February 16, 2015

Tsunami warning after 6.9 earthquake off Japan

Source: RT

An earthquake measuring at 6.9 magnitude has struck off Honshu island in northern Japan, the US Geological Survey said, issuing a tsunami warning.


Read more: http://rt.com/news/232923-japan-earthquake-tsunami-warning/

February 16, 2015

Russian researchers expose breakthrough U.S. spying program

Source: Reuters

The U.S. National Security Agency has figured out how to hide spying software deep within hard drives made by Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba and other top manufacturers, giving the agency the means to eavesdrop on the majority of the world's computers, according to cyber researchers and former operatives.

That long-sought and closely guarded ability was part of a cluster of spying programs discovered by Kaspersky Lab, the Moscow-based security software maker that has exposed a series of Western cyberespionage operations.

Kaspersky said it found personal computers in 30 countries infected with one or more of the spying programs, with the most infections seen in Iran, followed by Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen and Algeria. The targets included government and military institutions, telecommunication companies, banks, energy companies, nuclear researchers, media, and Islamic activists, Kaspersky said. (http://reut.rs/1L5knm0)

The firm declined to publicly name the country behind the spying campaign, but said it was closely linked to Stuxnet, the NSA-led cyberweapon that was used to attack Iran's uranium enrichment facility. The NSA is the agency responsible for gathering electronic intelligence on behalf of the United States.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-researchers-expose-breakthrough-u-spying-program-194217480--sector.html

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Kaspersky published the technical details of its research on Monday, which should help infected institutions detect the spying programs, some of which trace back as far as 2001. (http://bit.ly/17bPUUe)

February 16, 2015

Obama war request unites Congress: From either side, they hate it

President Barack Obama has achieved something unexpected in Congress: a degree of bipartisanship. There’s enough in his proposal for war powers against the Islamic State for both Democrats and Republicans to hate.

Too restrictive on ground troops, hawkish Republicans say. Overly broad language with no endgame in sight, several war-weary Democrats and Republicans with libertarian streaks complain.

Obama’s authorization for use of military force request against the Islamic State faces a rough go in a skeptical Congress that appears in no hurry to act on it. While most members of the House of Representatives and the Senate say they have the will to address Islamic State activities, they have serious doubts about whether Obama’s authorization request is the way to do it.

“There are many questions, I think, that need to be asked about this authorization … before the Congress can move forward,” said Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “The principal question, however, will continue to be: Do we have a strategy?”

Obama’s request for a temporary, three-year authorization of war powers opens the door to ground troops — which Obama for months flatly ruled out. But it also calls for their use against the Islamic State in “limited circumstances,” which include the use of special operations forces to take action against the group’s leadership.

http://www.stripes.com/news/us/obama-war-request-unites-congress-from-either-side-they-hate-it-1.329421

February 16, 2015

Egypt 'bombs IS in Libya' after beheadings video

Source: BBC

Egypt says it has bombed Islamic State targets in Libya, hours after the group published video showing the apparent beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians.

Earlier, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Egypt had the "right to respond" against IS.

A video emerged on Sunday showing a group wearing orange overalls being forced to the ground and decapitated.

IS militants claim to have carried out several attacks in Libya, which is in effect without a government.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31483631

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Earlier 8/2014

Arab Nations Strike in Libya, Surprising U.S.

Twice in the last seven days, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have secretly launched airstrikes against Islamist-allied militias battling for control of Tripoli, Libya, four senior American officials said, in a major escalation of a regional power struggle set off by Arab Spring revolts.

The United States, the officials said, was caught by surprise: Egypt and the Emirates, both close allies and military partners, acted without informing Washington, leaving the Obama administration on the sidelines. Egyptian officials explicitly denied to American diplomats that their military played any role in the operation, the officials said, in what appeared a new blow to already strained relations between Washington and Cairo.

