Remember the Fallen
“In a world where a phrase like “all lives matter” one can only think some pigs are more equal than other pigs even though the vocal pigs want equality at the expense of the silent pigs rights.” -BCP
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/16/us/lasers-flights-new-jersey/index.html
34 commercial flights over New Jersey report lasers- alf of the incidents reported by the FAA were close to Newark Liberty International Airport, while the others occurred elsewhere in New Jersey — from Robbinsville, near the Pennsylvania border, to Ocean City, along the Atlantic Ocean in the southeast corner of the state. When aimed at an aircraft from the ground, the powerful beam of light from a handheld laser can travel more than a mile and illuminate a cockpit, disorienting and temporarily blinding pilots Those who have been subject to such attacks have described them as the equivalent of a camera flash going off in a pitch black car at night. So-called laser attacks aren’t unprecedented, but they are on the rise, as handheld lasers become more common and affordable. There were 3,894 such strikes reported in 2014, the FAA says. For comparison’s sake, there were only 283 in 2005. That works out to about 10.5 incidents a day. But that’s nationwide, so the 11 reported attacks over New Jersey alone in one night do seem to stand out. Problem is how easy it is to cause problems and the lasers can effect pilot eyesight at the right angle
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33594654
volume of Arctic sea ice increased by around a third after an unusually cool summer in 2013. Researchers say the growth continued in 2014 and more than compensated for losses recorded in the three previous years. As it has done for 1000s of years – the NW passage is real except when Columbus sailed it was iced up
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/20/travel/shark-attack-how-to-survive/index.html?sr=cnnitw
Something New I did not Know about Shark Attacks:
1. River mouths might not be the best place to swim
2. Avoid fishing boats
3. Mistaken identity
4. Don’t bleed or Urinate in water
If you find yourself in the middle of an attack, Don’t panic, Maintain eye contact, Stay big or get small. Don’t play dead, Cut off the angles, Slowly back away.
AFRICA
AFTER recent attacks in Tunisia, Europeans began worrying about extremists taking aim at them across the Mediterranean. But it seems more likely that the jihadist epidemic will turn south. The Sahel, an arid belt on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea, has already caught the fever from Algeria and Libya. More than a dozen sub-Saharan countries are now dealing with jihadism at home.
Buhari, pres of Nigeria, former army general but still sunni
Seeking help with Boko haram yet has made sympathetic comments about isis
COMING TRENDS
Terence Stamp- says he now feels like an alien in his own country. ‘It’s very sad how few English people there are in London now,’ he tells me at a party in Mayfair, where he lamented what he seems to see as a lack of integration among some immigrants. ‘When I grew up in East London everyone seemed to speak English, and now you can barely get by speaking our own language.
Hollande said that the 19 countries using the euro need their own government complete with a budget and parliament to cooperate better and overcome the Greek crisis. What threatens us is not too much Europe, but a lack of it.” While the euro zone has a common currency, fiscal and economic policies remain mostly in the hands of each member state. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi made a plea this week for deeper cooperation between the euro members after political squabbles over Greece almost led to a rupture in the single currency
http://csis.org/publication/price-european-solidarity
Deep fissures have reappeared between France and Germany over the handling of the Greek crisis with French authorities helping to craft the Greek proposal and pronouncing their work as satisfactory. Consciously or not, by playing this role France is now the principal defender of the monetary rule breakers—rules on budget deficits and debt that France itself has violated repeatedly. This posture stands in stark contrast to Germany’s deep desire to create unbreakable (or at least severely punishable) rules. France does this to counterbalance Germany’s economic and political dominance, meanwhile European solidarity continues to weaken by the hour. What a high economic and political price to pay for a monetary union.
State of Texas is setting up a gold-backed bank that will allow depositors to bypass the controversial Federal Reserve System and its fiat currency in banking and commerce, according to the state representative who authored the recently enacted law. Under the measure, passed overwhelmingly by lawmakers and signed in mid-June by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, Lone Star State officials will establish and operate the Texas Bullion Depository for anyone who would like to deposit and trade in precious metals. The implications are as big as Texas.
Gold will go back up and this will be a potential economic hub for many Americans.
government has made some efforts to stop illegal water pumping and sales, but to no avail. Despite what its name suggests, the mafia is not a unified, organized syndicate and thus cannot be eliminated by catching and punishing a few big players. Rather, it is loose, nimble, and adaptable; it routinely outsmarts the authorities whom it isn’t already bribing to allow it to do its work. The real answer to the tanker mafia is better infrastructure: a correction to several decades’ worth of inequitable development in which public utilities were built for the benefit of the elite, leaving millions of poor to fend for themselves. But the city’s long-neglected and corrupted water system, managed by an agency known as the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), is near the point of collapse. Projections for needed improvements indicate a dauntingly long and expensive process. It may be too late to cut the mafia off at the knees, much less provide millions of residents with the water they need to survive. Delhi thus offers a painful warning to other countries where water mafias have sprouted up: Bangladesh, Honduras, and Ecuador, to name just a few. “More than anyone else, the DJB and the Delhi government [have been] responsible for the rise of the water mafia,” says Dinesh Mohaniya, a member of the Delhi Legislative Assembly who represents Sangam Vihar, one of Delhi’s poorest neighborhoods, that is a hub for water tankers. “If they had supplied piped water to everyone, why would anyone pay the mafia?” A coming global issue – crumbling infrastructure and water shortages
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/17/us-usa-army-odierno-idUSKCN0PR2F320150717
U.S. Army is far more heavily engaged around the world than projected when it began slashing force size several years ago, and its commitments will be hard to maintain in the long run as troop numbers shrink. We need to be increasing and rearming!
