploded.

The Justice and Security Ministry earlier issued a statement saying that agents found the bomb Friday in a car that had been reported stolen. They were apparently acting on an anonymous tip.

It's not clear who left the device, but a crackdown on gangs, and battles among the gangs themselves, have led to hundreds of deaths this year in the country of 6 million people.

The U.S. Embassy issued a warning that the discovery "is evidence of a further escalation in the level of violence" in El Salvador, though it said it is not aware of any threats aimed directly at U.S. citizens.

Meanwhile, President Salvador Sanchez Ceren on Saturday praised a local Supreme Court ruling declaring the gangs known as maras terrorists.

"Now the persecution of crime will be more effective, the gangs now are terrorists and all the force of the law will be applied against them." He said it would also make it easier to prosecute those who collaborate with the gangs.

The court said that "leaders, members, collaborators, apologists and financiers" of the gangs would fall under the definition of terrorist.

Sanchez Ceren urged the country's legislature to pass a law that would provide legal opportunities for those who want to abandon the gangs.

 

[Housecarl]

Well this could very easily go real sideways real soon.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150831/as--malaysia-rally-b5741b6069.html

Najib vows not to quit as Malaysia marks National Day

Aug 31, 1:13 AM (ET)
By EILEEN NG

(AP) Activists from the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH) gather on a main...
Full Image

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia's prime minister vowed he would not quit over a $700-million financial scandal, and accused protesters of showing "poor national spirit" by holding a massive rally to demand his resignation on the eve of the country's National Day on Monday.

After a weekend of demonstrations, the government took back the streets of Kuala Lumpur, with Prime Minister Najib Razak and his Cabinet ministers attending a gala parade involving 13,000 people. They watched jets whizz by above the landmark Independence Square, which over the weekend was surrounded by tens of thousands of protesters.

In his National Day speech late Sunday, Najib slammed protesters for showing a "shallow mind and poor national spirit." He said the protests can disrupt public order and were not the right way to show unhappiness in a democratic country.

Najib said Malaysia was not a failed state and slammed protesters for tarnishing the country's image. He vowed not to bow to pressure.

(AP) Malaysian protesters gather in the rain during a rally in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on...
Full Image

"Once the sails have been set, once the anchor has been raised, the captain and his crew would never change course," he said.

Police sealed off the square over the weekend. Large crowds of protesters in yellow shirts of the Bersih movement — a coalition for clean and fair elections — camped overnight around the square, even after authorities blocked the organizer's website and banned yellow attire and the group's logo.

The rally ended peacefully after protesters ushered in the country's 58th National Day at midnight Sunday amid tight security.

Police estimated the crowd size at 35,000, but Bersih says it swelled to 300,000 on Sunday from 200,000 on Saturday.

"What is 20,000?" Najib said, downplaying even the police number. "We can gather hundreds of thousands," he said in a speech in a rural area in a northern state earlier Sunday. "The rest of the Malaysian population is with the government," he was quoted as saying by the local media.

(AP) Activists from the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (BERSIH) sit along a main...
Full Image

Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has been spearheading calls for Najib's resignation, added momentum to the rally when he turned up at the rally with his wife on both days.

Mahathir, who clamped down on dissent during his 22-year rule, said people power was needed to remove Najib and return the rule of law. He stepped down in 2003 but remained influential.

Najib has been fighting for political survival after leaked documents in July showed he received some $700 million in his private accounts from entities linked to indebted state fund 1MDB. He later said the money was a donation from the Middle East and fired his critical deputy, four other Cabinet members and the attorney general investigating him.

Many of the protesters, such as Azrul Khalib, slept on the street.

"This is a watershed moment. Malaysians are united in their anger at the mismanagement of this country. We are saying loudly that there should be a change in the leadership," said Azrul.

(AP) Malaysian protesters gather in the rain during a rally in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on...
Full Image

He said he was aware that the rally will not bring change overnight, but he still participated because he wanted to be "part of efforts to build a new Malaysia."

Some used colored chalk to scrawl their demands on the street, writing slogans such as, "We want change," and "We want clean and fair (elections)."

Two previous Bersih rallies, in 2011 and 2012, were dispersed by police using tear gas and water cannons.

