How Israeli-designed drones ended up supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a case study in the complicated relationship between Israel and Russia. Though Russia has been instrumental in protecting the Assad government, which appeared to be on the brink of collapse four years ago, it has also carefully cultivated a military relationship with Israel over the past decade.

After more than seven years of war, the skies over Syria are saturated with aircraft from multiple militaries and armed groups, each pursuing their own goals, including using the country as a weapons-testing ground. American airpower and Kurdish ground forces helped grind the Islamic State’s caliphate down to a tiny pocket before it dramatically collapsed this past spring. Meanwhile, Turkish occupation forces and their proxies are conducting a brutal campaign of repression in the Syrian-Kurdish canton of Afrin.

If you've ever wondered if the Pentagon has ever exposed the American public to ticks infected with biological weapons, you're not alone.

Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) authored an amendment to the House version of the Fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act would require the Defense Department Inspector General's Office to find out if the U.S. military experimented with using ticks and other insects as biological weapons between 1950 and 1975.

If such experiments took place, the amendment would require the inspector general's office to tell lawmakers if any of the ticks or other bugs "were released outside of any laboratory by accident or experiment design."

Was President Harry Truman “a murderer,” as the renowned British analytic philosopher Gertrude Elizabeth Anscombe once charged? Were the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki indeed a war crime and a crime against humanity, as she and other academic luminaries have publicly claimed? A Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at Oxford and Cambridge, who was one of the 20th century’s most gifted philosophers and recognizably the greatest woman philosopher in history, Dr. Anscombe openly called President Truman a “war criminal” for his decision to have the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki leveled by atomic bombs in August 1945 (Rachels & Rachels 127). According to another academic critic, the late American historian Howard Zinn, at least 140,000 Japanese civilians were “turned into powder and ash” in Hiroshima.

It was truly baffling to hear a grilled US official claim during a Senate hearing that the sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia are a ‘manifestation’ of exporting human rights and open society, an anti-war activist told RT.
R. Clarke Cooper, the US State Department’s assistant secretary for political-military affairs, was grilled during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. Defending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, he said that the deal itself means more than just selling weapons.

“Our policy is not just limited to arms transfers. It is a manifestation of what else we export: open society, human rights. That is a part of our policy,” he said. The official added that Washington does not cut security ties with partners like Riyadh that carry “so much weight for our interests.”

By Nicholas West

Nearly 4 years ago, I wrote an article entitled, “Lasers and Electronic Warfare To Be Used in New World of Drones and Anti-Drones,” wherein I detailed the trend toward using directed energy weapons in warfare. Unfortunately, it appears that much of the speculation at that time about whether or not this was merely the military-industrial complex looking to fund more boondoggle projects that would never see the light of day actually has become reality.

Fox News reports:

If swarms of enemy small attack boats armed with guns and explosives approached a Navy ship, alongside missile-armed drones and helicopters closing into strike range, ship commanders would instantly begin weighing defensive options – to include interceptor missiles, electronic warfare, deck-mounted guns or area weapons such as Close-in-Weapons System.

SOURCE: ARSTECHNICA.COM

Amazon is seeking government permission to launch 3,236 broadband satellites that would cover nearly all of the United States and much of the rest of the world.

Amazon subsidiary Kuiper Systems filed its application with the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday last week, saying it intends to cover all of the US except most of Alaska.

"The Kuiper System covers the area between 56°N and 56°S latitudes," the Amazon subsidiary told the FCC. "Accordingly, customers throughout [the] continental US, Hawaii, and all US territories will have access to Kuiper System services. So too will customers in many other countries within the coverage area. The Kuiper System will not provide FSS [fixed-satellite service] in the majority of Alaska, however, because the state's high latitude is outside of the coverage area."

SOURCE: RT

As tension mounts over Iran’s nuclear program, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Tehran that Israeli warplanes can strike anywhere in the Middle East, “including Iran and Syria.”

“Iran has threatened recently to destroy Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video clip posted on Tuesday. “It is worthwhile for them to remember that these planes can reach everywhere in the Middle East, including Iran and Syria.”

Netanyahu delivered his stern lecture while standing in front of an F-35 fighter jet at Nevatim Airbase in central Israel. The Israeli Air Force has used its warplanes to strike supposed Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria numerous times, most recently pounding the cities of Damascus and Homs at the beginning of July – attacks that left multiple civilians dead. Last year, Israel became the world’s first military power to use the next-generation F-35 in a combat operation, reportedly against Iranian targets in Syria.