ECONOMICS
http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20150720000005&cid=1101
7/8/15 -China and Russia are aligning their strategies to team up against the United States, according to a commentary by the Global Times – first is economic cooperation through mutually beneficial deals such as the recent 30-year, US$400 billion natural gas agreement signed in Beijing in May. It was a deal in the interests of both sides, as Russia needed an export partner for its energy resources, while China needed a supplier for its significant energy needs. China even forwarded part of the funds to Russia in advance to help Moscow better cope with the economic sanctions from the West after its annexation of the Ukranian territory of Crimea last year. second strategy is to jointly develop the Silk Road Economic Belt. Coupled with the Trans-Asian Railway, it is China and Russia’s hope of forming a China-Eurasia economic zone to the exclusion of the US, as both Beijing and Moscow know that an inability to exert its influence is what Washington fears the most. Thirdly, China and Russia are aiming for the New Development Bank to put pressure on US dollar by competing with the US-controlled World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Given that the five BRICS nations account for half of the world’s GDP, it is possible that they could soon threaten the status of the US dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
http://www.rt.com/business/310321-brics-bank-begins-operations/
BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) has opened for operations in Shanghai, and will seek to deploy its $50 billion initial capital to fund infrastructure and sustainable development projects. Each BRICS member is expected to put an equal share into establishing the startup capital of $50 billion with a goal of it reaching $100 billion. Besides the creation of the $100 billion BRICS Development Bank, the member states also established a reserve currency pool worth over another $100 billion. Brazil, India and Russia will each contribute $18 billion to the CRA. South Africa is set to contribute $5 billion. China will be responsible for the largest share of the CRA after contributing $41 billion to the bank.
BRICS represents 42 percent of the world’s population and roughly 20 percent of the world’s economy based on GDP, and 30 percent of the world’s GDP based on PPP, a more accurate reading of the real economy. Total trade between the countries is $6.14 trillion, or nearly 17 percent of the world’s total.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Obama-prepares-to-cut-Putins-cash-flow-if-he-doesnt-play-ball-over-Ukraine/articleshow/48127073.cms
Obama prepares to cut Putin’s cash flow if he doesn’t play ball over Ukraine-senior US officials have drawn up proposals to further close off credit in the West for Russia if the country does not end fighting in Eastern Ukraine. EU and US sanctions against Russia have included as targets Russian state banks, businesses, military and energy firms. The countries say that the sanctions will put pressure on Mr Putin to adhere to international agreements in relation to Ukraine
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-19/portugal%E2%80%99s-debts-are-also-unsustainable
USING FAIRLY OPTIMISTIC ASSUMPTIONS, THE PORTUGUESE ECONOMY IS UNABLE TO GROW ENOUGH TO COVER THE INTEREST ON ITS GOVERNMENT DEBTS, LET ALONE AFFORD ANY PRINCIPAL REPAYMENTS! Portugal in debt even more than Greece so why Greece – Tsipras was looking for a eu stage and his anti-austerity mantra had to be put down.
As a result, government debt-to-GDP can only rise from here, especially as the government seems incapable of balancing the books. USING FAIRLY OPTIMISTIC ASSUMPTIONS, THE PORTUGUESE ECONOMY IS UNABLE TO GROW ENOUGH TO COVER THE INTEREST ON ITS GOVERNMENT DEBTS, LET ALONE AFFORD ANY PRINCIPAL REPAYMENTS! as a result, government debt-to-GDP can only rise from here, especially as the government seems incapable of balancing the books.
Greece’s capitulation to creditor demands in an effort to stay in the euro may serve as a reality check to Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s allies in countries such as Spain as they make their own bids for power. Greece was made an example so Spain, Portugal, Italy and maybe even Austria wouldn’t try what Greece tried.
GREECE
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-20/greeks-get-first-look-their-future-long-bank-lines-and-punishing-taxes
Monday marked the beginning of a new dawn for Greeks. Last week, PM Alexis Tsipras forced a set of draconian “reforms” through parliament and sacked political rivals, effectively legislating away the country’s sovereignty while condemning the Greek people to a fate of even tougher austerity and ensuring that despite rhetoric out of Athens, “normality” will not return to Greece for a very long time.
Greek banks reopened and as expected there were long lines. On the bright side, the queues were described as “orderly.
No debt write down but “reprofiling” – depressing and anticlimactic end to the Syriza “revolution” and, by extension, to “hope” in Greece. More austerity is now the law and Athens is once again completely beholden to the German purse string.
At least there are no tanks on the street
http://www.businessinsider.com/knight-frank-fire-sale-greek-islands-2015-7
As the long-term ramifications of Greece’s financial bailout play out more fire-sales of Greek islands are expected.” Last year Greece introduced its first tax on real estate under pressure from creditors who wanted it to raise more cash to pay down debts. The tax made owning a private island suddenly unaffordable for some owners — the asset-rich, cash-poor problem
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/592558/Greek-islands-Kos-Lesbos-collapse-migrants-arrive
GREEK islands are on the verge of collapse because thousands of migrants and asylum seekers are living in horrifying conditions after flooding in over the past few days. About 5,000 people – mainly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq – have arrived on the island of Lesbos only to face horrendous conditions as they pack into a 700-capacity centre.