Analysts said the rally attracted a largely urban crowd with a smaller participation of ethnic Malays, which could be the reason why the Najib government allowed it to go on.

A nation of 30 million, Malaysia is predominantly Malay Muslim, who form the core of the ruling party's support. The country also has significant Chinese and Indian minorities who have become increasingly vocal in their opposition to the government recent years.

(AP) Malaysia former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, center, waves to activists from the...
Full Image

Malaysia's ambitions to rise from a middle income to a developed nation this decade have been stymied by slow-paced reforms and Najib's increasing authoritarianism.

Still, the government feels "safe because it has not really affected the rural Malay segment, their bedrock support," said political analyst Ibrahim Suffian. However, he said this doesn't mean that rural Malays are happy with the government, as many are upset with the plunging currency and economic slowdown.

Support for Najib's National Front has eroded in the last two general elections. It won in 2013, but lost the popular vote for the first time to an opposition alliance.

Concerns over the political scandal partly contributed to the Malaysian currency plunging to a 17-year low earlier this month.

In his speech, Najib rejected fears that the economy is crumbling. "We are stable, with strong fundamentals and will continue to survive and remain competitive," he said.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150831/as--thailand-explosion-a047e48d0c.html

Thai police find bomb materials in 2nd apartment

Aug 31, 1:03 AM (ET)
By NATTASUDA ANUSONDISAI and JOCELYN GECKER

(AP) In this Aug. 26, 2015, file photo, worshippers light sticks of incense at the Erawan...
Full Image

BANGKOK (AP) — Thai police said Monday they discovered bomb-making materials during a raid of a second apartment on the outskirts of the capital, as authorities widened their search for suspects behind Bangkok's deadly bombing.

National police spokesman Prawuth Thavornsiri said that police found fertilizer, gun powder, digital clocks and remote-controlled cars whose parts can be used for detonation, among other items, during a raid over the weekend at an apartment in Bangkok's Min Buri district.

"These are bomb-making materials," Prawuth said. "Nobody would keep urea fertilizer and gunpowder unless they wanted to make a bomb."

Min Buri is near the neighborhood where police on Saturday arrested an unnamed foreigner and seized a trove of bomb-making equipment that included detonators, ball bearings and a metal pipe they believe was intended to hold a bomb.

Prawuth said police were looking to issue three or four more arrest warrants but declined to give more details.

Saturday's arrest was the first possible breakthrough in the investigation into the Aug. 17 blast at the Erawan Shrine, which killed 20 people, more than half of whom were foreigners, and injured more than 120 others.

Much remains unknown about the suspect, including his nationality, his motive, his relationship to the alleged bombing network or if he was plotting an attack, Prawuth said, adding that another attack was "possible" because police found 10 detonators.

"We still have to work out the details," he said. "But we are very certain he's part of the network" that carried out the bombing.

On Sunday, Prawuth said that that the interrogation was proceeding slowly.

"He is not cooperating much. From our preliminary investigation, we think he isn't telling us the truth," Prawuth said, declining to elaborate. "He told us how he entered Thailand but we don't believe everything he says."

He said police were working with "a number of embassies" and interpreters to try to establish the man's nationality, adding that he did not speak Thai but spoke some English.

Authorities have dodged questions about whether the suspect is believed to be Turkish, saying that he was traveling on a fake passport. Images circulated online after his arrest of a fake Turkish passport with the apparent suspect's picture.

"We don't know if he is Turkish or not," Prawuth said Saturday.

The Turkish Embassy in Bangkok could not immediately be reached for comment. A Turkish government spokesman contacted over the weekend in Istanbul said he had no information on the suspect or any possible Turkish link to the attack.

The blast at the Erawan Shrine was unprecedented in the Thai capital, where smaller bombs have been employed in domestic political violence over the past decade, but not in an effort to cause large-scale casualties.

__

Corrects Prawuth's title to national police spokesman, not police chief.