IRmep Director Grant F. Smith asks Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association if the long documented history of unpunished illegal diversions of U.S. nuclear weapons material, technology and know-how to Israel have pulled the U.S. out of compliance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Tehran announced Sunday that its uranium enrichment levels would soon surpass limits set in the 2015 nuclear deal, and said that Iran would continue to reduce its commitments to the nuclear deal every 60 days until the deal's other signatories meet their commitments.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blasted Iran's decision to raise uranium enrichment levels beyond the 3.67 per cent limit outlined in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), saying the only possible reason for such an action is the creation of a nuclear bomb, The Jerusalem Post has reported.

Commenting on a report in US media about Iran's uranium enrichment decision on Sunday, Netanyahu said the report seemed to suggest that the move was "not terrible, because it is just a 'small step'."

Earlier in the day, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that Tehran will in 60 days announce further nuclear obligations it will discontinue as the third step of scaling down its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Germany is extremely concerned about Iran breaching the limit set for uranium enrichment and urges it to reverse this decision, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

“Germany – like our E3 [UK, France, Germany] and EU partners – is extremely concerned by Iran’s announcement that it has begun enriching uranium beyond the concentration of 3.67%,” it said in a statement.

Germany will wait for the confirmation from the IAEA nuclear watchdog.

“As E3 and EU we have repeatedly called on Iran not to take further measures that further undermine the nuclear deal. We strongly urge Iran to stop and reverse all steps that are inconsistent with Iran’s commitments,” it continued.

Turkish police have taken five people into custody over the smuggling of a highly-radioactive substance used to build nuclear weapons and power nuclear reactors. The 18.1-gram haul was found in a car.

Police discovered a vial of the material after they pulled over a car in the northwestern Bolu province. The substance, believed to be californium, was found stashed under the gear stick wrapped in a bag. Officers had to cut the upholstery to get to the parcel, which is estimated to be worth US$72 million.

Files from the UK’s top-security chemical lab at Porton Down were allegedly found in a public dumpster. A former MI5 agent told RT that, if true, it could have been done by a spy or whistleblower.

British tabloid the Daily Star claimed to have discovered thousands of pages of documents from the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down inside a simple wheeled trash bin in a London car park. The publication said that it was initially alerted about the stash of documents last week by “a member of the public.”

The paper shared a photo of its reporter holding a thick pack of white paper as he was standing next to a green garbage container. The documents are dated from the early 1980s to 2017. To back up the potentially bombshell find, the DS provided what appears to be a screenshot of one of the documents, which contains rubberstamp marks signed ‘duty station officer’ and ‘Ministry of Defence’.

The US withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty is raising concerns in Russia that it would lead to the deployment of land-based US missiles along their borders in Eastern Europe. Russian officials warn this could create a crisis comparable to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

This is not a totally unfounded concern. The INF treaty’s dissolution, and the expansion of NATO all the way to Russia’s border indeed would create such a possibility. Russian officials have made clear they would respond to try to maintain deterrence, and prevent NATO having an overwhelming nuclear advantage. Though there are no formal plans for such deployments by NATO announced publicly yet, the Eastern European members are overwhelmingly hostile to Russia, and would endorse such deployments.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday his country will do "everything" to prevent arch-rival Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, during a visit by a senior Russian security official.

"Israel will not allow Iran, which calls for our destruction, to entrench on our border; we will do everything to prevent it from attaining nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said.

He was speaking alongside Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Moscow's powerful security council, whose visit followed weeks of simmering tensions between Tehran and Washington in the Gulf.

NATO defense ministers will hold talks on Wednesday over their next move if Russia doesn't destroy a new missile system that could allow for short-notice nuclear attacks throughout Europe, which the United States has said violates the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), according to Reuters.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg
"We call on Russia to take the responsible path, but we have seen no indication that Russia intends to do so," said Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at a news conference, adding "We will need to respond."

While he declined to go into further detail, diplomats have said their defense ministers will consider allowing more flights over Europe by nuclear-capable US warplanes, as well as more military training and the strategic repositioning of US sea-based missiles.