Desperate migrants are suffering from overcrowding, poor hygiene conditions and a lack of food on the island – which is just one of two in Greece set up to process asylum seekers.
Thousands of new arrivals have been forced to camp in the open with no access to water, shelter, toilets or medical care.
Authorities are attempting to distribute food but there is not enough to feed the swelling numbers arriving on the island every day from war-stricken countries.
JIHAFRICA
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21657801-biggest-threat-african-peace-and-prosperity-comes-dangerous?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/Jihafrica
Biggest threat to African peace and prosperity comes from a dangerous idea. More than a dozen sub-Saharan countries are now dealing with jihadism at home (see map). They include Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Jihadist attacks in many places are a daily or weekly occurrence. Weapons are widely available, often left over from secular civil wars. Tens of thousands have died. Shabab has lost both members and territory. But it is still lethally active. Once operating purely in Somalia, it now seeps across the border into Kenya.
In this endeavour it has found an unexpected (and unwitting) ally in government forces. In Kenya, as elsewhere, official brutality has been the best recruitment tool for extremists. Armies have locked up and tortured thousands without reason. Everyone knows a victim. More than 20 Muslim clerics have been killed along the Kenyan coast in the past two years.
Yet the more governments feel under threat, the freer the rein they give their generals. This dynamic not only stirs opposition but also turns “fragile states into brittle ones”,
LATIN AMERICA/MEXICO TO PATAGONIA
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2015/07/21/us-businesses-applaud-normalization-with-cuba/
After the resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba, U.S. businesses wanting to invest in the island are now waiting for a change in the regulations, especially the lifting of the embargo, something that depends on Congress and may take years.
July 18th marks 21 years since the largest terrorist attack in Argentina’s history: the bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 individuals and wounded hundreds more. Evidence is mounting that Argentina’s president is seeking to whitewash Iran’s role in the attack.
Earlier this year, Argentina’s special prosecutor in the case, Alberto Nisman, met a suspicious death just one day before he was due to present evidence of a secret Iran-Argentina backchannel. Nisman had already implicated senior Iranian officials in the 1994 bombing. As a result of his investigation, INTERPOL had issued red notices (tantamount to international arrest warrants) for these Iranian officials.
But Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government has taken a series of steps that appear aimed at covering up Iranian involvement. In the latest example, the Argentine government is trying to reverse a court decision that ruled an Iran-Argentina Memorandum of Understanding related to the AMIA attack (MOU) unconstitutional.
http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/forget-el-chapo-meet-el-mencho-and-his-bloodthirsty-cartel/61431?utm_source=dd&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=07142015
El Mencho AKA Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes- Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación-different from some who might want to be feared but aren’t trying to build a territorial dynasty – Kind of like ISIS and I have intel he is working with them- risen to commanding heights in the landscape of Mexican narcotrafficking, rivaling the power El Chapo once had
Pope Francis brings message of solidarity to South America
“The pope of the poor” chose to visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay specifically because they are among the poorest and most marginal nations of a region that claims 40 per cent of the world’s Catholics. Correa, for his part, echoed many of Francis’ own themes about the “perverse” global economic system that keeps the poor on the margins while the rich get richer, exploiting the Earth’s natural resources in the process.
“Holy Father, the global order isn’t only unjust, it’s immoral,” Correa said.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/pope-francis-excoriates-global-capitalism-as-subtle-dictatorship-20150712-giag56.html
so we go with an overt dictatorship instead? Marxist is as Marxist does just like in the days of the Sandinistas
A handful of countries across Latin America congratulated Greece on its Sunday referendum in which voters rejected creditors’ austerity demands. Argentine President Cristina Kirchner, whose country defaulted on a mountain of debt more than a decade ago, called the vote a victory.
“Greece: decisive victory for democracy and dignity,” she wrote on Facebook Sunday, expressing Argentina’s “solidarity with the brave Greek people and their government. Evo Morales, Bolivia’s leftist president, congratulated Greece on Sunday, calling the referendum a defeat against “European imperialism.” Morales, a harsh critic of free-market economies, said the referendum was “the beginning of the liberation of the European people.” “I congratulate the great Greek people for the triumph of their ‘no vote’ over debt, which is a defeat inflicted on European imperialism,” he was quoted as saying by state-run news agency ABI.
Cuban President Raul Castro echoed the other leaders, congratulating Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras Monday in Granma
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2015-07/14/c_134411909.htm
An earth observation satellite jointly developed by China and Brazil was put into operation on Tuesday. The China-Brazil Earth Resource Satellite-04 (CBERS-04) was sent into orbit on Dec. 7, according to the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence. Tests on the satellite’s application and operational systems during orbit were found to meet the general requirements of the design.
The satellite was developed by China’s Academy of Space Technology and the National Institution of Space Research from Brazil. It can cover terrain the size of China in 26 days and provide images of medium solution.
