#Pakistani missile could reach United States

[usafphantom2]

Still, Serbin Pont said, "the United States is putting pressure by offering used F-16s, and another alternative being put on the table is the modernized F/A-18."

"Although Mirage and MiG aircraft are still being considered, these are the least likely to be selected," he added.

Aerospace expert Justin Bronk of the Royal United Services Institute added: "After other options have been repeatedly blocked or lost for financial reasons, the aircraft [JF-17] increasingly seems the best option available." But at this stage, he added, "any substitute fighter would be a potentially transformative benefit for Fuerza Aérea Argentina [Argentina Air Force], after more than a decade of unsuccessful attempts to replace its Mirage III and V fleets."

Britain's diplomatic post in Pakistan did not respond to Defense News about how the European country could react to a sale of JF-17, but aerospace expert Douglas Barrie of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies suspects that Britain is closely monitoring the acquisition effort because of the aircraft's weapons package.

"Although the JF-17 / FC-1 as a platform has only modest combat aircraft characteristics, some of the Chinese air-to-air and air-surface missiles that are being or are already integrated into the aircraft are capable, notably, the PL-10 short-range AAM IIR and the PL-12 active radar-guided AAM," Barrie said. "The medium-range C-802 anti-ship missile was also seen in development aircraft."

But Bronk pointed out that the JF-17 has "limited reach when transporting such weapons, especially in the context of Argentina's extensive land and sea territory".

"It also remains to be seen whether Fuerza Aérea Argentina would be able to sustain a decent maintenance fee with the JF-17, if delivered, since the last decades have not been kind to the FAA in this regard."

The Argentine Air Force has been struggling to replace old aircraft and maintain offensive capabilities, having withdrawn almost all front-line combat aircraft, except some A-4AR Fightinghawk attack aircraft now supported by an even smaller number of IA-63 Pampa jet instructors.

The fourth generation JF-17 is jointly developed and produced by China Chengdu Aerospace Corporation and the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex, the latter of which produces 58 percent of the fuselage and performs the final assembly. The latest variant of Block III, in production for Pakistan and being offered to Argentina, features a number of improvements, including an EASA radar system, in addition to the choice of a Chinese WS-13 engine instead of the Russian RD-93 that triggered the first two variants and those of the Pakistani service.

[bountyofbeads]

With Trump as President, the World Is Spiraling Into Chaos https://nyti.ms/305ERbG

With Trump as President, the World Is Spiraling Into Chaos

Trump torched America’s foreign policy infrastructure. The results are becoming clear.

By Michelle Goldberg, Opinion Columnist | Published August 16, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 16, 2019 |

Earlier this week, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Asad Majeed Khan, visited The New York Times editorial board, and I asked him about the threat of armed conflict between his country and India over Kashmir. India and Pakistan have already fought two wars over the Himalayan territory, which both countries claim, and which is mostly divided between them. India recently revoked the constitutionally guaranteed autonomy of the part of Kashmir it controls and put nearly seven million people there under virtual house arrest. Pakistan’s prime minister  compared India’s leaders to Nazis and warned that they’ll target Pakistan next. It seems like there’s potential for humanitarian and geopolitical horror.

Khan’s answer was not comforting. “We are two big countries with very large militaries with nuclear capability and a history of conflict,” he said. “So I would not like to burden your imagination on that one, but obviously if things get worse, then things get worse.”

All over the world, things are getting worse. China appears to be weighing a Tiananmen Square-like crackdown in Hong Kong. After I spoke to Khan, hostilities between India and Pakistan ratcheted up further; on Thursday, fighting across the border in Kashmir left three Pakistani soldiers dead. (Pakistan also claimed that five Indian soldiers were killed, but India denied it.) Turkey is threatening to invade Northeast Syria to go after America’s Kurdish allies there, and it’s not clear if an American agreement meant to prevent such an incursion will hold.

North Korea’s nuclear program and ballistic missile testing continue apace. The prospect of a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine is more remote than it’s been in decades. Tensions between America and Iran keep escalating. Relations between Japan and South Korea have broken down. A Pentagon report warns that ISIS is “re-surging” in Syria. The U.K. could see food shortages if the country’s Trumpish prime minister, Boris Johnson, follows through on his promise to crash out of the European Union without an agreement in place for the aftermath. Oh, and the globe may be lurching towards recession.

In a world spiraling towards chaos, we can begin to see the fruits of Donald Trump’s erratic, amoral and incompetent foreign policy, his systematic undermining of alliances and hollowing out of America’s diplomatic and national security architecture. Over the last two and a half years, Trump has been playing Jenga with the world order, pulling out once piece after another. For a while, things more or less held up. But now the whole structure is teetering.

To be sure, most of these crises have causes other than Trump. Even competent American administrations can’t dictate policy to other countries, particularly powerful ones like India and China. But in one flashpoint after another, the Trump administration has either failed to act appropriately, or acted in ways that have made things worse. “Almost everything they do is the wrong move,” said Susan Thornton, who until last year was the acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, America’s top diplomat for Asia.

Consider Trump’s role in the Kashmir crisis. In July, during a White House visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, Trump offered to mediate India and Pakistan’s long-running conflict over Kashmir, even suggesting that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to do so. Modi’s government quickly denied this, and Trump’s words reportedly alarmed India, which has long resisted outside involvement in Kashmir. Two weeks later, India sent troops to lock Kashmir down, then stripped it of its autonomy.

Americans have grown used to ignoring Trump’s casual lies and verbal incontinence, but people in other countries have not. Thornton thinks the president’s comments were a “precipitating factor” in Modi’s decision to annex Kashmir. By blundering into the conflict, she suggested, Trump put the Indian prime minister on the defensive before his Hindu nationalist constituency. “He might not have had to do that,” she said of Modi’s Kashmir takeover, “but he would have had to do something. And this was the thing he was looking to do anyway.”

At the same time, Modi can be confident that Trump, unlike previous American presidents, won’t even pretend to care about democratic backsliding or human rights abuses, particularly against Muslims. “There’s a cost-benefit analysis that any political leader makes,” said Ben Rhodes, a former top Obama national security aide. “If the leader of India felt like he was going to face public criticism, potential scrutiny at the United Nations,” or damage to the bilateral relationship with the United States, “that might affect his cost-benefit analysis.” Trump’s instinctive sympathy for authoritarian leaders empowers them diplomatically.

Obviously, India and Pakistan still have every interest in avoiding a nuclear holocaust. China may show restraint on Hong Kong. Wary of starting a war before the 2020 election, Trump might make a deal with Iran, though probably a worse one than the Obama agreement that he jettisoned. The global economy could slow down but not seize up. We could get through the next 17 months with a world that still looks basically recognizable.

Even then, America will emerge with a desiccated diplomatic corps, strained alliances, and a tattered reputation. It will never again play the same leadership role internationally that it did before Trump.

And that’s the best-case scenario. The most powerful country in the world is being run by a sundowning demagogue whose oceanic ignorance is matched only by his gargantuan ego. The United States has been lucky that things have hung together as much as they have, save the odd government shutdown or white nationalist terrorist attack. But now, in foreign affairs as in the economy, the consequences of not having a functioning American administration are coming into focus. “No U.S. leadership is leaving a vacuum,” said Thornton. We’ll see what gets sucked into it.

If You Think Trump Is Helping Israel, You’re a Fool

By barring Representatives Omar and Tlaib, Netanyahu made the president happy. But he has poisoned relations with America.

By Thomas L. Friedman, Opinion Columnist | Published Aug. 16, 2019 | New York Times | Posted August 16, 2019 |

I am going to say this as simply and clearly as I can: If you’re an American Jew and you’re planning on voting for Donald Trump because you think he is pro-Israel, you’re a damn fool.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. Trump has said and done many things that are in the interests of the current Israeli government — and have been widely appreciated by the Israeli public. To deny that would be to deny the obvious. But here’s what’s also obvious. Trump’s way of — and motivation for — expressing his affection for Israel is guided by his political desire to improve his re-election chances by depicting the entire Republican Party as pro-Israel and the entire Democratic Party as anti-Israel.

As a result, Trump — with the knowing help of Israel’s current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu — is doing something no American president and Israeli prime minister have done before: They’re making support for Israel a wedge issue in American politics.

Few things are more dangerous to Israel’s long-term interests than its becoming a partisan matter in America, which is Israel’s vital political, military and economic backer in the world.

As Dore Gold, the right-wing former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations and once a very close adviser to Netanyahu, warned in a dialogue at the Hudson Institute on Nov. 27, 2018: “You reach out to Democrats, and you reach out to Republicans. And you don’t get caught playing partisan politics in the United States.’’

Trump’s campaign to tar the entire Democratic Party with some of the hostile views toward Israel of a few of its newly elected congresswomen — and Netanyahu’s careless willingness to concede to Trump’s demand and bar two of them, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, from visiting Israel and the West Bank — is part of a process that will do huge, long-term damage to Israel’s interests and support in America.

Netanyahu later relented and granted a visa to Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, for a private, “humanitarian’’ visit to see her 90-year-old grandmother — provided she agree in writing not to advocate the boycott of Israel while there. At first Tlaib agreed, but then decided that she would not come under such conditions.

Excuse me, but when did powerful Israel — a noisy, boisterous democracy where Israeli Arabs in its parliament say all kinds of wild and crazy things — get so frightened by what a couple of visiting freshman American congresswomen might see or say? When did Israel get so afraid of saying to them: “Come, visit, go anywhere you want! We’ve got our warts and we’ve got our good stuff. We’d just like you to visit both. But if you don’t, we’ll live with that too. We’re pretty tough.’’

It’s too late for that now. The damage of what Trump and Bibi have been up to — formally making Israel a wedge issue in American politics — is already done. Do not be fooled: Netanyahu, through his machinations with Senate Republicans, can get the United States Congress to give him an audience anytime he wants. But Bibi could not speak on any major American college campus today without massive police protection. The protests would be huge.

And listen now to some of the leading Democratic presidential candidates, like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders — you can hear how unhappy they are with the behavior of this Israeli government and its continued occupation of the West Bank. And they are not afraid to say so anymore. As The Jerusalem Post reported on July 11, “Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whose presidential candidacy has rallied in recent weeks, told two Jewish anti-occupation activists ‘yes’ when they asked her for support.’’

But who can blame them? Trump is equating the entire Democratic Party with hatred for Israel, while equating support for Netanyahu — who leads the most extreme, far-right government that Israel has ever had, who is facing indictment on three counts of corruption and whose top priority is getting re-elected so that he can have the Israeli Knesset overrule its justice system and keep him out of court — with loving Israel.

How many young Americans want to buy into that narrative? If Bibi wins, he plans to pass a law banning his own indictment on corruption, and then, when Israel’s Supreme Court strikes down that law as illegal, he plans to get the Knesset to pass another law making the Supreme Court subservient to his parliament. I am not making this up. Israel will become a Jewish banana republic.