US generals are well aware that there’s no way of limiting the use of nuclear weapons in a war between superpowers, so the claim that some “low-yield” nukes are needed to match Russia is an outright lie, the Foreign Ministry said.
Moscow’s statement comes in response to the vice-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Paul Selva, who vehemently promoted the modification of the warheads on Trident missiles, which are carried on Ohio-class submarines, in order for them to be able to carry low-yield nuclear weapons.

In sharp contrast to Iran, its revolutionary identity and revisionist tendencies, Saudi Arabia has traditionally been a proponent of the prevailing order and status-quo balance of power in the Middle East.

This seems to be changing under Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, who continues to receive extraordinary support from US President Donald Trump's administration.

Whether it is an attempt to revise the status quo in favour of Riyadh, or prevent it from being revised by others, Saudi Arabia's nuclear and missile programmes are bound to have significant regional implications.

The decision by the United States to exit the Iranian nuclear agreement – signed in 2015 by Teheran with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – causes a situation of extreme danger not only in the Middle East.

To understand the implications of such decision, taken under pressure by Israel that describes the agreement as “the surrender of the West to the axis of evil led by Iran”, we must start from a precise fact: Israel has the Bomb, not Iran.

For over fifty years, Israel has been producing nuclear weapons at the Dimona plant, built with the help mainly of France and the United States. It is not subject to inspections because Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East, does not adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran signed fifty years ago.

The Pentagon document laying out the US doctrine of nuclear operations was publicly available for about a week, then made ‘official use only.’ What’s inside is a chilling reminder that Washington sees nuclear war as winnable.

“Nuclear Operations,” or Joint Publication 3-72, was dated on June 11 and made private since, but not before it was downloaded by Steven Aftergood, an activist at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). It is currently available on the FAS website as a PDF.

The publication “provides fundamental principles and guidance to plan, execute, and assess nuclear operations.” The rest of it is in the same matter-of-fact tone, even when discussing practical consideration of potentially world-ending weapons.

The creation and possible deployment by the United States of low-yield nuclear weapons in order to ‘contain’ Russia may actually result in using nuclear weapons, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told reporters.

The senior diplomat expressed concerns over the growing trend in the US, where the term "strategic stability" is used in a very loose way. He pointed out that strategic stability means that the emergence of preconditions for becoming the first to use nuclear weapons is unacceptable.

Israel, which routinely accuses Iran of trying to obtain nuclear weapons and pledges to use force to stop Tehran, maintains its own undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated at 80 to 90, according to the latest report by SIPRI.

There are nine nations in the world that currently have nuclear weapons, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says in its newly released yearbook on the state of armaments and international security. The world nuclear stockpile went from 14,465 at the beginning of last year to about 13,865 this year, the report estimates, as the US and Russia were delivering on their promises under the New START Treaty signed in 2010.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in a report that despite maintaining a long-term policy of not commenting on its nuclear arsenal, Israel is believed to own between 80 and 90 nuclear warheads.

By the start of 2019, nine countries, namely the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea possessed as many as 13,865 nuclear heads, of which 3,750 are operational and an estimated 2,000 are being kept in a state of alert, the report added.

IF THE NATIONAL INTEREST MANDATES that the United States go to war to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East then we should have begun bombing Israel in the 1960s.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
Iran certainly isn't planning on backing down in the face of Washington's accusations about the country's role in last week's tanker bombings, and as a result, the possibility of a boots-on-the-ground military conflict in the Islamic Republic cannot yet be ruled out. Making an already tense situation infinitely more precarious, Iran on Monday reminded the world that it's preparing to violate the terms of the Iran deal during the next ten days.

By increasing its stockpiles of enriched uranium, Iran is bound to elicit accusations that it's once again working on a nuclear bomb.Tehran has always maintained that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but American neocons like John Bolton have warned that this was merely a ruse, and that Iran could target American allies like Israel with a missile.

Less than 48 hours after Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon reached a handshake agreement on the purchase of a whopping 480 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, an absolute cluster bomb of stories has dropped detailing significant technical issues with the jets.