Data from the satellite will be used in crop estimate, survey of geological disasters and other fields, and will be provided to African and Latin American countries for free
CHINA
http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/china-and-russia-to-stage-amphibious-assault-exercise-in-sea-of-japan/
Chinese and Russian naval officials have concluded planning a large joint Sino-Russian maritime exercise to be held in late August, according to the Russian TASS wire service. The exercise will take place in the Sea of Japan and off the coast of Russia’s Primorsky territory – approximately 250 miles away from Japan — and include for the first time a joint amphibious assault drill. The 20 warships and support vessels from both navies will also be joined by carrier-based aircraft, Martov told TASS. Russia’s Pacific Fleet consists of around 70 vessels including four landing ships and five landing crafts. China is currently in the process of expanding its fleet of amphibious warfare ships with the construction and gradual induction of six new Type-071 Yuzhao-class vessels. Joint sea 2015
http://thediplomat.com/2015/07/how-china-views-the-south-china-sea-arbitration-case/
phase 2, which means the construction of facilities and capabilities on these islands. An artificial island the CCP is building on the Fiery Cross Reef has a 3,000 meter (10,000 feet) airstrip being laid. Rapp-Hooper said “You don’t need a 3,000 meter airstrip to land cargo planes. You need a 3,000 meter airstrip to land fighter planes.”
Adm. Scott Swift, who assumed command of the Pacific Fleet in May assured allies Friday that American forces are well equipped and ready to respond to any contingency in the South China Sea, where long-seething territorial disputes have set off widespread uncertainties. He praised Philippine efforts to hold exercises for military readiness with U.S. allies like Japan, which held search and rescue drills for the first time with the Philippine navy on board a Japanese Self-Defense Force P-3C Orion surveillance plane in the South China Sea last month. “Multilateralism has always increased stability,” he said. China condemned those military drills, although Japanese military officials said they were not held in areas of the South China Sea disputed by Beijing and other governments.
http://www.rt.com/business/310268-gold-crashes-as-china-dumps/
Gold fell 3.8 percent, or $43, to $1,087 an ounce in Asia on Monday in a few seconds. This happened due to a huge dump of five tonnes onto the Chinese markets, that’s about a fifth of a normal day’s trade, Business Insider reports.
“In Shanghai, close to five tonnes of gold was sold on the Shanghai Gold Exchange in a two-minute window just prior to 9:30am, in a market where the normal volume traded is 25 tonnes in an entire day,” ANZ Bank analyst Victor Thianpiriya.
He added that “further downside risks remain,” and that “other indicators also suggest the likelihood of an immediate rebound is low.” Just a drop in the bucket of chicom gold -0nly about 173.28 mm @ 34.656mm a ton.
http://www.bjreview.com.cn/business/txt/2015-06/23/content_693276.htm?bsh_bid=687686810
China’s currency, the yuan, ascended to a higher global status in 2014, with the value of cross-border payments by the currency accounting for 23.6 percent of total cross-border payments, according to a report on the globalization of the yuan released by the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, on June 11. Data from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication shows that the yuan became the second most used currency in trade finance—letters of credit and collections, the fifth most popular payment currency and the sixth most used foreign exchange currency in the world in December 2014. In an effort to make the yuan an international currency in a real sense, China is pressing ahead with financial reforms so that the yuan can become part of the basket of currencies determining the value of Special Drawing Right (SDR), an international reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1969.
IRAN
https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/15/the-saudi-cold-war-with-iran-heats-up/
If anything, a deal that Saudi Arabia perceives as a rapprochement between its key ally and its archnemesis will only intensify the proxy war. The nuclear deal will only embolden both Iran and Saudi Arabia to ramp up their cold war. We have a sense of what the Iranians are capable of and what more they could do with cash from a nuclear deal. It’s less clear what the Saudis will do next — but however Riyadh reacts, you can be sure it will not limit itself to banning Persian carpets or sacking more university presidents.
so we are enabling more terrorism and you know its part of the deal? Susan Rice said “we should expect” that some of the money Iran gets under sanctions relief as a result of the nuclear deal “would go to the Iranian military and could potentially be used for the kinds of bad behavior that we have seen in the region. Rice added that Iran couldn’t send weapons to anyone because of the arms embargo but “they may be able to send money” to Bashar Assad or Houthi rebels in Yemen. She later argued, “They’re sending money now, while they’re under sanctions. There is nothing currently that is preventing them from sending money.” Although she conceded, “They will have more money, once they have verifiably given up their nuclear weapons capacity and any ability to reconstitute it.”
http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-adviser-we-never-sought-anytime-anywhere-access-to-iran-sites/
as stated, access to the sites was a bs ploy, top adviser to US President Barack Obama claimed Tuesday that the US had never sought co-called “anytime, anywhere” inspections of all suspect Iranian sites in the newly signed nuclear accord. His comments came in marked contrast to statements he made to Israeli television in April. “We never sought anytime/anywhere inspections,” Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told CNN’s Erin Burnett in a televised interview defending the new Iran nuclear deal. In the first place we will have anytime, anywhere access the nuclear facilities,” he said, referring to “the whole supply chain,” Rhodes said. He added, “If there is a suspicious site, for instance somewhere in a military base in Iran, and we want to seek access to that, we will be able to go to the IAEA and get that inspection because of the additional protocol of the IAEA that Iran will be joining and some of the additional transparency and inspections measures that are in the deal-RIGHT
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/u-disturbed-iranian-leaders-criticism-deal-121454843–finance.html
US said on Tuesday it was disturbed by anti-U.S. hostility voiced by Iran’s top leader after a nuclear deal, as both countries’ top diplomats sought to calm opposition to the accord from hardliners at home. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said a speech by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday vowing to defy American policies in the region despite a deal with world powers over Tehran’s nuclear program was “very troubling. ” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, told supporters on Saturday that U.S. policies in the region were “180 degrees” opposed to Iran’s, in a Tehran speech punctuated by chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/iran-we-will-trample-upon-america/
ranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, who was handpicked by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader to deliver the prayers, delivered a message of hostility toward the United States in the first official remarks since a final nuclear deal was signed between Iran and world powers in Vienna last week. Message on the podium declared, “We will trample upon America” while the English phrase “We Defeat the United States” can be seen underneath. Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser and expert on rogue regimes, said that the official remarks by Iranian officials and clerics are meant to mock the Obama administration.