If and when that happens, every synagogue, every campus Hillel, every Jewish institution, every friend of Israel will have to ask: Can I support such an Israel? It will tear apart the entire pro-Israel community and every synagogue and Jewish Federation.

Then add another factor. By moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem — and turning that embassy, led by a Trump crony, Ambassador David Friedman, into an outpost for advancing the interests of Israeli Jewish settlers, not American interests — Trump has essentially greenlighted the Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

Again, should Netanyahu remain prime minister — which is possible only if he puts together a ruling coalition made up of far-right parties that want to absorb the West Bank and its 2.5 million Palestinians into Israel — Israel will be on its way to becoming either a binational state of Arabs and Jews or a state that systematically deprives a large and growing segment of its population of the democratic right to vote. Neither will be a Jewish democracy, the dream of Israel’s founders and still the defining, but endangered, political characteristic of the state.

Don’t get me wrong. I strongly oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement — which Representatives Omar and Tlaib have embraced — because it wants to erase the possibility of a two-state solution. And I am particularly unhappy with Representative Omar.

I know a lot about her home district in Minnesota, because I grew up in it, in St. Louis Park. Omar represents the biggest concentration of Jews and Muslims living together in one district in the Upper Midwest. She was perfectly placed to be a bridge builder between Muslims and Jews. Instead, sadly, she has been a bridge destroyer between the two since she came to Washington. But anytime she is legitimately criticized, Democrats automatically scream “Islamophobia’’ and defend her. That’s as disturbing as Trump.

I know that more than a few Somali immigrants in Minneapolis, who face so many challenges — from gang violence to unemployment — are asking why is Omar spending time on the West Bank of the Jordan and not on the West Bank of the Mississippi?

I love Israelis, Palestinians and Arabs — but God save me from some of their American friends. So many of them just want to exploit this problem to advance themselves politically, get attention, raise money or delegitimize their opponents.

In that, Trump is not alone — he’s just the worst of the worst.

[loverajnishyadavblog]

When the United States sent its naval fleet to intimidate India in 1971, when the United Nations Security Council meeting was called again on December 12, 1971, Indira Gandhi led Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani delegation and the United States representative to the United Nations.  Sent Foreign Secretary Swaran Singh to counter George Bush Sr.

 Swaran Singh took a sarcasm at Pakistan and said, is Mr. Bhutto still dreaming of winning India and reaching Delhi?

 In his book, The Blood Taligram, Gary Bais writes, "When Bush questioned Nixon and Kissinger's instructions about India's intentions in the war, Swarn Singh in turn asked him what the American intentions in Vietnam were."  is?

 The Soviet Union saved India by vetoing the ceasefire resolution of the Security Council for the third and last time.  This upset Kinsinger so much that he threatened to cancel the summit with the Soviet Union in the next few days without asking Nixon.

 Decision to send USS Enterprise to Bay of Bengal

 Meanwhile, when diplomats from India, Pakistan and the US were bent on insulting each other, Nixon and Kissinger decided that they would send the US fleet to the USS Enterprise immediately towards the Bay of Bengal, on the pretext of evacuating American citizens from East Pakistan.  .

 The interesting thing was that the day before, all American citizens had been evacuated from Dhaka.  The US State Department's decalcified tapes stated that 'Kissinger informed Bhutto that American warships would soon enter the Bay of Bengal from the Gulf of Malacca.

 Nixon also asserted that he would continue moving towards India until an agreement was reached about the withdrawal of Indian troops.

 America's seventh fleet enterprise, powered by nuclear power, included seven destroyers, a helicopter carrier USS Tripoli and an oil carrier.

 It was commanded by Admiral John McCain Jr., whose son John McCain III later became Senator of Arizona and Republican candidate for President in 2008.

 The author of 'Blood Telegram', Gary Bass, writes that "The American fleet was much larger than India's naval fleet."  The Enterprise laid siege to Cuba during the missile crisis.  He was at least five times larger than India's only aircraft carrier INS Vikrant.

 Even Tripoli, a vessel in the Enterprise's fleet, was larger than Vikrant.  An enterprise powered by nuclear power could revolve around the world without being re-fueled.  On the other hand, Vikrant's boilers were also not working well.

 Where the Soviet Union was not sitting silent on this move of America.  Admiral SM Nanda writes in his autobiography, 'The Man Who Bombed Karachi', 'In the first week of December, a destroyer and minesweeper of the Soviet Union had reached the area from the Gulf of Malacca.

 The Soviet fleet remained behind the American fleet until it left the first week of January 1972.  Later, Captain Admiral Zumwalt of the Enterprise came to deliver a speech in November 1989 at the United Service Institute.

 When asked what was the purpose of sending the seventh fleet to the Indian Ocean in 1971, he replied that he had not been clear what his mission was, except that perhaps America wanted to show the world that we  Friends do not hold back from assisting in times of trouble.

 Admiral Zumwalt had also asked Kissinger what he would have to do if he encountered an Indian Navy vessel.  Kissinger's answer to that was that you have to decide.

 Indira Gandhi summoned Admiral Nanda, after Admiral Zumwalt's speech, Admiral Nanda invited him to drinks at his home.  There Zumwalt asked him, how did you take it when you got the news of our arrival in the Bay of Bengal?

 America did not intend to get entangled with the Indian Navy, amidst this outcry, Indira Gandhi addressed a huge public meeting at Delhi's Ramlila Maidan.  When Indira Gandhi's speech was going on, the aircraft of the Indian Air Force were hovering over the synagogue so that no aircraft of Pakistan would target that public meeting.

 Without naming America and China in that meeting, Indira Gandhi said that some external forces are trying to threaten us, which will be given a befitting reply.  This speech was so inflammatory that later his press office removed parts of it in its written version.

 Meanwhile, when Yahya Khan came to know that the seventh American fleet was moving towards the Bay of Bengal, he requested Nixon to be sent to protect Karachi.

 Patrick Moynihan writes in his book 'Estranged Democracies India and the United States,' Nixon had no intention of having a naval battle, despite often suggesting that he could start a fight with India at any time.  He was using the enterprise as an excuse so that the Soviet Union could force India to ceasefire.

 In private, Kissinger used to say that he had no intention of engaging militarily in this battle. 'The American name in the wake of the Vietnam War was unlikely.

 On the other hand, Admiral Mihir Roy, Director of Naval Intelligence, told in a briefing given to Indira Gandhi that the seventh fleet may attack India but it is unlikely as the Vietnam War continues.  He also said that he might try to break the siege of Pakistan by the Indian Navy.

 Admiral N. Krishnan, the chief of the Eastern Command of the Indian Navy, writes in his book 'No Way But Surrender', 'I was afraid that Americans might come to Chittagong.  We even thought that one of our submarines would torpedo the Enterprise ship so that the speed of that fleet would be reduced somewhat.  Later we figured out the only cure for this is that we should intensify our naval attacks on Chittagong and Cox's Bazar.

 The US leaked the news of landing in East Pakistan, contrary to this, news was being leaked from the US that a task force has been created to penetrate the coasts of East Pakistan, in which three Marine battalions are asked to be prepared.  And Nixon has allowed the bombers of the enterprise to bomb Indian Army communications centers when needed.

 When Indian Ambassador Laxmikant Jha asked a senior US State Department official about the possibility of US troops entering East Pakistan through the coast, he did not deny it.

 The Indian ambassador was so upset by this development that he went on American television and heard the intentions of the Nixon administration, and was very bitter.

 Declassified White House tapes later revealed that both Nixon and Kissinger were having a lot of fun harassing India in this way.

 Kissinger said, the Indian ambassador says that he has the later evidence that we are planning to land in the Bay of Bengal.  This is a good thing for me.  Nixon added, "Yes, those people are scared of it, the decision to send a fleet is a good move."

 Despite this, the American fleet remained at a distance of about 1000 km from Chittagong.  The Pentagon admitted that four or five Soviet ships were present in that area, but the Enterprise neither encountered them nor any Indian or Pakistani ships.  The Russian fleet had a destroyer, a cruiser and two offensive submarines.  And it was commanded by Admiral Vladimir Kragliakov.

 Later in his book 'War Is Boring', Sebastian Robblin wrote that 'Kragliakov had said in an interview given to Russian television that if the Americans moved forward, we intended to surround them.  I was about to stand in front of the enterprise by opening the missile tube of my submarines, but this did not happen. Later two more Russian ships joined the fleet. '

 The surrender turned the enterprise's stance, former Indian diplomat Arunadhathi Ghosh later said that 'in those days there were rumors circulating in Calcutta that the Americans would drop bombs there.  We used to say jokingly, let them fall. We will get a chance to make Calcutta anew on this excuse.  This time better than ever. '  Had the enterprise run non-stop, it could have reached the coast of East Pakistan on the morning of 16 December.

 But a day before this, Pakistani General Niazi had sent a message to General Manekshaw that he wanted a ceasefire.  In India, it was interpreted that Pakistan was ready to surrender.  As soon as Pakistan surrendered, the enterprise turned from East Pakistan towards Sri Lanka.

#political #politics #sevenslovers

[110soldier]

KOREAN WAR II: A CONTINUATION OF POLICY

From my Blog ,  110soldier.com

http://110soldier.com/korean-war-ii-a-continuation-of-policy/

“War is a continuation of policy by other means”, so said Carl von Clausewitz.  The North Korea situation has reached that point which the past four presidents had worked in vain to avoid. U.S. policy has deteriorated to where there is but a single remaining option. On July 27, 1953, a peace of sorts was established between the parties fighting the Korean War. The ensuing 64 years resulted in a tension filled with hostilities but without actual troops fighting. For some this was called a policy success: the absence of war.

Today, North Korea’s nuclear successes have changed this equation. North Korea has now become an existential threat the United States that can no longer be ignored. People have often wondered, what if one could go back in time and kill a heinously evil person before that person did the harm that would eventually come from them.  Nuclear security has been maintained throughout the years from a simple concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), meaning you might kill me, but I will kill you as well, thus, no one could win a nuclear, so why fight it. The only winning move, is not to play. No nuclear weapons were used in the many regional wars which were fought by the United States, Russia, China, or Israel.

Most recently when tensions began to rise between the Pakistanis and Indians, both nuclear nations, the world stepped in to explain to both parties the rules of the club. Nuclear nations are not allowed to fight each other. Seems going nuclear was bad in the sense that it prevented the petty perennial wars that these nations had fought off and on since the 1950’s. They were forced to change policy and attitudes, because war was no longer an option. And they have been somewhat successful in this policy shift.