SOURCE: RT
After a Chinese company was found manufacturing circuit boards for the F-35 jet, the UK Ministry of Defense insisted there is nothing to worry about, rendering the fuss over omnipresent Beijing spies increasingly silly.
Exception PCB, a Chinese-owned company based in Gloucestershire, England, manufactures the circuit boards that control the engines, lighting, fuel and navigation systems of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the most expensive weapons system ever made. While the UK’s Ministry of Defense insists the company is an established supplier to the defense industry and presents “no risk,” months of flogging the China-spying narrative have done their job, and UK media and politicians are up in arms over this “shocking revelation.”

The House Armed Services Committee has passed a $733 billion version of the annual military spending bill. The vote was 33-24, largely along party lines, and will send this version to the House floor for a vote.

Once the House passes a version of this bill, it must be reconciled with the Senate version. That’s going to be a big job this year, as there are some major differences in the bills on some key subjects of debate.

One of the biggest issues is the question of low-yield nuclear weapons. The House bill ends funding for the low-yield nuclear missiles, and bars their deployment. A last minute Republican amendment in committee to preserve the weapons failed.

Two of the three versions of Lockheed's beleaguered F-35 fighter jet suffer from previously unreported problems that could put the Joint Strike Fighter at a serious disadvantage in a dogfight with an adversary, according to documents obtained by Defense News.

If left unresolved, the following 'category 1' glitches will be icing on the cake of Lockheed's $400 billion quagmire (partial list via Defense News);

When the F-35B vertically lands on very hot days, older engines may be unable to produce the required thrust to keep the jet airborne, resulting in a hard landing.
After doing certain maneuvers, F-35B and F-35C pilots are not always able to completely control the aircraft’s pitch, roll and yaw.
Supersonic flight in excess of Mach 1.2 can cause structural damage and blistering to the stealth coating of the F-35B and F-35C.
Cabin pressure spikes in the cockpit of the F-35 have been known to cause barotrauma, the word given to extreme ear and sinus pain.

Two weeks ago, when Trump started rolling out tariffs left and right as a political punishment weapon for any sovereigns who presented hurdles to
Next on Trump’s train of terrifying tariffs: Turkey.

The reason is simple: Turkey's now official stance that it would proceed with concluding the Russian S-400 missile deal despite vocal opposition from both the US president and Congress. And now, Turkey, too, is bracing for what now appears inevitable as it refuses to budge on its commitment to the Kremlin.

Overnight, Turkey said it would hold firm in its commitment to honor its purchase of Russian air defense systems, warning the US that it is prepared to take "reciprocal steps" in reply to any sanctions imposed by Washington, effectively admitting that sanctions by the White House are only a matter of time.

Most media commentary on the speech was either shocked or pleasantly surprised by Pence’s prediction that the graduating officers would soon be at war. He said

By trying to isolate Russia and Iran, the US is only isolating itself.

President Donald Trump won’t go to war with Iran. That was the prediction of Russian experts I interviewed in Moscow during the height of the US-Iran crisis in May. They were right.

To date, Trump has threatened military action against North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran. But, while he has caused tremendous damage to ordinary people with tariffs and economic sanctions, he hasn’t started any new wars. Countries around the world can now, after two years of Trump, distinguish between genuine military aggression and bluster.

But Ivan Konovalov, head of the Center for Studies of Strategic Trends, notes that each country has its own political, military, and economic interests in the region.

The House Armed Services Committee has passed a $733 billion version of the annual military spending bill. The vote was 33-24, largely along party lines, and will send this version to the House floor for a vote.

Once the House passes a version of this bill, it must be reconciled with the Senate version. That’s going to be a big job this year, as there are some major differences in the bills on some key subjects of debate.

One of the biggest issues is the question of low-yield nuclear weapons. The House bill ends funding for the low-yield nuclear missiles, and bars their deployment. A last minute Republican amendment in committee to preserve the weapons failed.

Low-yield nukes are intended by the Pentagon to be more usable, tactical weapons, that would have a much lower threshold for deployment. This was the source of support among hawks, but also the source of much opposition, concern that more usable nukes would usher in an era where nuclear warfare is more routine.

Turkey has been given a deadline of the end of July to choose between buying US fighter jets and Russian anti-aircraft missile systems.

Acting US Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan set out the ultimatum in a letter to his Turkish counterpart, Hulusi Akar.

Turkey, he said, could not have both America's F-35 advanced fighter jets and Russia's S-400 systems.

The two Nato allies have been locked in a row over the S-400 for months.