Supreme Leader Ali “Khamenei is toying with Obama right now, humiliating him, but Obama is too self-absorbed to realize it,” Rubin said. “There’s a reason why Obama doesn’t want Congress to see the agreement,” Rubin added. “That is because to examine the agreement is to recognize that it’s more an unconditional surrender than an arms control agreement.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4680500,00.html
Sanctions imposed on Quds Force and its commander Soleimani to be lifted 8 years into agreement implementation; hundreds of individuals, organizations, companies also removed from black list. One of the names on the list led to surprise and speculation – General Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force since 1998, a unit responsible for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ operations outside of the country. The shadowy spymaster helped Shiite Iraqi militants kill American soldiers, came to the aid of Syrian President Bashar Assad and was accused by the Americans of orchestrating an attempt on the life of Saudi’s ambassador to Washington four years ago on US soil.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/20/us-iran-nuclear-un-idUSKCN0PU1BH20150720
Passage of the U.N. resolution triggers a complex set of coordinated steps agreed by Iran during nearly two years of talks with the powers. U.N. Security Council on Monday backed Iran’s nuclear agreement with world powers but the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards attacked the resolution, underlining powerful opposition to the deal. EU’s approval of the deal with the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany marked a first step toward lifting Europe’s economic sanctions against Tehran. The bloc hopes this will send a signal that the U.S. Congress will follow.
In a message mainly aimed at skeptical voices in Congress and strong resistance from Israel, EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels stressed that there was no better option available.
“It is a balanced deal that means Iran won’t get an atomic bomb,” said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
Congress now has 60 days to decide whether to approve or reject the deal.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-says-un-cant-ban-ballistic-missiles-under-nuke-deal/
After Security Council endorses pact, Tehran claims prohibition on missile development not relevant to world body, adds atomic watchdog won’t want to inspect military sites.Iran said its ballistic missile program was not connected to the UN Security Council resolution adopted Monday, which endorses its July 14 nuclear accord with world powers. A statement from the Iranian Foreign Ministry also said that it was “certain” the International Atomic Energy Agency will not request to inspect its military sites. Under the terms of the nuclear deal, Iran is barred from developing ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Iran says it has built ballistic missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), capable of striking its arch-foe Israel.
But the Foreign Ministry said the UN’s resolution endorsing the deal did not have jurisdiction over its missile development.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/iran-defense-chief-forbids-international-inspections-of-military-sites/
Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan also said the nuclear deal does not limit Iran’s missile development, which he maintained Tehran would “resolutely” pursue- stating Tehran would not allow international inspectors to enter the Islamic Republic’s military sites, in comments that appear at odds with the terms of a landmark nuclear deal struck with world powers last week.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/kerry-it-would-be-presumptuous-go-congress-going-un_993595.html#.Va5r5nwfUYA.twitter
Secretary of State John Kerry defended the Obama administration’s decision to take the Iran deal to the United Nations before the U.S. Congress votes on it. But the bottom line, the UN is going to vote on this before Congress gets to vote on this?” “Well, they have a right to do that, honestly. It is presumptuous of some people to say that France, Russia, China, Germany, Britain ought to do what the Congress tells them to do,” said Kerry. “They have a right to have a vote. But we prevailed on them to delay the implementation of that vote out of respect of our Congress.” WTF?
IRAQ
Anti-Islamic State fighters are not qualified for battle, according to Iraqi Sunni tribal commanders -training courses are short, simple and not sufficient to cope with Daesh [IS] and its vicious tactics,” Sheikh Rafiea Abdulkareem al-Fahdawi, the commander of Albu Fahad anti-IS Sunni tribal battalion More than 1,200 troops and 1,500 advisers from 11 nations have been training 21,500 Iraqi fighters and tribesmen in three six-week training courses that began in August 2014, a Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve’s
To liberate the areas controlled by Daesh, we need special training to deal with booby-trapped houses, earning sniping and monitoring skills,” Fahdawi said and added, “we need real and intense training.
ISIS
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/ISIS-flag-in-Kashmir-valley-worries-Army/articleshow/44831687.cms
senior military officer in Kashmir valley on Wednesday warned that the waving of ISIS flags in Kashmir was a matter of grave concern and the security establishment needed to take note of it at the highest level. The warning came a day after J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah dismissed the incident as “an act of some idiots”. (SAME RESPONSE AS MAYOR PORKER)
A protester waved an ISIS flag last week after Eid prayers in Srinagar, in the second such incident in recent times. In July too, a similar incident had occurred in the valley.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/world/middleeast/isis-strategies-include-lines-of-succession-and-deadly-ring-tones.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
ISIS’s reclusive leader has empowered his inner circle of deputies as well as regional commanders in Syria and Iraq with wide-ranging authority, a plan to ensure that if he or other top figures are killed, the organization will quickly adapt and continue fighting, American and Iraqi intelligence officials say.