Furthermore, and despite the cries of foul by U.S. conservative Republicans, Iran has been certified to be abiding by the terms of the nuclear deal it made with the US and the P5+1 ( the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – US, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, + Germany). Finally, Japan and Saudi Arabia, both nations which have the technological ability to develop nuclear weapons, have refrained from doing so.

Then there is North Korea, which has publicly made it a national ambition to develop nuclear weapons. The nuclear desires of North Korea, aka the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a policy goal comparable to US policy to place a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. The past four presidents have done all they could to prevent the development of nuclear weapons. Once the DPRK had developed nuclear weapons, then the policy changed to preventing the projection of those nuclear weapons on missiles to neighboring nations such as South Korea or Japan. When that policy failed, the goal shifted to preventing the DPRK from developing an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile with the range to threaten the United States.

That policy has now failed. Yet, our leaders continue to talk of a negotiated means to end the DPRK’s nuclear program. This will never happen, quite simply, because while there have been successes in limiting the nuclear weapons programs of nations such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, the DPRK is keenly aware of what happened to some nations that gave up their nukes.

In 1994, Ukraine agreed to destroy its entire nuclear arsenal and to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 2014, Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea. Most observers conclude that had Ukraine kept its over 2000 nuclear weapons, Russia would not have acted so brazenly. As well, in 2003, Muammar Gaddafi agreed to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction programs. Once this had been largely accomplished, Gaddafi was deposed and killed in 2011.

North Korea remembers the Ukrainian and Libyan follies and has vowed never to follow that course. Thus, the talk of meetings, negotiations and sanctions are all just spitting in the wind. With a North Korean ICBM a reality, there is only one option remaining. We as a people would be foolish to trust that the DPRK would not use this threat to the detriment of the US and its allies. The only option that remains is to re-light the Korean War and end this nuclear program by force.

The US has asked China to intervene, but the glaring fact is that China is powerless to end the nuclear program of the DPRK. And this is not from a lack of Chinese interest, it stems from the die-hearted desire of the DPRK. The only true leverage that China has is to leave the DPRK without food or fuel. China would never starve out the people of the DPRK and neither would we.

This nuclear program, however, must be ended. Quoting Clausewitz again, “War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will.”  There is no other option. I have seen pundits cry that any attack on the DPRK would bring a massive retaliation against South Korea. In essence, fear of the North Korean response, should prevent the United States from eliminating an existential threat the mainland United States and its people. No. As a super power that spends $700 billion dollars on defense every year, the DPRK should be the ones worried about consequences. Sure, war in North Korea would cause a massive loss of life. However, imagine the world where Kim Jun Un has nuclear weapons and missiles to threaten the United States homeland. Kim is not that stable person that would be concerned with mutually assured destruction. He has already shown that he would be willing to die as long as the US died as well. He has absorbed sanctions that have left his country on the brink of insolvency, yet continues to focus on nuclear weapons.

Let’s face the truth, Kim Jun Un is emboldened by his confidence that the United States is a blustering giant with no real will to back up its rhetoric. That is the worst of all kinds of mistakes to be made. If the United States does not have the will to prevent an enemy that has sworn to destroy it at all costs from developing nuclear weapons that could target the US, would it really have the will to retaliate with nuclear weapons when that same nation pops a single nuke in Washington D.C.? Or would the debate over how many innocent North Koreans would be killed, paralyze the USA? Kim Jun Un is the kind of guy that would calculate that he could get away with a small nuclear strike without a nuclear response. Kim would use our humanity against the US, we should not allow our humanity to paralyze us to the point of suicide.

We should bomb and move into North Korea while we can. Once the Chinese intervene and cross into North Korea to confront us, we should back off and yield to the Chinese. They would then be allowed fix the problem or risk a wider war. But, these nuclear facilities must be destroyed and the nuclear program halted.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Congress authorizes sale of new weapons to Ukraine (Foreign Policy) The U.S. House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act last week, authorizing the sale of a new security package to Ukraine that includes coastal defense and anti-ship weapons. The bill will likely pass the Senate this week, and Trump is expected to sign it into law. The United States has committed more than $1.5 billion to Ukraine since Russia’s intervention in 2014. Although the only missiles cleared for sale to Ukraine so far have been Javelin anti-tank weapons, the latest package suggests the United States is increasing its commitment.

Venezuela’s Constituent Assembly votes to hold trial of four opposition lawmakers (Reuters) Venezuela’s pro-government Constituent Assembly on Monday approved a trial for four opposition lawmakers accused of committing crimes including treason for allegedly trying to seize military installations, which the lawmakers have denied.

UK’s Boris Johnson talks with Trump, welcomes new lawmakers (AP) Britain’s new political landscape began to take shape Monday as triumphant Prime Minister Boris Johnson talked trade with President Donald Trump and readied a pep talk for his new Conservative Party lawmakers. The incoming class of new Conservative legislators was so big--109 lawmakers--that organizers had to procure an extra 50 bottles of wine for the evening event, British tabloids said.

French Unions Make Pre-Christmas Push to Block Pension Reforms (Reuters) French trade unions on Tuesday used transport strikes and mass protests to try to force President Emmanuel Macron to ditch a planned pension reform before the Christmas holidays.

Pakistan Court Sentences Former Military Ruler Musharraf to Death for Treason (Reuters) A Pakistani court sentenced on Tuesday former military ruler Pervez Musharraf to death on charges of high treason and subverting the constitution, government officials said.

In August, India shut down Internet access in Kashmir. It’s now the longest ban imposed on a democracy. (Washington Post) India imposed the shutdown when authorities revoked Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood. Only authoritarian regimes such as China and Myanmar have cut off the Internet for longer.

Crackdown on Bangkok street food vendors (Foreign Policy) Street food vendors in central Bangkok fear they could soon be shut down by city planners, the New York Times reports. Over the last three years, the number of designated street food areas has decreased by more than 75 percent. A total crackdown would change the food culture of the city, where customers range from construction workers to bankers and some street stalls have received Michelin stars.

U.S.-Led Pressure Fractures as China, Russia Push for North Korea Sanctions Relief (Reuters) A proposal by China and Russia to ease U.N. sanctions on North Korea increases pressure on the United States and signals what is the likely end of unified efforts to persuade Pyongyang to give up its growing nuclear and missile arsenal.

Just 4 percent of South Koreans would meet Trump’s demands to pay billions more for U.S. troops, new poll finds (Washington Post) South Koreans overwhelmingly reject the Trump administration’s calls to pay more money for U.S. troops stationed in the country, according to a survey released Monday, with 4 percent of respondents saying that Seoul should meet the U.S. demands and a quarter suggesting it refuse to pay rather than negotiate. The data also showed that if no agreement could be reached between Washington and Seoul on the costs of hosting the troops, a slight majority of South Koreans prefer reducing the number of U.S. troops in South Korea, while about 1 in 10 said that all U.S. troops should be removed.

Australia firefighters accidentally spread blaze ahead of heatwave (Reuters) A backburning operation intended to contain a massive wildfire in eastern Australia sparked out of control, damaging buildings and cutting off major roads, authorities said, as the country heads into another heatwave that may topple temperature records.

Roadside Bombing Kills 10 Civilians in Afghanistan (AP) A roadside bombing in eastern Afghanistan killed at least 10 civilians on Tuesday morning, including women and children, while explosives attached to a bicycle detonated near a police vehicle in a northern province, wounding at least 18 people, officials said.

Hariri could be renamed Lebanon PM (Foreign Policy) Saad Hariri is expected to be named Lebanon’s prime minister today--again--nearly two months after he resigned from that job under pressure from mass protests against the political elite. Politicians see Hariri as the only person for the job, but demonstrators took to the streets in Beirut over the weekend in disagreement. They clashed with security forces in some of the most violent unrest since the protests began. If Hariri returns to the post, he still faces a major challenge to form a new government under a sectarian power-sharing agreement.

United States hits South Sudanese officials with sanctions (Reuters) The United States has imposed sanctions on two senior South Sudanese officials it accuses of fomenting conflict, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday, in its latest move to pressure the country’s politicians to form a unity government.

[whittlebaggett8]

Between India and Pakistan, Can ‘Negative Peace’ Serve as a Strategic Good?

An India-Pakistan NSA-stage channel could be pivotal in future crises.

By Joy Mitra for The Diplomat

March 22, 2019

Notice spans in the age of social media are rather short and fast troubles pretty much always capture extra eyeballs. As India gears up for the 2019 elections, awareness will inevitably shift from current international occasions to the festival of democracy. Common issues will be raked up, and people will fail to remember that just a few of weeks back again two nuclear-armed belligerents engaged in immediate aerial overcome for the 1st time in record.

South Asia has survived many nuclear-tinged crises from exercising Brasstacks in 1987 to the newest incident that ended with India and Pakistan downing a fighter jet just about every. When viewing these crises cumulatively, a single would be tempted to attract the conclusion that each India and Pakistan are sagacious adequate to avoid an escalation spiral. Productive coexistence is, nevertheless, contingent on each and every surviving forthcoming crises, and only the just one that has not arrived however issues. Crisis management is hence important, specifically for India to comprehend its strategic prospective to the fullest, by striving to choose edge of its demographic bulge, building industrial electric power, and reach economic prosperity. In that context, the now-dormant nationwide protection adviser (NSA)-degree channel between the two sides could be important to ride out these types of crises in the future devoid of risking a big war.

Hope Yet another Nuclear-Tinged Spherical

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Essential ailments that lead to this most recent disaster are unlikely to transform shortly. Pakistan has engaged in common legalism in the experience of international stress when China has steadfastly defended its ally’s use of militancy as a implies of electrical power projection. The interaction of violence that India gets from across the border is a consequence of the existence of militant infrastructure as considerably as it is the result of a lopsided civil-navy harmony of electricity.

These structural factors are unlikely to be corrected in the short term. On the other hand, India’s responses just after Uri and Pulwama and heading public with them has reduced the threshold for armed service response. In point, whichever political configuration will come to ability in the forthcoming elections, not responding militarily in the encounter of provocation might not be an possibility. Disaster trajectories are consequently tied to the political expense of inaction or action thereof.

If both sides tie them selves into a dedication difficulty, then an honorable political stop-state for the two sides is needed for de-escalation. This time the trade of a captured Indian pilot appeared to close perfectly nicely for both equally sides: Pakistan could act magnanimously and India could assert the return of the pilot as an result of coercion. If, on the other hand, this have been not to be the case, then whether or not de-escalation nonetheless have followed straight away is a make any difference of conjecture. That this crisis much too was nuclear-tinged could be gauged from the signalling both sides engaged in. Pakistan’s National Command Authority convened on February 27, 2019, although the Indian Navy later on said that it had operationally deployed “nuclear submarines,” although at this point it is not apparent if this provided INS Arihant, the only operational nuclear-weapon-capable nuclear ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) with the Indian Navy.