America argues that the Russian systems are both incompatible with Nato defence systems and pose a security threat, and wants Turkey to buy its Patriot anti-aircraft systems instead.

Turkey, which has been pursuing an increasingly independent defence policy, has signed up to buying 100 F-35s, and has invested heavily in the F-35 programme, with Turkish companies producing 937 of the plane's parts.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
United Technologies has agreed to buy Raytheon in an all stock deal, forming one of the world's largest aerospace and defense companies with more than $74 billion in revenue and $13.5 billion in EBITDA, through one of the industry’s biggest deals ever.

In a statement release on Sunday afternoon, the new entity will be called Raytheon Technologies Corp., the companies said. The combination, which is being presented as a merger of equals, will take place in the first half of 2020 after United Technologies’ planned spinoff of its Otis elevator and Carrier air-conditioner businesses.

Provocations between US and Russians warships, similar to the incident that occurred Friday in the East China Sea, are extremely dangerous but all too common ? and any one could lead to disaster, Mark Sleboda, an international affairs and security analyst, told Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear.

On Friday, the US Navy released a video of the near-collision between Russian destroyer Admiral Vinogradov and US Navy cruiser USS Chancellorsville in the East China Sea. The Russian Pacific Fleet responded with a statement that the US ship had suddenly changed course and crossed the path of the Russian destroyer “just 50 meters away from the ship.” The US Seventh Fleet denied Russia’s version of events, blaming the Russian vessel for nearly causing a collision.

June 8. /TASS/. The Baltic Fleet’s warships will keep track of NATO’s Baltops-2019 maneuvers to begin in the Baltic Sea waters on June 9, a law enforcement source in Russia’s westernmost Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad told TASS on Saturday.

"The Stoikiy and the Boikiy corvettes, as well as the Liven small missile ship, will keep the NATO maneuvers under observation. Besides, reconnaissance assets will also be deployed," the source said.

TASS has been unable to officially confirm the information at the time of the publication.

The Baltops-2019 exercise will be held on June 9-21. It will involve up to 40 surface ships and submarines and 40 aircraft from 18 countries. For the first time, the US Second Fleet, re-established in 2018, will take part in the maneuvers. Staff members will run Baltops-2019 from the USS Mount Whitney command ship, which arrived to the Baltic Sea on May 30.

More:
http://tass.com/defense/1062814

June 8. /TASS/. The Baltic Fleet’s warships will keep track of NATO’s Baltops-2019 maneuvers to begin in the Baltic Sea waters on June 9, a law enforcement source in Russia’s westernmost Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad told TASS on Saturday.

"The Stoikiy and the Boikiy corvettes, as well as the Liven small missile ship, will keep the NATO maneuvers under observation. Besides, reconnaissance assets will also be deployed," the source said.

TASS has been unable to officially confirm the information at the time of the publication.

The Baltops-2019 exercise will be held on June 9-21. It will involve up to 40 surface ships and submarines and 40 aircraft from 18 countries. For the first time, the US Second Fleet, re-established in 2018, will take part in the maneuvers. Staff members will run Baltops-2019 from the USS Mount Whitney command ship, which arrived to the Baltic Sea on May 30.

More:
http://tass.com/defense/1062814

June 8. /TASS/. The Baltic Fleet’s warships will keep track of NATO’s Baltops-2019 maneuvers to begin in the Baltic Sea waters on June 9, a law enforcement source in Russia’s westernmost Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad told TASS on Saturday.

"The Stoikiy and the Boikiy corvettes, as well as the Liven small missile ship, will keep the NATO maneuvers under observation. Besides, reconnaissance assets will also be deployed," the source said.

TASS has been unable to officially confirm the information at the time of the publication.

The Baltops-2019 exercise will be held on June 9-21. It will involve up to 40 surface ships and submarines and 40 aircraft from 18 countries. For the first time, the US Second Fleet, re-established in 2018, will take part in the maneuvers. Staff members will run Baltops-2019 from the USS Mount Whitney command ship, which arrived to the Baltic Sea on May 30.

More:
http://tass.com/defense/1062814

SOURCE: RT
Tehran’s military displayed a brand-new indigenous air defense missile system, capable of tracking and shooting down six targets at the same time. The weapon was rolled out amid growing tensions around the Persian Gulf.
Iran unveiled its new domestically-designed air defense missile system Khordad 15 on Sunday. Equipped with long-range Sayyad 3 missiles, it can shoot down enemy jets and combat drones at a range of 120 kilometers, Defense Minister Brigadier General Amir Hatami said.