The officials say the leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delegates authority to his cabinet, or shura council, which includes ministers of war, finance, religious affairs and others. Leadership comes from two pools: veterans of Al Qaeda in Iraq who survived the insurgency against American forces with battle-tested militant skills, and former Baathist officers under Saddam Hussein with expertise in organization, intelligence and internal security. It is the merger of these two skill sets that has made the organization such a potent force, the officials say. Baghdadi is to a certain extent a religious figurehead designed to grant an aura of religious legitimacy and respectability to the group’s operations, while the real power brokers are a core of former military and intelligence officials,” said Matthew Henman, managing editor of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/19/town-shames-isis-chief-cersei-lannister-style-and-then-executes-him.html?via=desktop&source=twitter
execution designed to humiliate the local ISIS leader. And it seemed to be ripped right out of the screenplay for ‘Game of Thrones. In a scene of medieval brutality, a jihadi group fighting to control a strategically important Libyan port captured ISIS’s local commander there, paraded him through the streets amid the taunts of onlookers, and then walked him to a gallows, where he was hanged. The murdered ISIS chief is believed to be an Iraqi named Abu-Ali al-Anbari, who was reportedly hanged in Derna in mid-June. He may have been one of a number of veteran fighters who terrorism analysts said have traveled in recent months from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria to help ISIS. Killing al-Anbari in such a visible way would also send a potent message to ISIS top leaders. Best way to take’em out, let them kill each other but it will take way too long.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/33600339/what-lifes-like-for-young-people-under-so-called-islamic-state
not what the brochure said it would be
For the men and boys who reach IS-controlled territory, they are recruited and trained to become jihadi fighters and sometimes to carry out suicide bombings. For women joining IS, Western freedoms are immediately withdrawn. Beheadings, amputations and flogging are common punishments and many live in fear of falling foul of IS’s extreme (some say “perverted”) interpretation of Islamic law.
Highly publicised atrocities and acts of destruction are deliberately staged to demonstrate the group’s ruthlessness and instill fear.
http://iswiraq.blogspot.com/2015/07/control-of-terrain-in-iraq-july-20-2015.html
isis still concentrated n of Baghdad and close to it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/18/world/middleeast/islamic-state-isis-chemical-weapons-iraq-syria.html?smid=tw-share
ISIS ppears to have manufactured rudimentary chemical warfare shells and attacked Kurdish positions in Iraq and Syria with them as many as three times in recent weeks, according to field investigators, Kurdish officials and a Western ordnance disposal technician who examined the incidents and recovered one of the shells.
The development, which the investigators said involved toxic industrial or agricultural chemicals repurposed as weapons, signaled a potential escalation of the group’s capabilities, though it was not entirely without precedent.
JIHAD IN US (and Europe)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/chattanooga-shooting-fbi-recovers-gunmans-disturbing-diary/story?id=32558310#.Va0T_FW5Pb4.twitter
gunman who killed five American troops in a Chattanooga shooting spree last week did online research for militant Islamist “guidance” on committing violence that he may have believed would wipe away in the afterlife his sins on earth including drug and alcohol abuse, an arrest and a lost job, officials said on Monday. Reuters news agency reported on Monday that some officials said Abdulazeez had been inspired by “general propaganda” by jihadists and not specifically by ISIS, al Qaeda or other militant groups Three months before the shooting, Abdulazeez was arrested on April 20 — a day celebrated annually by marijuana users — and charged with drunk driving. The arresting officer noted a smell of marijuana in the car. A seven-month trip to Jordan last year was an effort to “get him away from bad influences in the U.S.,” not part of a path to radicalization, the family told agents.
Intelligence and counter-terrorist experts point out that these acts of terror were the price that US army and intelligence agencies paid for relying on Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate (Dairat al-Mukhabarat al-Amman) as a source of penetration agents for fighting Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other radical Islamist organizations. US investigators reported Saturday that Abdulazeez had visited Jordan four times in the last 10 years, and during one of those visits traveled to Yemen. There is no chance that the killer – a naturalized American citizen whose real name may be Mohammed Youssuf Said – could have traveled to Yemen on a Jordanian passport “under the radar” of Jordanian intelligence, which may also have succeeded in recruiting him. And there is no way that Jordan’s GID would not have tipped off US intelligence and counter-terrorist authorities.
http://fellowshipoftheminds.com/2015/07/19/army-cos-gen-odierno-doesnt-want-our-soldiers-to-be-over-armed/
Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army Gen. Raymond Odierno told reporters that arming troops in those offices could cause more problems than it might solve. I think we have to be careful about over-arming ourselves, and I’m not talking about where you end up attacking each other.” Instead, he said, it’s more about “accidental discharges and everything else that goes along with having weapons that are loaded that causes injuries
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/20/inside-hezbollah-s-european-plots.html?via=desktop&source=twitter
Lebanese terror group continues to operate in Europe despite warnings from the EU. Recent Hezbollah plots were exposed as far afield as Peru and Thailand, but the latest plot was thwarted in Cyprus, where Hussein Bassam Abdallah, a dual Lebanese-Canadian citizen, stockpiled 8.2 tons of ammonium nitrate, a popular chemical explosive. New evidence reveals that Hezbollah’s military wing is still plotting attacks across Europe. EU banned part of Hezbollah and warned it to cease activities in Europe, and Hezbollah promptly called Brussels’ bluff.