The strikes in Tripoli are another salvo in a power struggle defined by Arab autocrats battling Islamist movements seeking to overturn the old order. Since the military ouster of the Islamist president in Egypt last year, the new government and its backers in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have launched a campaign across the region — in the news media, in politics and diplomacy, and by arming local proxies — to roll back what they see as an existential threat to their authority posed by Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/26/world/africa/egypt-and-united-arab-emirates-said-to-have-secretly-carried-out-libya-airstrikes.html

February 15, 2015

4,000 US Soldiers Deployed to Kuwait in Anti-ISIS Move

Source: Arutz Sheva

Following US President Barack Obama’s request of Congress to authorize additional military action against the Islamic State terrorists, a brigade of more than 4,000 soldiers will be heading out of Ft. Carson, Colorado to Kuwait, the Associated Press has reported.

Although a large-scale ground combat operation similar to those which took place in Iraq and Afghanistan had been ruled out, this deployment was a three-year option Obama requested specifically to be used against the ISIS, and any “closely related successor entity” to the group, which has overrun sections of Iraq and Syria.

Read more: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/317829#.VOC2Z4bXerV

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February 15, 2015

Ross Kemp: Extreme World | Ukraine - Rise of the far right.

https://m.

February 12, 2015

Why Arming Kiev Is a Really, Really Bad Idea

Should the United States start arming Ukraine, so it can better resist and maybe even defeat the Russian-backed rebels in its eastern provinces? A lot of seasoned American diplomats and foreign policy experts seem to think so; a task force assembled by the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs wants the United States to send Ukraine $1 billion in military assistance as soon as possible, with more to come. The Obama administration is rethinking its earlier reluctance, and secretary of defense nominee Ash Carter told a Senate hearing he was “very much inclined” to favor this course as well.

Unless cooler heads prevail, therefore, the United States seems to be moving toward raising the stakes in Ukraine. This decision is somewhat surprising, however, because few experts think this bankrupt and divided country is a vital strategic interest and no one is talking about sending U.S. troops to fight on Kiev’s behalf. So the question is: does sending Ukraine a bunch of advanced weaponry make sense?

The answer is no.

One reason to be skeptical of the report from the three think tanks is the track record of its like-minded members. The task force wasn’t made up of a diverse set of experts seeking to explore a wide range of options and find some creative common ground. On the contrary, its members were all people who have long backed NATO expansion and have an obvious desire to defend that policy, which has played a central role in creating the present crisis. After all, these are the same people who have been telling us since the late 1990s that expanding NATO eastwards posed no threat to Russia and would instead create a vast and enduring zone of peace in Europe. That prediction is now in tatters, alas, but these experts are now doubling down to defend a policy that was questionable from the beginning and clearly taken much too far. As the critics warned it would, open-ended NATO expansion has done more to poison relations with Russia than any other single Western policy.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/09/how-not-to-save-ukraine-arming-kiev-is-a-bad-idea/

February 11, 2015

Yemen crisis: US, UK and France close Sanaa embassies

Source: BBC

The US, UK and France are closing their embassies in Yemen due to the deteriorating security situation and political crisis in the country.

The US and UK governments have withdrawn diplomatic staff from Sanaa and urged their citizens to leave.

France's embassy in the capital has announced that it will close on Friday.

The moves come as the UN attempts to broker talks between political factions and Shia rebels who control Sanaa and dissolved parliament last week.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31411284

February 11, 2015

We dream about drones, said 13-year-old Yemeni before his death in a CIA strike

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/drones-dream-yemeni-teenager-mohammed-tuaiman-death-cia-strike

February 11, 2015

Ukraine: draft dodgers face jail as Kiev struggles to find new fighters

Source: Guardian UK

Ruslan Kotsaba posted a video addressed to the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, last week in which he said he would rather go to prison for five years for draft-dodging than fight pro-Russia rebels in the country’s east. Now he faces 15 years in jail after being arrested for treason and obstructing the military.

His case is symptomatic of Kiev’s difficulties in mobilising a war-weary society to continue the fight against the rebels, who appear to have an unlimited supply of weapons and training from Russia. As the country nears bankruptcy and the reform programme demanded by the Maidan revolution last year is sidelined by the war effort, the drive to call up new recruits is floundering.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/10/ukraine-draft-dodgers-jail-kiev-struggle-new-fighters