Full video of 15 khordad air defence system ( ?? ?????)pic.twitter.com/izgZKfBIBl

— ???s??? ????? (@persianintel) June 9, 2019
The complex can also track “stealth targets,” intercepting them 45 km away. Overall, the weapon can destroy six targets simultaneously, according to military officials.

SOURCE: ALJAZEERA

When US President Donald Trump bypassed Congress last month to approve a multibillion-dollar arms deal to Saudi Arabia, he also allowed the kingdom to develop complex precision-bomb parts, according to the New York Times.

Trump's emergency declaration allows American arms firm Raytheon to share technology with Riyadh that could allow Saudi Arabia to develop its own laser-guided bombs, the newspaper reported on Friday.

Among the components which the Saudis are now allowed to work on with the firm are the control systems and vital electronics for Raytheon's Paveway series of smart bombs. That technology was previously closely guarded by Washington.

The technology sharing is just one part of a sweeping arms package Trump bypassed Congress to push through by declaring a national emergency, citing tensions with Iran.

Outrage on Capitol Hill

SOURCE: RT
Russia’s Emergencies Ministry showed off a new device which intercepts and ‘grounds’ menacing drones that disrupt rescue operations in disaster areas.
The portable device was shown at a large-scale exercise during an international disaster response expo near Moscow on Saturday, local media reported.

The technology allows responders to intercept any “unauthorized” UAVs operating in disaster areas and bring them into “forced landings.” The presence of civilian drones during disasters has long been a problem for response teams since they risk disrupting the work of relief aircraft, like air tankers water-bombing or medevac helicopters.

The reports did not specify how exactly the new devices make drones land. Companies in different states provide various ways to combat UAVs, such as jamming their signal and taking control over the vehicles mid-flight. Others offer more ‘violent’ solutions, like shooting the drones down with nets and lasers.

SOURCE: RT

Russia has accused the US Navy of “unacceptable” and dangerous maneuvering, after a US warship almost caused a catastrophic collision with a Russian destroyer in the East China Sea.

The Russian Navy said that the USS Chancellorsville, a guided-missile cruiser, unexplainedly changed direction and came within just 50 meters of the Admiral Vinogradov on Friday at 6:35 Moscow time. It added that a collision was only prevented after the Russian crew implemented emergency maneuvers and changed course.

A statement from Russia’s Pacific Fleet added that a complaint had been lodged with the command of the American cruiser.

We made our protest to the command of the American ship on an international wavelength and pointed out that such actions are unacceptable.

The US Navy denied responsibility for the near-collision. Instead, it blamed the Admiral Vinogradov for accelerating at Chancellorsville while it was waiting for its helicopter to land onboard.

The public enthusiasm for the trade war by elites within the Trump Administration cabinet, including Rothschild banking agent Wilber Ross, Council On Foreign Relations member Robert E. Lighthizer, Goldman Sachs member Steve Mnuchin, and Bilderberg attendee Mike Pompeo showcases a desire based on globalization to perpetuate an escalation in tensions.

Whether or not you agree with the rationalizations behind the trade war, the point is, the only people who will ultimately benefit from it are those striving for globalization.

The most interesting candidate is undoubtedly Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who is a fourth term Congresswoman from Hawaii, where she was born and raised. She is also the real deal on national security, having been-there and done-it through service as an officer with the Hawaiian National Guard on a combat deployment in Iraq. Though in Congress full time, she still performs her Guard duty.

Tulsi’s own military experience notwithstanding, she gives every indication of being honestly anti-war. In the speech announcing her candidacy she pledged “focus on the issue of war and peace” to “end the regime-change wars that have taken far too many lives and undermined our security by strengthening terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.” She referred to the danger posed by blundering into a possible nuclear war and indicated her dismay over what appears to be a re-emergence of the Cold War.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Saker blog.

The great Bilderberg secret of 2019 had to do with why, suddenly, the Trump administration has decided that it wants to talk to Iran “with no preconditions”.