 

[Housecarl]

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?474478-Largest-ever-Med-gas-field-found-off-Egypt

If this is correct this will change the balance of things in Europe and particularly in Egypt. It also makes the table stakes for control of Egypt even higher.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://news.yahoo.com/largest-ever-med-gas-field-found-off-egypt-143205171.html

'Largest ever' Med gas field found off Egypt

AFP
9 hours ago

Cairo (AFP) - Italian energy giant Eni on Sunday announced the discovery of the "largest ever" offshore natural gas field in the Mediterranean, in Egypt's territorial waters.


Related Stories

1. Italy's Eni finds 'supergiant' natural gas field off Egypt Associated Press
2. Italy's Eni makes mega gas discovery off Egyptian coast Reuters
3. Israel’s Cabinet Approves Regulatory Scheme for Gas-Field Development The Wall Street Journal
4. Natural-gas prices gain as U.S. supplies climb less than expected MarketWatch


The discovery, confirmed by Egypt's oil ministry, could hold a potential 30 trillion cubic feet (850 billion cubic metres) of gas in an area of about 100 square kilometres (40 square miles), Eni said in a statement.

"It's the largest gas discovery ever made in Egypt and in the Mediterranean Sea and could become one of the world’s largest natural-gas finds," the firm said.

The so-called Zohr project discovery is expected to meet Egypt's own natural gas demands for decades.

The "supergiant" field is located at a depth of 4,757 feet (1,450 metres) in the Shorouk Block, Eni said.

The firm said it would "immediately appraise the field with the aim of accelerating a fast track development of the discovery", giving a timeframe of four years.

It added that Eni's CEO, Claudio Descalzi, has visited Cairo and discussed the discovery with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab.

"This historic discovery will be able to transform the energy scenario of Egypt," Descalzi said in the statement.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, in a message to Descalzi, congratulated the oil company on the "extraordinary" discovery.


- Jihadist attacks -


"A find of this size should be enough to cover a lot of Egypt's energy gap," Robin Mills, a Dubai-based analyst at Manaar Energy Consulting, told Bloomberg News.

"They'll likely have to meet domestic needs first, before any export plans are discussed. This will also put a damper on Israeli plans to export gas to Egypt," he added.

Egypt, the largest country of the Arab world, is of strategic and economic interest to Italy. It the first country Eni expanded to some 60 years ago from its base in Italy.

Previously Italy invested heavily in neighbouring Libya, but for the past four years Libya has been mired in chaos and violence.

In recent years the western Mediterranean has seen a jump in gas exploration. In 2010, major natural gas fields found off Israel.

In March, British energy giant BP unveiled plans to invest $12 billion (10.7 billion euros) in Egyptian offshore gas fields with Russian partner DEA, despite the slump in world oil prices.

It said the investment in the West Nile Delta fields aims to develop five trillion cubic feet of gas resources and 55 million barrels of condensates, with output expected to begin in 2017.

News of the gas find comes as Egypt is experiencing a wave of attacks, many of which have been claimed by the radical Islamic State (IS) group's Egyptian affiliate.

Earlier this month IS claimed to have beheaded a Croatian employee of a French oil and gas geology company, who was abducted in July near Cairo.

Jihadists have launched regular assaults against security forces since the army's ouster of former president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Most of their attacks are in the Sinai Peninsula, but deadly bombings have also been carried out in other cities, including Cairo.


View Comments (88) .

 

[Lilbitsnana]

Didn't see this posted anywhere, but could have missed it.


from the 26th

posted for fair use
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.673090

Egypt's Sissi Turns to Russia's Putin to Fight Regional Terrorism

In second Moscow visit in three months, the two leaders will also discuss joint project to build Egypt's first nuclear power station.

The Associated Press
and DPA
Aug 26, 2015 5:15 PM

Egyptian President Al-Sissi with Russian President Vladimir Putin/ Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi, right, shake hands with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting in Cairo, Egypt, on Tues., Feb. 10, 2015.AP

WATCH: As Syrian civil war rages, Assad claims Russia and Iran as true allies
Middle East leaders head to Moscow to sign arms deals, discuss plan to end Syrian war
U.S. considering pull out of troops from Sinai due to ISIS threat

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, making his second visit to Moscow in three months, says he hopes for Russia's help in combating terrorism in the region.

Al-Sissi's visit highlights Moscow's attempts to expand its influence in Egypt at a time when Egyptian-U.S. relations have soured in the aftermath of the ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.