Acknowledging Detrimental Peace

It is hence important that the challenges are mitigated with a check out towards constructing adverse peace: avoiding the incidence of a main conflict by riding out a disaster minute with out partaking in a major army exchange and thereby dampening growth prospective buyers. This would demand a two-pronged approach: a person where the intervals without the need of a significant terror incident are extended and, 2nd, when these kinds of an incident does materialize, top to a crisis scenario, then adequate political place can be conjured up for a successful exit from the crisis state. This room can be crafted if a channel for interaction exists not just through a disaster but in the course of the interregnum of peace that exists among this disaster and the up coming a person.

Beforehand, disaster-similar communication between the two sides at the navy stage has provided phone calls in between Army Operations (MO) directorates, or talks concerning the Directors Normal of Military services Functions (DGMOs) to communicate in issues of urgency. The diplomatic channels, even though, become the initial casualty when the disaster moment get there, or are merely ineffective simply because of the special civil-navy equation that rests on the Pakistan aspect.

These channels are superior at the tactical degree nonetheless, when the crisis ball is established rolling, devoid of political heft, they do not give for the communication expected for the form of bilateral handling that may well ensure crisis balance. Until eventually now, this has usually occurred by way of the good places of work of 3rd celebration states like United States or the United Kingdom that have enabled communication throughout crisis, but the significance of direct bilateral conversation among two warring sides that are in possession of nuclear weapons simply cannot be understated. Third-social gathering channels are activated when a crisis is on the horizon, but a bilateral channel could continue on to keep on being operational throughout peacetime and be completely ready to reply to a disaster with the urgency it needs.

The NSA-Amount Channel

This is wherever the now dormant NSA channel could be of huge worth. The previous time Indian and Pakistani NSAs achieved was in Thailand on December 26, 2017. In whole, they achieved four moments and held several official and unofficial cellphone phone calls. These conferences have been held in 3rd condition territories, with 3 held in Thailand and just one in Russia. The past meeting, thanks to be held in July 2018, was cancelled after Lieutenant Basic Nasser Janjua resigned. Considering the fact that then, the NSA write-up on the Pakistani side has been vacant. Before in February 2019, Dawn had reported that Primary Minister Imran Khan was contemplating Brigadier Ijaz Shah for the career however, the official spokesperson for the PM experienced denied the existence of any such proposal.

The NSA-level dialogue has distinct benefits. To start with, NSA-level talks are neither an eyeball catching function nor a solution again-channel that will exclude constituencies important to the choice producing. 2nd, NSA-level talks are also not a concession simply because they never necessarily demand a pre-established aim and could basically attempt for disaster prevention or, in the celebration of a crisis, support in communicating intent plainly. Third, contrary to the Detailed Dialogue Method (CDP), the NSA-degree talks do not get stalled by the “terror initial versus talks first” pre-negotiation or degradation of diplomatic amount ties. And fourth, most importantly, the NSA on the Pakistani facet can be assumed to have the self confidence of the military institution and this for that reason makes it possible for for looping in constituencies that are crucial to the decision-producing and communication system all through a crisis. Last but not least, NSA-stage interaction is relatively insulated from the hyperbole and political statements that are produced across the political spectrum on both equally sides mainly because there are no immediate political prices included.

Toward a Modus Vivendi

Accomplishing conflict resolution in between India-Pakistan might be a challenging street to vacation but obtaining a modus vivendi is not. India-Pakistan would do very well to understand the value of unfavorable peace and cultivate it as a strategic superior for both of those sides. If Pakistan appoints an NSA, and it have to, both sides would benefit from reactivating the channel to trade views on nationwide protection issues. In spite of the adversarial point out of relations, it is an imperative for the two states, and more so for India, to stay away from finding concerned in a major military showdown that could seriously peg again financial development at a time when it confronts a significant work disaster. In the meantime, India could make investments severely in counterterrorism and intelligence capabilities to steer clear of the prospect of a main assault. If a disaster instant does arrive, the NSA channel could assistance understand the military services intent and connect its constrained character plainly even as the two sides engage in manipulation of risk and signalling to countrywide and worldwide audiences.

Joy Mitra is a fellow in the Asia-Pacific software at the EastWest Institute in New York and a previous visiting fellow with the South Asia application at the Stimson Centre in Washington, D.C. He tweets at @sysandstrat.

The post Between India and Pakistan, Can ‘Negative Peace’ Serve as a Strategic Good? appeared first on Defence Online.

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The Investment Opportunities, and global effect.

The Investment Opportunities, and global effect.

Investors are always looking for gold opportunities to achieve maximum return in the shortest time possible and with minimal or no risk. Same thing with Pakistani investors. With the recent inclusion of PSX in the world's best-emerging market by the MSCI Index (Morgan Stanley Composite Index), the Pakistan Stock Exchange has reached new heights.

At a time when the trade deficit reached new heights

At a time when the trade deficit reached new heights, declining exports, and imports, inconsistent repayment of debt, rising circular debt, no cause for concern over rising equity markets. The World Bank and the IMF have warned Pakistan to focus on infrastructure development in order to maintain a GDP growth rate of about 5.2 percent. Investors should turn to the safest investments without any risk. But who will say when to divest in stocks, bonds, and gold?

This is the only story from which we can learn and draw conclusions

This is the only story from which we can learn and draw conclusions. But this requires experience, an extremely precise learning curve, and important decision-making power. According to our experts, the time has come to liquidate equity investments and wait for the next opportunity, just before the next election, to re-enter the stock market.

Why now sell shares and invest all the funds in Gulberg Commercial Real Estate?

With little knowledge, investors may know that next year will be the year of democratic elections in Pakistan and that the country will also wait for the report of the joint investigation team within a maximum of two or three months. Months and all the indicators show that none of the Supreme Court judges showed sympathy, but rather questioned the integrity, political sense and honesty of the ruling elite family. According to one of the judges, this decision would have a lasting effect on the Pakistani people and determine the future direction of the Pakistani justice system. The primary goal would be to have the law at the top, and no one is immune from it, whether it's a regular Pakistani citizen or a prime minister of the court of law that she will not affect.

Macroeconomic indicators do not improve

Corruption still has deep roots in the system

Increase in the circular debt

Trade, business, and commercial activities are almost cut in half if a new situation arises or if decisions are against the expectation of the Pakistani people.

Crisis

The Syrian crisis is getting worse, NATO is trying to irritate Russia, China is fighting against the United States, North Korea's defiant behavior and missile testing around the world could bring about a global conflict likely to tarnish money market, bond market, commodities market and precious metals market.

The only investment subject

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Developers are a specialized turnkey developer, which employs a team of highly qualified engineers. Grand Square Mall Developers has built its reputation on high-performance standards and a full range of services. And it is the Best investment opportunity in Lahore.

[sportsleague365]