It all has to do with the Strait of Hormuz. Blocking the Strait could cut off oil and gas from Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Iran – 20% of the world’s oil. There has been some debate on whether this could occur – whether the US Fifth Fleet, which is stationed nearby, could stop Tehran doing this and if Iran, which has anti-ship missiles on its territory along the northern border of the Persian Gulf, would go that far.

An American source said a series of studies hit President Trump’s desk and caused panic in Washington. These showed that in the case of the Strait of Hormuz being shut down, whatever the reason, Iran has the power to hammer the world financial system, by causing global trade in derivatives to be blown apart.

Trump’s gifts to the Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu of the Syrian Golan occupied by Israel and of the whole of Israeli-occupied Jerusalem gave an enormous boost of adrenaline to all non-state actors and resistance movements in the Middle East. These groups, who enjoy financial and military support from Iran, are united not only against US hegemony but have also effectively linked themselves and their struggle to form a united front against the US and Israel. This new unity is evident from Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon to Palestine.

US President Donald Trump’s closeness with Saudi Arabia is harming American national security, says a top senator, slamming the commander in chief’s seven-time approval of nuclear tech transfer to the kingdom, twice in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder.

American Senator Tim Kaine made the comments in a statement released Tuesday, Politico reported.

“President Trump’s eagerness to give the Saudis anything they want, over bipartisan congressional objection, harms American national security interests and is one of many steps the administration is taking that is fueling a dangerous escalation of tension in the region,” said the Virginia Democrat.

In a bizarre fashion, you might even say that, in the twenty-first century, the bomb and missile count replaced the Vietnam-era body count as a metric of (false) progress. Using data supplied by the U.S. military, the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that the U.S. dropped at least 26,172 bombs in seven countries in 2016, the bulk of them in Iraq and Syria. Against Raqqa alone, ISIS’s “capital,” the U.S. and its allies dropped more than 20,000 bombs in 2017, reducing that provincial Syrian city to literal rubble. Combined with artillery fire, the bombing of Raqqa killed more than 1,600 civilians, according to Amnesty International.

In a wide-ranging interview with Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain, President Trump said that he's ready to press the nuclear button if and when the time comes.

When asked if he would negotiate with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to avoid war, Trump said "Of course. I've said that and he's said that. I know so much about nuclear weapons and I see the horrible damage done. I don't want that."

Morgan then asked Trump if he would press the nuclear button, to which Trump replied: "I think it’s a terrible responsibility but one I’m prepared to handle," adding "I don’t want to have to think about it, but there may be a time when I do have to think about it."

The Donald Trump administration issued two authorisations for the transfer of technical "nuclear expertise" to Saudi Arabia after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi late last year, US Senator Tim Kaine has revealed.

Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, where Khashoggi resided, called the decision "shocking" - as it came amid global outrage over the Saudi journalist's gruesome murder on 2 October.

The two approvals were issued on 18 October - only 16 days after Khashoggi was killed - and on 18 February, respectively.

Known as "Part 810 authorisations", they allow US companies to discuss and work on nuclear-related projects in the Gulf kingdom.

"I have serious questions about whether any decisions on nuclear transfers were made based on the Trump family's financial ties rather than the interests of the American people," Kaine said in a statement on Tuesday.

SOURCE: FUTURISM.COM
BLINDING LIGHT
Australian navy pilots claim that they were forced to land their helicopters after Chinese militia boats aimed lasers at them during a routine exercise over the South China Sea.

The laser-induced, precautionary grounding is just the latest of many similar accounts by pilots from the U.S. and elsewhere, according to The Guardian — but now the Chinese government is denying that the incident ever took place.

I’M RUBBER YOU’RE GLUE
A spokesman for the Chinese military told reporters on Thursday that the account is “not consistent with the facts,” according to The Associated Press.

The spokesman, Wu Qian, said that Australia ought to “reflect on itself” instead of blaming China.

EXTANT QUESTIONS

A new US intelligence assessment has concluded that Russia has likely been secretly conducting "very low-yield nuclear tests to upgrade its nuclear arsenal," marking the first time Washington has accused the Kremlin of failing to strictly observe its commitments under the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, speaks to aides and military personnel in Moscow in December. PHOTO: SPUTNIK/REUTERS
The alleged tests, conducted at the remote archipelago of Novaya Zemlya above the Arctic Circle, come as the agreed upon arms-control framework between the new nations has shown signs of deteriorating, as both sides pursue "ambitious programs" to develop new nuclear weapons.