Opening the talks in the Kremlin on Wednesday, Sissi said "the Egyptian people" are hoping for broader ties with Russia in all areas, particularly in fighting terrorism in the Middle East.

Putin and Sissi are also expected to hammer out the details of a joint project to build Egypt's first nuclear power station.

Middle East role

Moscow has hosted a number of Middle Eastern leaders in recent weeks as it seeks a greater role in mediating in the Middle East, especially concerning the Syrian civil war and efforts to combat Islamic State militants, which have taken considerable territory in war-torn Syria and Iraq over the past year.

Jordan's King Abdullah II told Putin in Moscow Tuesday, "We have to find a solution in Syria. Your role and the role of your country in uniting all the opposing sides at the negotiation table for a peaceful solution are critical," according to a statement released by the Kremlin.

Putin on Tuesday also discussed the Syrian conflict with the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, state media reported.

This month, the foreign ministers of Russia and Iran told reporters in Moscow that Assad should remain in power even if there is a transition period to allow members of the political opposition into Syria's leadership.

Those comments came in stark contrast to a statement by the Saudi foreign minister after similar talks days earlier in Moscow in which he said he does "not see a place for Assad in Syria's future."
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The Associated Press
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.673090

 

[Lilbitsnana]

from the 25th

posted for fair use
http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.672940

Middle East Leaders Head to Moscow to Sign Arms Deals, Discuss Plan to End Syrian War

Russian President Vladimir Putin to float initiative that would bring Syrian regime into anti-ISIS coalition.

Haaretz
25.08.2015 22:05 Updated: 10:06 PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Jordan's King Abdullah Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, shakes hands with King Abdullah II of Jordan during their meeting in the Kremlin, in Moscow, August 25, 2015.AP

Air strikes on busy marketplace in Damascus suburb kill more than 80
The desperate lives of Syrian babies, born in a Jordan refugee camp
ISIS releases images showing apparent destruction of Palmyra temple

Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking advantage of a military exhibition in Moscow to discuss an Iranian-Russian initiative for ending the civil war in Syria with visiting Middle Eastern leaders. Jordan’s King Abdullah and Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates arrived in Moscow on Monday, followed Tuesday by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi. Delegations from several other Arab states are expected, as well as an Iranian delegation that will sign a deal to buy S-300 surface-to-air missiles.

The Iranian-Russian initiative has gathered momentum following the signing of the nuclear accord between Iran and the six powers. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently hosted Iranian and Saudi representatives to discuss details of the initiative, which includes an expansion of the Arab-Western coalition’s attacks against the Islamic State organization so as to include the Syrian army and its allies. Also arriving in Moscow was a delegation representing the National Syrian Coalition, the internationally recognized umbrella organization of Syrian opposition groups. Assad’s opponents reject the idea of including him in the fight against Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, and want to ensure that any future scenario includes his departure.

The Syrian air force continued to bomb rebel-controlled Damascus suburbs as well as villages and towns held by Islamist extremist groups in the country’s northwest. The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 42 people were killed in the bombing. In Douma, which was heavily bombed last week — over 150 people died, and the city’s main market was destroyed — 23 were killed. In northwestern Syria 17 people died when barrels bombs were dropped on the village of al-Bara.

The MAKS-2015 air show, which will include representatives from 30 countries, comes as Russia is making every effort to increase its revenues in face of sanctions imposed by Western countries because of the Ukrainian crisis as well as the sharp drop in oil prices. Despite the economic crisis, Russia is spending billions of dollars to upgrade its armed forces and increasing its naval activity in the Arctic Ocean and the Far East. Russian arms sales in 2014 exceeded $15.5 billion in arms sales, despite the sanctions on its military industries. It is the second largest exporter of arms in the world, after the United States.

The Egyptian daily Al Ahram reported that at their meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, Sissi and Putin will discuss “all aspects of bilateral relations, including prospects of further strengthening trade and economic cooperation.” The two leaders are expected to announce several economic, political and military accords, including the building of two nuclear power stations in western Egypt and the establishment of a new Russian industrial zone in the Suez Canal. Russia may also build a nuclear power station in Jordan.

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/world/1.672940