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Over 1 million people have been evacuated leading up to the arrival of the category 4 storm Getty 22/50 12 September 2018Um Majid, left, tries an improvised gas mask on family members in her home in Binnish in Syria’s rebel-held northern Idlib province as part of preparations for any upcoming raids. Fearing government forces and their allies military advance to retake Idlib province, the mother of three learnt from YouTube videos how to make gas masks from charcoal, wood, paper cups, cotton, nylon plastic bags and tapes. According to her, she could manufacture more masks but the material she needs are not always available. She also dug a cave under her home AFP/Getty 23/50 11 September 2018People waving pro-independence Catalan flags ‘Esteladas’ while holding letters reading “independence” during a pro-independence demonstration in Barcelona to mark the National Day of Catalonia, the “Diada”. Catalan separatists put on a show of strength and unity at celebrations of the region’s national day, nearly a year after a failed attempt to break away from Spain. Catalonia’s national day, the ‘Diada’ commemorates the fall of Barcelona in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714 and the region’s subsequent loss of institutions and freedoms AFP/Getty 24/50 10 September 2018An Indian man makes his way through floodwaters from the overflowing Panchanai River in Siliguri. Continuous rainfall has caused flooding and landslides in parts of Siliguri and surrounding areas, affecting road travel and daily life AFP/Getty 25/50 9 September 2018Participants wave flowers as they march past a balcony from where North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un was watching, during a mass rally on Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang. The military parade was held to mark the nations 70th birthday, but refrained from showing off the intercontinental ballistic missiles that have seen it hit with multiple international sanctions AFP/Getty 26/50 8 September 2018350.Org march for Climate Justice at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City, Philippines. Rise for Climate protests took places across the world to demand action Leo Sabangan/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) 27/50 7 September 2018Displaced Syrians take part in a protest against the regime and its ally Russia at a camp for displaced people in Kafr Lusin near the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey in Syria’s northern Idlib province AFP/Getty 28/50 6 September 2018An aerial view of houses damaged by a landslide in Atsuma town, Hokkaido prefecture, after an earthquake hit the northern Japanese island. Rescuers scrabbled through mud for survivors after the powerful earthquake sent hillsides crashing down onto homes, killing at least nine people and leaving dozens of people missing AFP/Getty 29/50 5 September 2018US Capitol Police arrest a protestor as Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the second day of his US Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to be an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court. President Donald Trump’s newest Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is expected to face punishing questioning from Democrats this week over his endorsement of presidential immunity and his opposition to abortion AFP/Getty 30/50 4 September 2018Damaged traffic boards and telecommunication relay poles after they were brought down by strong winds caused by typhoon Jebi in Osaka. The strongest typhoon to hit Japan in 25 years made landfall on September 4, the country’s weather agency said, bringing violent winds and heavy rainfall that prompted evacuation warnings AFP/Getty 31/50 3 September 2018Myanmar journalist Kyaw Soe Oo is escorted by police after being sentenced by a court to jail in Yangon. Two Reuters journalists were jailed for seven years for breaching Myanmar’s official secrets act during their reporting of the Rohingya crisis, a judge said, a case that has drawn outrage as an attack on media freedom AFP/Getty 32/50 2 September 2018A Somali soldier walks near the wreckage of vehicles at the scene of a blast outside the compound of a district headquarters in the capital Mogadishu. A Somali police officer says a number of people were wounded after a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at a checkpoint outside the headquarters after being stopped by security forces AP 33/50 1 September 2018A Utair-operated Boeing 737-800 which skidded off the runway and caught fire during landing, at Sochi international airport, in the Russian Black Sea resort. Russia’s transportation minister says a supervisor at the airport died during the emergency response after a landing airliner careered off the end of the runway, into a riverbed and caught fire. There were no deaths reported among the 164 passengers and six crew members aboard the Utair Boeing 737, but the Russian health ministry said 18 people were injured. 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Eid al-Adha is the holiest of the two Muslims holidays celebrated each year, it marks the yearly Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) to visit Mecca, the holiest place in Islam. Muslims slaughter a sacrificial animal and split the meat into three parts, one for the family, one for friends and relatives, and one for the poor and needy Reuters 45/50 20 August 2018South Korean Lee Keum-seom, 92, meets with her North Korean son Ri Sung Chol, 71, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North’s southeastern coast. Dozens of elderly and frail South Koreans met their Northern relatives for the first time since the peninsula and their families were divided by war nearly seven decades ago AFP/Getty 46/50 19 August 2018The flag of the United Nations flying at half-mast to mark the death of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, at the European headquarters in Geneva. 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The area has been hit by heavy rains that caused floods and reportedly killed at least 65 people EPA 50/50 15 August 2018Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets schoolchildren after his speech as part of India’s 72nd Independence Day celebrations which marks the 71st anniversary of the end of British colonial rule, at the Red Fort in New Delhi AFP/Getty 1/50 3 October 2018Quake survivors make their way past a washed out passenger ferry in Wani, Indonesia’s Central Sulawesi, after an earthquake and tsunami hit the area on September 28. Nearly 1,400 people are now known to have died as UN officials warned the “needs remain vast” for both desperate survivors and rescue teams still searching for victims AFP/Getty 2/50 2 October 2018US first lady Melania Trump holds a baby during a visit to a hospital in Accra, Ghana. The first lady is visiting Africa on her first big solo international trip, aiming to make child well-being the focus of a five-day, four-country tour Reuters 3/50 1 October 2018Indian school children dressed like Mahatma Gandhi perform yoga during a event at a school in Chennai ahead of his birth anniversary. Indians all over the country celebrate Gandhi’s birthday on October 2 AFP/Getty 4/50 30 September 2018An Albanian man casts his vote at a polling station in the village of Zajas on September 30, 2018, for a referendum to re-name the country. – Macedonians cast ballots on September 30 on whether to re-name their country North Macedonia, a bid to settle a long-running row with Greece and unlock a path to NATO and EU membership AFP/Getty 5/50 29 September 2018Residents trying to salvage belongings from their homes which collapsed after an earthquake and tsunami hit Palu on Sulawesi island on September 29, 2018. – Nearly 400 people were killed when a powerful quake sent a tsunami barrelling into the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, officials said on September 29, as hospitals struggled to cope with hundreds of injured and rescuers scrambled to reach the stricken region. AFP/Getty 6/50 28 September 2018Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a press conference in Berlin. Erdogan’s official state visit has been met with protests EPA 7/50 27 September 2018Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters AP 8/50 26 September 2018Members of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) search for victims after a building collapsed in New Delhi killing five people, the latest incident highlighting India’s poor urban planning and construction AFP/Getty 9/50 25 September 2018US golfer Tiger Woods tees off during a practice session ahead of the 42nd Ryder Cup at Le Golf National Course at Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, south-west of Paris AFP/Getty 10/50 24 September 2018President Donald Trump and US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, talk with UN secretary general Antonio Guterres during the General Assembly at UN Headquarters AP 11/50 23 September 2018Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has claimed that his country is “ready to confront America”, following an attack on a military parade in Ahvaz in which 25 people were killed. The attack has been blamed by Iranian government and military officials on gulf states that are allied with the US AP 12/50 22 September 2018Pakistan has invited Saudi Arabia to become a partner in the Beijing funded Belt and Road scheme that will improve and expand Pakistan’s infrastructure. The invite comes at the end of Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan’s two day trip to the Middle Eastern country, where he met with Saudi King Salman EPA 13/50 21 September 2018A boat has capsized killing at 136 people in Lake Victoria, Tanzania. Rescue operations are ongoing AFP/Getty 14/50 20 September 2018Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe celebrates after the ruling liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leadership election at the party’s headquarters in Tokyo on September 20, 2018. – Prime Minister Shinzo Abe won re-election as leader of his ruling party on September 20, setting him on course to become Japan’s longest-serving premier and realise his dream of reforming the constitution. AFP/Getty 15/50 19 September 2018Los Angeles has moved to ban the sale of fur within its city limits. Speaking at a news conference today, councillor Bob Blumenfield said “this is something that is not just a good legislative win, it’s a moral win”. LA will be the biggest city in the US to ban the sale of fur, as it follows San Francisco, Berkley and others AP 16/50 18 September 2018South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wave during a car parade in Pyongyang, North Korea, Reuters 17/50 17 September 2018Australia has launched a nationwide investigation into needles being hidden in strawberries. Sewing needles have reportedly been found in strawberries in all 6 Australian states and the market is suffering from the resultant fear EPA 18/50 16 September 2018Typhoon Mangkhut has made landfall in China, bringing winds of 100mph to coastal areas and storm surges of 10 feet in Hong Kong. Pictured here are the smashed windows of an office tower in Hong Kong. Reuters 19/50 15 September 2018German Police have begun evicting activists from the Hambacher Forest where a protest to protect the remaining section of the ancient forest has been ongoing for the past 6 years. Dozens of activists have been living in treehouses, but are now being forced out after tensions rose between them and energy company RWE, which plans to expand its coal mine further into the remaining woodland AFP/Getty 20/50 14 September 2018Speaking in Malmo today, the Dalai Lama stated “I think Europe belongs to Europeans” and suggested that refugees should focus on returning home and developing their home countries Reuters 21/50 13 September 2018Preparations for Hurricane Florence, expected to make land on Friday, continue in North and South Carolina and Viriginia. Over 1 million people have been evacuated leading up to the arrival of the category 4 storm Getty 22/50 12 September 2018Um Majid, left, tries an improvised gas mask on family members in her home in Binnish in Syria’s rebel-held northern Idlib province as part of preparations for any upcoming raids. Fearing government forces and their allies military advance to retake Idlib province, the mother of three learnt from YouTube videos how to make gas masks from charcoal, wood, paper cups, cotton, nylon plastic bags and tapes. According to her, she could manufacture more masks but the material she needs are not always available. She also dug a cave under her home AFP/Getty 23/50 11 September 2018People waving pro-independence Catalan flags ‘Esteladas’ while holding letters reading “independence” during a pro-independence demonstration in Barcelona to mark the National Day of Catalonia, the “Diada”. Catalan separatists put on a show of strength and unity at celebrations of the region’s national day, nearly a year after a failed attempt to break away from Spain. Catalonia’s national day, the ‘Diada’ commemorates the fall of Barcelona in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714 and the region’s subsequent loss of institutions and freedoms AFP/Getty 24/50 10 September 2018An Indian man makes his way through floodwaters from the overflowing Panchanai River in Siliguri. Continuous rainfall has caused flooding and landslides in parts of Siliguri and surrounding areas, affecting road travel and daily life AFP/Getty 25/50 9 September 2018Participants wave flowers as they march past a balcony from where North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un was watching, during a mass rally on Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang. The military parade was held to mark the nations 70th birthday, but refrained from showing off the intercontinental ballistic missiles that have seen it hit with multiple international sanctions AFP/Getty 26/50 8 September 2018350.Org march for Climate Justice at the Quezon Memorial Circle in Quezon City, Philippines. Rise for Climate protests took places across the world to demand action Leo Sabangan/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) 27/50 7 September 2018Displaced Syrians take part in a protest against the regime and its ally Russia at a camp for displaced people in Kafr Lusin near the Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey in Syria’s northern Idlib province AFP/Getty 28/50 6 September 2018An aerial view of houses damaged by a landslide in Atsuma town, Hokkaido prefecture, after an earthquake hit the northern Japanese island. Rescuers scrabbled through mud for survivors after the powerful earthquake sent hillsides crashing down onto homes, killing at least nine people and leaving dozens of people missing AFP/Getty 29/50 5 September 2018US Capitol Police arrest a protestor as Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies during the second day of his US Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing to be an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court. President Donald Trump’s newest Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is expected to face punishing questioning from Democrats this week over his endorsement of presidential immunity and his opposition to abortion AFP/Getty 30/50 4 September 2018Damaged traffic boards and telecommunication relay poles after they were brought down by strong winds caused by typhoon Jebi in Osaka. The strongest typhoon to hit Japan in 25 years made landfall on September 4, the country’s weather agency said, bringing violent winds and heavy rainfall that prompted evacuation warnings AFP/Getty 31/50 3 September 2018Myanmar journalist Kyaw Soe Oo is escorted by police after being sentenced by a court to jail in Yangon. Two Reuters journalists were jailed for seven years for breaching Myanmar’s official secrets act during their reporting of the Rohingya crisis, a judge said, a case that has drawn outrage as an attack on media freedom AFP/Getty 32/50 2 September 2018A Somali soldier walks near the wreckage of vehicles at the scene of a blast outside the compound of a district headquarters in the capital Mogadishu. A Somali police officer says a number of people were wounded after a suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at a checkpoint outside the headquarters after being stopped by security forces AP 33/50 1 September 2018A Utair-operated Boeing 737-800 which skidded off the runway and caught fire during landing, at Sochi international airport, in the Russian Black Sea resort. Russia’s transportation minister says a supervisor at the airport died during the emergency response after a landing airliner careered off the end of the runway, into a riverbed and caught fire. There were no deaths reported among the 164 passengers and six crew members aboard the Utair Boeing 737, but the Russian health ministry said 18 people were injured. The fire was extinguished within eight minutes AP 34/50 31 August 2018Mourners attend Aretha Franklin’s funeral at Greater Grace Temple in Detroit AFP/Getty 35/50 30 August 2018Firefighters watch on as flames leap from a giant factory fire in the inner Melbourne suburb of West Footscray – More than 120 firefighters are fighting the fire, with 30 trucks and cherry picker aerial appliances on the scene which is sending large plumes of smoke across the city. AFP/Getty 36/50 29 August 2018People are evacuated after flooding in Swar township, Myanmar Reuters 37/50 28 August 2018President Hassan Rouhani speaks at the Iranian Parliament in the capital Tehran. It was the first time Rouhani had been summoned by parliament in his five years in power, with MPs demanding answers on unemployment, rising prices and the collapsing value of the rial, which has lost more than half its value since April AFP/Getty 38/50 27 August 2018A police officer walks by the front of a Chicago Pizza and GLHF Game Bar at the scene of fatal shooting at The Jacksonville Landing. A gunman opened fire at a video game tournament killing multiple people and then fatally shooting himself in a rampage that wounded several others AP 39/50 26 August 2018Migrants disembark from the Italian Coast Guard ship ‘Diciotti’ in the port of Catania, Italy. The vessel arrived with 177 migrants on board, but the Italian Interior Ministry denied them to disembark, calling EU member states to find a solution on how to distribute them. On 22 August, 27 unaccompanied minors were let off from the ship, assisted by Red Cross, UNHCR and Save the Children EPA 40/50 25 August 2018Rohingya refugees during a protest march after attending a ceremony to remember the first anniversary of a military crackdown that prompted a massive exodus of people from Myanmar to Bangladesh, at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Ukhia AFP/Getty 41/50 24 August 2018US President Donald Trump sits with children during a tour of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio AFP/Getty 42/50 23 August 2018Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks to the media during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia EPA 43/50 22 August 2018High waves hit Jeju Island, South Korea, as powerful Typhoon Soulik gradually approaches the Korean Peninsula EPA 44/50 21 August 2018A Palestinian man throws his child in the air following morning prayers marking the first day of Eid al-Adha celebrations on the compound known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem’s Old City. Eid al-Adha is the holiest of the two Muslims holidays celebrated each year, it marks the yearly Muslim pilgrimage (Hajj) to visit Mecca, the holiest place in Islam. Muslims slaughter a sacrificial animal and split the meat into three parts, one for the family, one for friends and relatives, and one for the poor and needy Reuters 45/50 20 August 2018South Korean Lee Keum-seom, 92, meets with her North Korean son Ri Sung Chol, 71, during a separated family reunion meeting at the Mount Kumgang resort on the North’s southeastern coast. Dozens of elderly and frail South Koreans met their Northern relatives for the first time since the peninsula and their families were divided by war nearly seven decades ago AFP/Getty 46/50 19 August 2018The flag of the United Nations flying at half-mast to mark the death of former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, at the European headquarters in Geneva. Kofi Annan died on 18 August, aged 80 EPA 47/50 18 August 2018Newly appointed Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan inspects the guard of honor on his arrival in the Prime Minister House during a ceremony in Islamabad. Imran Khan was sworn in at a ceremony in Islamabad, ushering in a new political era as the World Cup cricket hero officially took the reins of power in the nuclear-armed country PID/AFP/Getty 48/50 17 August 2018Muslim pilgrims walk out after the Friday prayer at the Grand mosque ahead of annual Haj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia Reuters 49/50 16 August 2018A man wades through flooded water in Kochi, Kerala state, India. According to reports, the region is on a high alert with schools and offices been closed due to the rising water levels of Periyar river after the gates of the Idukki reservoir were opened. The area has been hit by heavy rains that caused floods and reportedly killed at least 65 people EPA 50/50 15 August 2018Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi greets schoolchildren after his speech as part of India’s 72nd Independence Day celebrations which marks the 71st anniversary of the end of British colonial rule, at the Red Fort in New Delhi AFP/Getty “She has decided not to make herself available to the media and stay out of the public because of her emotional state,” lawyer Leslie Stovall told the news conference. “It is not pleasant for her.” Her lawyers said they are considering whether to release documents related to the case including police reports, medical records, and an out-of-court settlement that included a non-disclosure agreement about the incident. The lawsuit, which seeks more than $200,000 in damages, names as defendants Ronaldo and an unnamed team of fixers described as “personal reputation protection specialists” hired to make the situation go away. Lawyers for Ronaldo on Friday threatened to sue German magazine Der Spiegel that published “blatantly illegal” accusations by Ms Mayorga. Der Spiegel’s deputy editor-in-chief, Alfred Weinzierl, told Reuters on Sunday that the magazine had worked professionally, laid out the evidence and stood by its story, which it said was allowed under Germany’s press law. Agencies contributed to this report Follow the Independent Sport on Instagram here, for all of the best images, videos and stories from around the sporting world. Source link The post Ronaldo rape accuser suffering from post-traumatic stress, lawyers say appeared first on 10z Soccer. #WorldCup #KathrynMayorga #KafrLusin