MIDDLE EAST/EGYPT/SYRIA
http://www.debka.com/newsupdate/11968/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
ISIS Thursday sank an Egyptian Navy cruise and transport vessel off the Sinai shore of Rafah after setting in on fire. The Islamists said they used missiles, while the Egyptian army said the ship came under heavy fire from the shore. The vessel, able to carry 70 men and crew as well as freight, was used to transport police officers, soldiers and military supplies to the Egyptian forces fighting terrorists in northern Sinai. Witnesses report the ship must have carried ordnance because it exploded quickly and no survivors were seen in the water.
http://www.debka.com/newsupdate/11915/
Iran and Hizballah have launched a three-part operation to destabilize the regime on Jordan as counteraction for the kingdom’s role as the principle base for the training of Syrian rebels by American CIA instructors. Jordan also hosts 1.5 million Syrian refugees. Part I: Planting Iranian Al Qods Brigades agents for terror missions. Part II: Al Qods and Hizballah are recruiting Jordanian Palestinians and Muslim Brotherhood adherents for rowdy anti-government demonstrations against the kingdom. Part III: Syria’s contribution is to intensify the military pressure on its border with Jordan.
http://www.debka.com/article/24743/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Abdel Karim Rubash, Deputy Commander of the elite Al Qods Brigades and, is the most senior Iranian general to fall in battle in the more than four years of the Syrian war. he who came up with the plan to bring Hizballah fighters over from Lebanon to strengthen the Syrian military effort against the insurgency. He was also responsible for organizing the movement of Iranian-supplied arms to Hizballah via Syria. Those convoys were bombed by the Israeli air force several times.
Gen. Rubash was the third Iranian general to die on the Syrian battlefield this year. A combined force of Syrian troops plus pro-Iranian Shiite militias imported for the campaign is closing in on the town. It has come within 6 km of Palmyra and is forcing the jihadis to fall back. Its success in recovering Palmyra, if accomplished, would represent the biggest Syrian-Iranian triumph in the war on ISIS.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/07/20/mideast-crisis-turkey-islamic-state-idINKCN0PU13Q20150720
A huge development since Turkey was an isis enabler. Preliminary evidence suggests an Islamic State suicide attack caused the blast that ripped through the Turkish border town of Suruc on Monday and killed at least 20 people
http://www.businessinsider.com/hamas-rearming-itself-with-israeli-supplies-2015-7?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Business%20Insider%20Select&utm_campaign=BI%20Select%20%28Tuesday%20Thursday%29%202015-07-21&utm_content=BISelect
Hamas desperately trying to resupply its rocket building efforts. During Ramadan, despite the hunger, heat and financial hardship, the hundreds of workers digging tunnels under the Israeli border, inside the Gaza Strip and on the Egyptian border, kept on with their labor. That they worked at a slower pace was not because of the fast. Hundreds of Palestinians, members of Hamas, continued building the network, including new attack tunnels to reach Israel in the next war and smuggling tunnels to Sinai. The problem they have encountered over the past few weeks, causing a slowdown in the pace of digging, is a severe shortage of some of the materials critically important for the tunnel industry
Multiple intercepts of components from fuel to electrodes
RUSSIA
http://spacenews.com/maneuvering-russian-satellite-has-everyones-attention/
Russian military satellite launched in March has made at least 11 close approaches to the rocket upper stage that released it into orbit, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Air Force.
Such maneuvering capability is consistent with, but not necessarily indicative of, an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon.
UKRAINE/EUROPE
Controversy over that one sentence in amendments to the Ukrainian Constitution aimed at devolving some power to the regions is the latest step in the delicate, duplicitous, and dangerous dance between Ukraine and Russia in the twilight of the Donbas war.The sentence – particulars of local government in certain districts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions are to be determined by a special law
If Kiev were bold, it would countenance giving the occupied territories the independence that its separatist leaders say they want or have,” Motyl wrote recently.
“Think about it. If Kiev took the initiative, it could, in one fell swoop, establish clarity in its east. If the enclave were independent, all talk of ‘civil war,’ autonomy, and ‘economic blockades’ would cease, and the only issue would be the Russian war against Ukraine proper.” Best worst option for Kyiv would be to “freeze the conflict and let the enclave drift away.” Which, by kicking the can down the road a bit, might be exactly what Poroshenko is doing.
http://tass.ru/en/world/809464
Kiev has pulled up to the front line a group of 70,000 soldiers, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Alexander Zakharchenko said on Saturday.
“As of now, over 70,000 Ukrainian military are along the line of engagement, and every day the number is growing,” he said. Since Kiev is not ready for any steps to demilitarise Donbass, the expanding of the military presence cannot at all prove Kiev’s aspirations for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
http://www.rt.com/news/227071-ukraine-troops-hide-losses/#.Vav24y1mgvo.twitter
Ukraine’s subversive hacker group CyberBerkut has published documents allegedly exposing dreadful situation with the Kiev’s troops attacking rebel forces in the East: war crimes, tremendous loss of lives and wholesale desertion of entrapped troops. The anti-government activists claim they have hacked personal computer of Ukraine’s Judge Advocate General and copied a number of classified documents. These documents are allegedly exposing some dark secrets of Kiev’s authorities regarding the real state of things in the zone of the so-called ‘anti-terrorist operation’ in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions of the country. Hacked documents claim at least 1,100 servicemen of the Ukrainian army have lost their lives over the period of the last two weeks. Many dozens Ukrainian soldiers gave up to rebel forces. Ukrainian army has lost over 100 tanks and the armored vehicles.