[mideastsoccer]

Big power rivalry in the Gulf requires a US strategy rethink

By James M. Dorsey

A podcast version of this story is available on Soundcloud, Itunes, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spreaker, Pocket Casts, Tumblr, Patreon, Podbean and Castbox.

As French, Pakistani and other leaders seek to engineer a meeting between the US and Iranian presidents on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, big power rivalry could rack up tension in the waters of the Gulf and the Indian Ocean.

With prospects for a face-to-face encounter between presidents Donald J. Trump and Hassan Rouhani slim at best, attention is likely to focus on beefing up the security of key Saudi oil facilities after drone and missile attacks, blamed by the kingdom and the United States on Iran, and identifying an appropriate response that minimizes the risk of a full-fledged military confrontation.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, days after the attacks severely damaged oil installations, joined a US-led coalition to secure the Middle East’s waterways. Earlier, Britain, Bahrain and Australia pledged to participate in the coalition.

Japan declined to join but said it was considering sending its Maritime Self-Defense Force (SDF) on information-gathering missions in the region. It said it would coordinate with the US-led coalition and would include the Strait of Hormuz in its operations if Iran agreed. Japan has unsuccessfully sought to mediate between the United States and Iran.

The US Defense Department, meanwhile, in response to a request from Saudi Arabia and the UAE and in an effort to reassure Gulf allies said last week that it was sending an unspecified number of troops and equipment to the two countries to bolster their defences.

Iranian Brigadier General Ghadir Nezami, head of international and diplomatic affairs of his country’s armed forces, raised the stakes by saying that the Iranian navy would be holding joint exercises with Russia and China in the Indian Ocean and the Sea of Oman.

General Nezami, who is believed to have recently accompanied chairman of the Iranian Joint Chiefs of Staff Major General Mohammad Baqeri on a visit to China, gave no date for the exercises. Chinese and Russian media have yet to report the planned exercise while spokesmen in the two countries declined to confirm or deny the Iranian announcement.

Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi said in July that the Russian and Iranian navies would be conducting a joint exercise within a matter of months to boost military cooperation.

Russian and Chinese hesitancy to confirm the exercise may be designed to avoid hiking tensions as efforts at the United Nations to mediate between the United States and Iran proceed.

Moreover, Russian president Vladimir Putin is likely to want to avoid a shadow being cast over his planned visit to Saudi Arabia in October. Mr. Putin has urged the kingdom to proceed with the acquisition of Russia’s S-400 anti-missile system that was agreed in principle two years ago.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov met this week with his Saudi counterpart Ibrahim Assaf at the United Nations to discuss the visit.

Russia and China may also not want to undermine a Chinese-backed Russian proposal for a collective security agreement in the Gulf that would replace the US defence umbrella at a time that Saudi Arabia, uncertain about American reliability, may reach out to other countries for support in protecting its oil assets.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency last week reported that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had requested South Korean assistance in the strengthening of the kingdom’s air defense system.

Gulf concern about US reliability, dating back to US president Barak Obama’s negotiation of an international nuclear agreement with Iran and reinforced by Mr. Trump’s transactional response to the recent attacks on Saudi oil fields, leaves the Saudis and the Americans with no good choices.

Middle East scholar and former advisor to the US Defence Department Bilal Y. Saab argues, against the backdrop of a widespread feeling in Gulf states that the United States is gradually reducing its commitment to their defense as Washington focuses on Asia and the Indo-Pacific, that the United States in particular is caught in a Catch-22.

Its options of reducing commitment without surrendering its umbilical defense cord and making way for America’s rivals are limited.

Mr. Saab believes that the United States should focus its security cooperation less single-mindedly on arms sales and more on building the Gulf states’ institutional national defense infrastructure. Failure to do so, would risk regional tensions repeatedly spiralling out of control and ultimately prevent a gradual US drawdown.

The problem is, in Mr. Saab’s words, that what the United States should be doing to “responsibly reduce its security burden and footprint in the region” while safeguarding opportunities for lucrative arms sales would likely reinforce perceptions of America as unreliable and willing to sacrifice its friends – a perception that dates from the 2011 popular Arab revolts when Washington ultimately backed the toppling of Egyptian president and US ally Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Saad is the first person to admit that his proposition may be pie in the sky.

“It would mean building and empowering institutions that have the guns, and thus the ability, to conduct coups. Only a foolish Arab autocrat would be interested in that. It would also mean liberalizing or professionalizing national-security ministries and intelligence agencies. Few Arab leaders would voluntarily undermine the favourable clientelistic networks that are run by their governments. In short, defense reform requires political reform,” he says.

Moreover, institution building would bring the different threat perceptions of the Gulf states and the US into sharp relief and force Gulf states to rethink their arms acquisition policies and grant the United States access to their jealousy guarded most secret data and programs.

Said Mr. Saab: “There is no shortage of problems on the US end or on its partners’ end when it comes to security cooperation. But it will be impossible to address any of those without making a total switch on how the United States thinks about security cooperation.”

That would require a US president who thinks in strategic rather than transactional terms.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, an adjunct senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute and co-director of the University of Wuerzburg’s Institute of Fan Culture

[creepingsharia]

Florida: Brother of Saddam’s Nuke Weapons Mastermind Got 35-Year, No Bid Port Canaveral Cargo Contract

DUBAI PORTS WORLD 2.0?

Had a full-blown National Security Threat Analysis of Port Canaveral’s deal with Gulftainer occurred, it would have uncovered that Gulftainer is partially owned by the Ruler of Sharjah, a foreign government. This information should have resulted in a recommendation to President Obama to block the deal on national security grounds. A simple Google search would have uncovered the World Bank IFC document showing ownership by the Ruler of Sharjah, UAE.

Source: Center for Security Policy | “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”

SECRET DEAL ALLOWS COMPANY TIED TO SADDAM’S NUCLEAR BOMB MAKER, IRAN AND U.A.E. TO MANAGE KEY FLORIDA PORT FACILITIES

The family of Iraqi nuclear physicist Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar, considered to be “the father of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program,” has been awarded a 35-year lease for cargo container operations at Port Canaveral, Florida.

According to Mr. Jones and Ms. Fanning’s paper, entitled “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” Secret Deal Allows Company Tied to Saddam’s Nuclear Bombmaker, Iran and U.A.E. to Manage Key Florida Port Facilities, Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew unilaterally approved the lease for Gulftainer – a Middle Eastern ports company owned by the Emir of Sharjah of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iraqi businessman Hamid Dhia Jafar – following two years of secret talks.

It is deeply concerning that Lew and the Obama administration decided to forego any national security threat analysis by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) which certainly seems in order given the nature and implications of this deal. After all, a similarly fraught arrangement – a contract for Dubai Ports World to manage a number of U.S. ports a decade ago – was submitted for CFIUS approval, and ultimately aborted.

In addition to being an important seaport in its own right, Port Canaveral is in close proximity to a number of key U.S. facilities – including the Navy’s East Coast ballistic missile submarine base, two U.S. Air Force Space Command bases and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

As the paper’s authors dug into the details surrounding this deal, they discovered – in addition to Gulftainer’s obvious and still potentially problematic ties to the UAE – a troubling array of connections linking it to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and President Barack Obama, himself. For example, Obama’s former college roommates, one Indian and one Pakistani – who remain to this day his close friends – have personal and business relationships with the Jafar family.

Then, there are ominous connections to Iran, as well. Siamak Namazi is a former Iranian government official who, along with Trita Parsi, helped found the National Iranian American Council (NIAC). NIAC is considered to be the U.S. lobbying arm of the Tehran regime. Namazi, Parsi, and NIAC were all deeply involved in the negotiations that led to the “Obamabomb Deal”: the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran.

As the secret Gulftainer negotiations were underway from 2012-2014, Namazi served as the head of strategic planning for Crescent Petroleum. The company is another Jafar family business based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Crescent is closely involved in oil and gas projects with Teheran’s state-owned petroleum concern, the National Iranian Oil Company. Interestingly, Siamak Namazi was detained inside Iran around mid-October 2015 and remains in custody there as of December 2016. Among other things, that puts him conveniently beyond the reach of the FBI.

In unveiling the Center’s new Occasional Paper, its president, Frank J. Gaffney, observed:

It is shocking that management of one of the United States’ most strategically located ports has been turned over to foreign interests that include: Saddam Hussein’s nuclear bomb-maker; the rabidly anti-American jihadist mullahs of Iran; and a country, the UAE, that was stopped from taking over operational control of American ports ten years ago.

Worse yet, all this was engineered without the knowledge, much less the approval, of either Congress or the American people.

This transaction must be suspended, if not canceled outright, pending a thorough evaluation of its merits, a rigorous national security threat assessment by CFIUS and most importantly, an informed and thorough debate on Capitol Hill.

“What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” is available for free in PDF format below:

port_canaveral_occasional_paper_12-23-16

An excerpt from the report: SECRET DEAL ALLOWS COMPANY TIED TO SADDAM’S NUCLEAR BOMB MAKER, IRAN AND U.A.E. TO MANAGE KEY FLORIDA PORT FACILITIES

In 2015 President Barack Obama’s Administration quietly approved the hand-over of cargo container operations at Florida’s Port Canaveral to Gulftainer, a Middle Eastern ports company owned by the Emir of Sharjah of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iraqi businessman Hamid Dhia Jafar. Hamid Jafar is the brother and the business partner of Dr. Jafar Dhia Jafar — the Baghdad-born nuclear physicist who masterminded Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program.

UAE-based port operator Gulftainer, a subsidiary of The Crescent Group, was awarded the 35-year no-bid lease at Port Canaveral in 2014 following two years of secret talks in a deal code-named “Project Pelican.”

Treasury Secretary Jacob “Jack” Lew declined to conduct a Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) National Security Threat Analysis that, under the Foreign Investment & National Security Act of 2007 (FINSA), is required for transactions affecting America’s critical infrastructure and U.S. national security.

Port Canaveral is in close proximity to a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine base, two U.S. Air Force Space Command bases, and NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Gulftainer has port operations in the UAE, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Turkey,Brazil, and Russia.

Read it all to learn more including: GULFTAINER’S CONNECTIONS TO THE CLINTONS AND TWO OF PRESIDENT OBAMA’S COLLEGE ROOMMATES.

[studentofrhetoric-blog]

Part 2, Thursday, April 27th, 2017

International News:

--- "Saudi Arabia is distributing life-saving assistance throughout Yemen, including in the hard-hit areas held by Iran-allied Houthi rebels, sometimes by donkey or camel, a top Saudi aid official said on Thursday. Riyadh has faced mounting accusations a Saudi-led coalition that intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015 to back its government against the Houthi movement has been responsible for many of the estimated 10,000 deaths - mostly civilians - in the conflict and created obstacles to getting humanitarian aid to famine-threatened regions. Yemen has been shattered by the conflict, in which the Saudi-led coalition has carried out almost daily air strikes in support of Yemeni government efforts to recover large swathes of territory including the capital Sanaa taken by the Houthis. "Our programs have been reaching all regions of Yemen, I want to emphasize all regions, irrespective of who controls it," Abdullah Al Rabeeah, supervisor general of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre, told a news conference. "As much as we have been in the south, we have been in the in north, our programs are also active in Houthi-controlled areas such as Sadaa, Hajja, Amran, and Sanaa," he said...U.N. emergency relief coordinator Stephen O'Brien told Reuters this week that access remained a major problem in Yemen given bureaucratic restrictions and demands for "taxes, levies, bribes and fines" to be able to reach the sick and hungry."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-yemen-security-saudi-idUSKBN17T2KI?il=0

--- "The Kremlin strongly criticised Israeli air strikes on targets inside Syria on Thursday, saying Israel and other countries should avoid any action that heightened tension in the region. Israel struck an arms supply hub operated by the Lebanese group Hezbollah near Damascus airport on Thursday, Syrian rebel and regional intelligence sources said, targeting weapons sent from Iran via commercial and military cargo planes. "We consider that all countries should avoid any actions that lead to higher tensions in such a troubled region and call for Syrian sovereignty to be respected," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, when asked about the attack. Russia and Israel were in constant contact about the situation in Syria through various channels, said Peskov. Russia, whose forces are helping President Bashar al-Assad fight Islamic State and other militant groups, regularly says it is the only foreign power operating on Syrian territory at the Syrian government's invitation and has spoken out strongly against Turkish strikes as well as a recent U.S. strike."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-israel-russia-idUSKBN17T1YQ?il=0

--- "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said in a Venezuelan television interview broadcast on Thursday that Israeli military strikes on his army showed Israel was "supporting terrorists" in Syria, state-run Syrian media reported. Assad did not directly refer to the Israeli air strikes near Damascus airport early on Thursday and Syria's official SANA news agency, which carried quotes from the interview with Venezuela's Telesur channel, did not say when it was recorded."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-assad-idUSKBN17T2K2?il=0

--- "A suspected U.S. drone strike killed several Pakistani Taliban militants in North Waziristan close to the Afghanistan border, one militant commander and multiple intelligence sources said on Thursday. If confirmed, the air strike, which happened on Wednesday, would only be the second drone attack inside the nuclear-armed nation since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January. But one regional Pakistani official disputed the location, saying it was inside Afghanistan. Abdullah Wazirstani, spokesman for North Waziristan Taliban, a group linked to the Pakistani Taliban, said the strike killed three civilian "labourers" and seven militants from the Pakistani Taliban, which is also known as TTP. Malik Waheedullah, a local tribal leader, told Reuters he saw two missiles strike a mountain home which caught fire. "I drove away as fast as I could," he said. U.S. officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. One Pakistani intelligence official and government source said they believed the strike to be a U.S. drone attack."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-drones-idUSKBN17T1Y6?il=0

--- "Northern Ireland's main political parties have agreed to pause talks on forming a power-sharing government until after Britain's general election on June 8, the British government said on Thursday. The semi-autonomous Belfast government collapsed in January and despite fresh regional elections in March, Irish nationalists and pro-British unionists have failed to agree a deal to form a new executive. That has left Northern Ireland without political leadership as Britain prepares to start negotiations on exiting the European Union. The British government last week agreed to extend a deadline on forming a government until June 29 to avoid the risk of election campaigning derailing the talks. On Thursday they agreed to pause talks during the campaign."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-election-nireland-idUSKBN17T2CS?il=0

--- "The U.S. Navy's top officer said on Thursday that he would like to see more international participation in freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea. "I think greater international participation there would be something to look forward to as sort of a strategic approach to that," Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson said while speaking at an event, referring to the South China Sea. On Wednesday, the U.S. commander in the Asia Pacific region said the United States would likely carry out new freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea soon."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-southchinasea-idUSKBN17T212?il=0

--- "All 78 crew members of a Russian navy vessel that sank off Turkey's Black Sea coast on Thursday after colliding with a livestock ship have been rescued by the Turkish coast guard and are in good health, Turkish transport minister Ahmet Arslan said.  Speaking to broadcaster A Haber by telephone, Arslan said the navy ship sank after the collision which was caused by fog and poor weather. The other vessel only suffered minor damage. The Russian personnel would be returned to Russian authorities, the minister said. Turkey's Bosphorus Strait, which cuts through Istanbul, is one of the world's most important waterways for transit of oil and grains. The 17-mile waterway connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-russia-ship-minister-idUSKBN17T20P?il=0

--- "European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said on Thursday that his impression following meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Funds was the changes of global trade protectionism may have eased. "Perhaps the risk of trade protectionism may have ... receded," he told a news conference in response to a question about U.S. President Donald Trump's policies. Trump campaigned on an "America First" platform, triggering concern that a new era of U.S. trade barriers might be ahead."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-ecb-idUSKBN17T205?il=0

--- "North Korea has agreed to a visit by the U.N. expert on the human rights of people with disabilities, the United Nations said on Thursday, a minor concession after years of criticism of Pyongyang's record from the U.N. Human Rights Council. The visit by Catalina Devandas-Aguilar from May 3-8 will be the first ever to North Korea by an independent expert designated by the Council, a 47-state body that is pushing for justice for crimes against humanity it says have been committed. North Korea has consistently denounced the Council's resolutions as a conspiracy by the United States and other "hostile forces", while its ally China has tried to shield it from scrutiny. It has not allowed any of a string of U.N. human rights investigators specifically focusing on North Korea itself to visit. Last month North Korean diplomats boycotted a Council session on abuses in North Korea amid rising tension on the divided peninsula following its latest missile tests and two nuclear tests last year. Devandas-Aguilar's visit will take her to Pyongyang and the South Hwanghae Province and will focus particularly on children with disabilities in North Korea, the statement said. North Korea, also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), ratified the Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities in December 2016."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-un-idUSKBN17T19O?il=0

--- "Iraqi paramilitary units captured the northern province of Hatra on Thursday, cutting off several desert tracks used by Islamic State to move between Iraq and Syria, the military. The operations in Hatra are carried out by Popular Mobilisation, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias of Shi'ite volunteers formed in 2014 after Islamic State, a hardline Sunni group, overran a third of Iraq. The militias on Wednesday dislodged Islamic State from the ancient ruins of Hatra, which suffered great destruction under the militants' three-year rule, a military spokesman said. Hatra, a city that flourished in the first century AD, lies 125 km (80 miles) south of Mosul, where the militants have been fighting off a U.S.-backed offensive since October."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iraq-crisis-mosul-idUSKBN17T1H0?il=0

--- "French riot police clashed with youths in central Paris on Thursday when a demonstration against far right leader presidential candidate Marine Le Pen and her centrist rival Emmanuel Macron turned violent. Police replied with teargas as hooded youths threw bottles on the sidelines of a march by about 500 hundred high school students. Police also used teargas against protesters in the western city of Rennes where nearly 2,000 high school and university students, and far-left activists, held a demonstration, a Reuters correspondent there reported. In Paris, protesting students blocked the entrances, or staged election-related demonstrations, at about 20 high schools earlier on Thursday after student unions urged them to turn out. Students have been holding "neither Le Pen, neither Macron" protests at high schools since the two qualified on Sunday for a May 7 runoff vote in France's two-stage presidential election. "We are calling for action against far right candidate Marine Le Pen and the candidate of high finance, Emmanuel Macron," said UNL-SD student union leader Giuseppe Aviges, alluding to Macron's past as an investment banker."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-students-idUSKBN17T1U8?il=0