SAUDI
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20150717/1024763906.html
Saudi Arabia will launch a military offensive to gain momentum in Yemen and Syria before a nuclear deal leads to an economic recovery in Iran, which would enable Tehran to channel funds to its proxy forces in the region. Lifting sanctions over the next year could potentially leave Iran flush with more than $100 billion in unfrozen funds and new revenues – resources the Saudis say Tehran will use to expand its proxy wars. “An Iran without sanctions will pump billions of dollars to its proxies, which are destabilizing Yemen, Syria, and Iraq,” said Jasser al Jasser, managing editor of the pro-government Al Jazeerah daily. “Saudi Arabia will not allow Iran to take advantage of this deal.”
http://www.mrctv.org/blog/saudi-prince-even-after-deal-military-action-against-iran-still-table-or-without-us?utm_campaign=naytev&utm_content=55ad227ce4b0d34b5a1ac881#.1u0sx0:N6FX
Prince Bandar bin Sultan told Lebanon’s Daily Star the deal would allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb and would “wreak havoc in the region.” Covered in The Times of London, the prince also told Daily Star, “Saudi Arabia and the Gulf powers are prepared to take military action without American support after the Iran nuclear deal” Prince also said that regional powers have lost faith in America: “People in my region now are relying on God’s will, and consolidating their local capabilities and analysis with everybody else except our oldest and most powerful ally”
Iran and Saudi Arabia are the two leading players in the Sunni/Shia divide and are competing for leadership of the Muslim world. The Sunni Islam Saudi Arabian monarchy fears that the Shia Islam Iranians will employ terrorists in an attempt topple the monarchy and the ruling House of Saud.
Saudi Arabia arrested 431 people as part of a crackdown on a cluster of cells linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group, the kingdom’s Ministry of Interior (MOI) said. Authorities also thwarted seven mosque attacks that had been planned by the suspects in the capital Riyadh as well as the Eastern Province, MOI Spokesman Maj. Gen. Mansour Al Turki said in a press conference carried by Al Arabiya News Channel.
Among the arrested were Saudi nationals and suspects from nine other nationalities, he said adding that the cluster of cells was divided by tasks and target, he told reporters.
In one cell, made of five members, their task was to prep suicide bombers while another five-member cell had the mission to manufacture explosive belts.
YEMEN
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/07/20/421002/yemen-Saudi-base-video–
Yemeni forces destroyed the Saudi army installation in the Jizan region, Yemeni TV channel al-Masirah reported on Sunday. Missile attacks were also launched on a Saudi base in the southwestern Najran region.
http://presstv.com/Detail/2015/07/18/420859/Yemen-Saudi-Arabia-missile-attack-military-base-Najran
Houthi carried out a retaliatory missile attack on a military base in Saudi Arabia’s southwestern border city of Najran.
http://www.presstv.com/Detail/2015/07/17/420698/Saudi-Special-Forces-Yemen-fugitive-officials
Saudi Arabia has reportedly sent Special Forces into Yemen under the pretext of escorting some fugitive former Yemeni officials back into its war-torn southern neighbor, in another violation of Yemeni sovereignty. The forces, which numbered 50, accompanied the officials on their way from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, into the southwestern Yemeni province of Aden, the Bawabatii news website reported on Friday. The report said the forces, who have undergone special training over the past 48 hours, will continue to accompany the fugitive officials in Yemen.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/07/20/uk-yemen-security-idUKKCN0PU0M420150720?utm_source=twitter
Houthis losing (for now until Iran gets its $$) to sa backed al queda and other sunni elements.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exiled-president-says-aden-key-yemen-salvation-1285472449
Hadi (ex sunni pres hiding in SA) paid tribute to loyalist forces as they pushed an offensive against rebels in the country’s second city of Aden. Aden will be the key to Yemen’s salvation. From Aden we will regain (control) of all of Yemen,” said Hadi, praising the “resistance” of pro-government forces who are battling to oust the Shiite Houthi rebels and their allies from the southern city. –
SUBCON ASIA –INDIA AND WAKISTAN (typo intended)
http://presstv.com/Detail/2015/07/20/421077/India-Pakistan-Kashmir-Poonch-District
Series of fierce clashes has erupted between Indian and Pakistani soldiers along the de facto border dividing the disputed region of Kashmir. Indian and Pakistani troops traded fire close to Poonch District in the Indian-administered region of Kashmir early Monday. Not far from where the ISIS flag sightings occurred. An unnamed Indian army spokesman accused Pakistani troops of opening fire on several posts along the Line of Control (LoC), which divides the Indian and Pakistani administered sides of Kashmir. In 2003, India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC in Kashmir, and launched peace talks a year later. The process was, however, suspended after over 160 people lost their lives in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-be-broad-minded-to-accept-chinese-subs-in-indian-ocean-2106491
India told to broad minded about Chinese subs in Indian Ocean as India upgrades outposts.
United States and India should consider permanently expanding their annual naval exercise to include other like-minded partners as part of their joint cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, a U.S. defense official said earlier this week.
Exercise MALABAR, which initially began as a bilateral naval exercise between the United States and India back in 1992, has at times been expanded to include other partners as well. The 2007 iteration included Japan, Australia, and Singapore, while Tokyo also participated in 2009 and 2014. This year, Japan has been included but Australia has reportedly been left out