--- "Estonia's defense minister said on Thursday that Russia may use large-scale military exercises to move thousands of troops permanently into Belarus later this year in a warning to NATO. Russia and Belarus aim to hold joint war games in September that some North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies believe could number more than 100,000 troops and involve nuclear weapons training, the biggest such exercise since 2013. Defence Minister Margus Tsahkna said Estonia and other NATO governments had intelligence suggesting Moscow may leave Russian soldiers in Belarus once the so-called Zapad 2017 exercises are over, also pointing to public data of Russian railway traffic to Belarus. Tsahkna cited plans to send 4,000 railway carriages to Belarus to transport Russian troops and gear there, possibly to set up a military outpost in its closest ally. "For Russian troops going to Belarus, it is a one-way ticket," Tsahkna told Reuters in an interview in Malta. "This is not my personal opinion, we are analyzing very deeply how Russia is preparing for the Zapad exercises," he said before a meeting of EU defense ministers. Russia’s Defence Ministry did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment on the subject. Moscow denies any plans to threaten NATO and says it is the U.S.-led alliance that is risking stability in eastern Europe. The Kremlin has not said how many troops will take part in Zapad 2017...Such a move could see Russian troops on the border with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia just as the U.S.-led NATO alliance stations multinational battalions in the Baltic region in response to Russia's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimea."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-belarus-idUSKBN17T1DQ?il=0

--- "China will continue to conduct live fire drills and test new weapons to safeguard its national security, the country's defense ministry said on Thursday when asked about the deployment of the U.S. anti-missile defense system THAAD in South Korea. Defence Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun made the comment at a monthly news briefing in Beijing."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-china-thaad-idUSKBN17T0YT?il=0

--- "Protesters blocked a highway in Venezuela's capital Caracas for nearly eight hours this week in an effort to show the opposition's dedication to civil disobedience as their main tool to resist President Nicolas Maduro. But by the end of the afternoon, hooded youths had filled the highway with burning debris, looted a government storage site, torched two trucks and stolen medical equipment from an ambulance. "This is no peaceful protest, they're damaging something that belongs to the state and could be used to help one of their own family members," said Wilbani Leon, head of a paramedic team that services Caracas highways, showing the damage to the ambulance. Anti-government demonstrations entering their fourth week are being marred by street violence despite condemnation by opposition leaders and clear instructions that the protests should be peaceful. Such daytime violence also increasingly presages late-night looting of businesses in working-class areas of Caracas, a sign that political protests could extend into broad disruptions of public order driven by growing hunger. The opposition's so-far unsuccessful struggle to contain its violent factions has helped Maduro depict it as a group of thugs plotting to overthrow him the way opposition leaders briefly ousted late socialist leader Hugo Chavez in 2002."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-violence-idUSKBN17T0HG?il=0

--- "The United Nations' refugee agency has criticized a Myanmar government plan to resettle Rohingya Muslims displaced by recent violence in "camp-like" villages, saying it risks stoking tensions, according to a document seen by Reuters. The plan - confirmed by a senior state-level official - has sparked fear among residents that they would end up penned into de facto refugee camps, the document produced by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Myanmar said. Attacks on border guard posts in northwestern Myanmar in October last year by a Rohingya insurgent group ignited the biggest crisis of national leader Aung San Suu Kyi's year in power. Security forces stand accused of mass killings and gang rapes during the counterinsurgency operation that followed. About 75,000 Rohingya fled across the border to Bangladesh to escape the violence, during which at least 1,500 houses across several villages were burned, while thousands more hid in forests and fields. Some of those who fled have now returned and built temporary shelters, but the authorities have barred them from rebuilding their homes permanently citing "security restrictions", according to residents who spoke to Reuters and the UN document..."Based on the information available on the model villages and concerns brought to our attention by affected villagers, UNHCR stressed the importance to allow displaced communities to return to their place of origin and have access to their previous source of livelihoods," UNHCR Myanmar spokesman Andrew Dusek said by email when reached for comment on the document. More than 1 million Rohingya live in apartheid-like conditions in Myanmar's Rakhine State, where many in the Buddhist majority consider them interlopers from Bangladesh. While Dusek said the UNHCR understood the plan was still at draft stage and may not have been finalised, Rakhine State government secretary Tin Maung Swe said the local administration had already started implementing it."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-resettlement-idUSKBN17T2BJ?il=0

Domestic & International News:

--- "Relations between the United States and Mexico have seen "enormous progress" during the first months of the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray said on Thursday. His remarks followed a Wednesday night call between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in which the leaders discussed the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Videgaray said the call, which was initiated by Pena Nieto and lasted about 20 minutes, focused exclusively on the looming talks over NAFTA's "renegotiation and modernization.” He noted that Trump wanted to see the talks accelerated. "We have generated a respectful dynamic through dialogue ... we've advanced enormously in the correct direction," Videgaray told local broadcaster Televisa in an interview."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-mexico-videgaray-idUSKBN17T1YG?il=0

--- "The United States on Thursday blacklisted a Saudi man who it said was the Syria-based deputy leader of Islamic State's affiliate in Saudi Arabia, the State Department said in a statement. Mubarak Mohammed A Alotaibi, a 31-year-old Saudi citizen, was named a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist," the State Department said. The action freezes any assets he might have in the United States, and Americans are not allowed to deal with him."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-usa-sanctions-idUSKBN17T27N?il=0

--- "The European Union sees a good case for reviving frozen free trade talks with the United States, its trade commissioner said on Thursday. "There is still a very good case to take negotiations on TTIP between EU and the US forward but I think we need to wait a little bit more for them to assess where we were, where we stopped, where they want to go," Cecilia Malmstrom told a conference in Copenhagen."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-trade-usa-idUSKBN17T1EV?il=0

Domestic News:

--- "A U.S. Senate committee voted on Thursday to advance the nomination of Dr. Scott Gottlieb to lead the Food and Drug Administration. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voted 14-9 in favor of Gottlieb, a physician, conservative health policy expert and a deputy FDA commissioner during the George W. Bush administration. The vote means Gottlieb's nomination will now be voted on by the full Senate, where he is expected to be confirmed."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-health-fda-gottlieb-idUSKBN17T2AO?il=0

--- "President Donald Trump unveiled a one-page plan on Wednesday proposing deep U.S. tax cuts, many for businesses, that would make the federal deficit balloon if enacted, drawing a cautious welcome from fiscal conservatives and financial markets. While the proposed tax cuts would please those helped by them, such as multinational corporations and wealthy taxpayers, Trump's package fell far short of the kind of comprehensive tax reform that both parties in Washington have sought for years...Investors, who had been awaiting tax-plan details for months, largely shrugged off the news, with many saying it was still short on specifics and faced a long road to enactment. “Wake me up when something actually gets signed into law,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com in West Palm Beach, Florida. Only Congress can make major tax law changes, and Democrats immediately attacked the Republican president's plan as fiscally irresponsible. "President Trump’s tax plan is short on details and long on giveaways to big corporations and billionaires," said Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives. House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the top Republicans on the congressional tax-writing committees welcomed the Trump proposals, while leaving space for details to change as legislation evolves. “The principles outlined by the Trump administration today will serve as critical guideposts" as Congress and the administration work on tax changes, they said in a statement.U.S. stocks pared gains on Wednesday after the plan was unveiled. While Wall Street has been optimistic about the prospect of corporate tax cuts since Trump's election in November, the stocks rally has stalled lately because of a lack of clarity about Trump's policies and concern over his failure to push through a healthcare bill."

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-data-idUSKBN17S1CE?il=0

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Syrian Army Gains in Islamic State’s Last Central Syria Bastion (Reuters) The Syrian army and its allies were fighting on Saturday in Islamic State’s last pocket in central Syria after taking the heavily defended village of Uqairabat on Friday, a war monitor reported.

With Prayer, Sacrifices, Pakistani Muslims Celebrate Eid Al-Adha (Reuters) Muslims in Pakistan crowded mosques and prayer grounds across the country to offer prayers and sacrifice goats and cows for Eid al-Adha holiday on Saturday, marking the second major religious festival of Islam.

Australia, East Timor Reach Agreement on Maritime Border (Reuters) Australia and East Timor have reached a breakthrough agreement on a maritime border, ending a decade-old row between the two nations that has stalled a $40 billion offshore gas project.

Rohingya Muslims Flee as More Than 2,600 Houses Burned in Myanmar’s Rakhine (Reuters) More than 2,600 houses have been burned down in Rohingya-majority areas of Myanmar’s northwest in the last week, the government said on Saturday, in one of the deadliest bouts of violence involving the Muslim minority in decades.

Trump Agree With South Korea Moon on Revising Bilateral Missile Treaty (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump agreed with South Korean President Moon Jae-in to revise the two countries’ treaty capping the development of the South’s ballistic missiles as Seoul has hoped to, Moon’s office said on Saturday.

Trump Urges Colombia’s Santos to Crack Down on Drugs: White House (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trump urged Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in a telephone call on Friday to crack down on the production and trafficking of illegal drugs, the White House said in a statement.

Suspected Boko Haram Members Kill 18 People in Northeast Nigeria (Reuters) Suspected Boko Haram militants killed 18 people in northeast Nigeria on Friday, according to local witnesses and officials, the latest in an escalating number of lethal attacks in the region.

Brazilian Prosecutors Want Lula Absolved in Corruption Case (Reuters) Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva should be cleared of any wrongdoing in one of several corruption cases pending against him in federal court due to a lack of evidence, prosecutors said on Friday.

At Least Three Dead as Lidia Slams Mexico’s Los Cabos Tourist Hub (Reuters) At least three people died after torrential rain from Tropical Storm Lidia provoked major flooding around Mexico’s popular Los Cabos beach resort on Friday, authorities said.

Trump Will Announce Decision on Immigrant Children on Tuesday: White House (Reuters) President Donald Trump will announce his decision on Tuesday on whether to rescind the Obama-era policy protecting immigrants who came to the United States illegally as children, the White House said on Friday.

North Korea Missile Fear Sets Pre-emptive Strike Debate in Japan (AP) Japan is debating whether to develop a limited pre-emptive strike capability and buy cruise missiles--ideas that were anathema in the pacifist country before the North Korea missile threat.

2nd Round of NAFTA Talks Opens in Mexico City (AP) A second round of NAFTA renegotiations began Friday with officials expressing optimism despite President Donald Trump’s suggestions he could withdraw the United States from the 23-year-old trade pact.