SOURCE: ZEROHEDGE
North Korea on Monday called US National Security Adviser John Bolton a "war monger" and "defective human product" after he claimed that Pyongyang's recent short-range missile tests were a violation of UN Security Council resolutions, according to CBS News, citing an unnamed North Korean foreign ministry spokesman.

The comments come amid President Trump's visit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, during which the North Korean nuclear discussions are likely to be high on the agenda.

North Korea tested short-range ballistic missiles on May 4 and 9, ending a pause in launches that began in late 2017. The tests have been seen as a way for North Korea to pressure Washington to soften its stance on easing sanctions against it without actually causing negotiations to collapse. -CBS News

Undoubtedly, for nearly two decades the most dangerous place on Earth has been the Indian-Pakistani border in Kashmir. It’s possible that a small spark from artillery and rocket exchanges across that border might? - ?given the known military doctrines of the two nuclear-armed neighbors? - ?lead inexorably to an all-out nuclear conflagration. In that case the result would be catastrophic. Besides causing the deaths of millions of Indians and Pakistanis, such a war might bring on “nuclear winter” on a planetary scale, leading to levels of suffering and death that would be beyond our comprehension.

The Director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), Renata Dwan, warned that all states with nuclear weapons are pushing for weapon modernization programs, while arms control regulations are changing or fading.

The Director of the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), Renata Dwan, warned that all states with nuclear weapons are pushing for weapon modernization programs, while arms control regulations are changing or fading.

This restructure of nuclear agreements is partly due to strategic competition between China and the U.S, and a new “arms race” between the North American nation and Russia. With disarmament talks stalemated for the past two decades, 122 countries have signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons, expect states with the weaponized material.

As a result, since 2018, the Doomsday Clock marks two-minutes till midnight, something not seen since 1947.

In 1958 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion designated super-lobbyist Abraham Feinberg as the North American coordinator to raise funds for Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons program. Feinberg was a natural choice. He bundled Israel lobby funds for Democratic presidential campaigns from Harry S Truman to Lyndon B. Johnson. In the 1940s he led the charge to successfully beat back Justice Department attempts to prosecute a huge network of false front organizations illicitly smuggling surplus U.S. WW II weapons and equipment to Jewish fighters in Palestine for Israel’s “War of Independence.” On the atomic front, Feinberg chaperoned U.S. charities channeling hundreds of millions of tax-exempt donations into Israeli research organizations—such as the Weizmann Institute of Science—working on the bomb.

A CHINESE defence firm has unveiled a terrifying new battle truck which can unleash a swarm of killer drones behind enemy lines.

The armoured war machine - based on a Russian Tigr vehicle - can direct the drones so they simultaneously converge on targets and detonate their explosive payloads.

An American military team assessing blasts that damaged four commercial ships off the coast of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sunday has blamed Iran or Iranian-backed proxies using explosive charges, a source told Fox News on Monday evening.

Each ship had a 5-to-10-foot hole in it, near or just below the water line, a U.S. official told The Associated Press. A Norwegian-flagged vessel, two Saudi oil tankers and a bunkering tanker flagged in Shariah, one of the UAE's seven emirates, all suffered similar damage Sunday.

The UAE asked the U.S. to help investigate the damage, which Gulf officials have characterized as sabotage. UAE's state media said Sunday there had been "no injuries or fatalities on board the vessels" and "no spillage of harmful chemicals or fuel."

The U.S. has warned ships that "Iran or its proxies" could be targeting maritime traffic in the region, and America has moved additional ships and aircraft into the region.

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said North Korea is unlikely to ever give up all its nuclear weapons, and that President Donald Trump was right to walk away from deal with leader Kim Jong-un in February.

In an interview with CBS that taped on May 10, Gates said North Koreans have come to see some modest nuclear capabilities as “essential to their national survival.”

For years, Dounreay in Scotland, where the UK’s former centre of nuclear fast reactor research and development was located, received nuclear material from abroad for reprocessing. However, London has been flying its stocks across the Atlantic since 2016, when the Nuclear Security Summit took place in Washington, DC.

It has been announced that the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have completed a project designed to transfer around 700 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from northern Scotland to the US for reprocessing.

The batches of radioactive material from the Dounreay site were transported to Wick John O'Groats Airport and sent to the US with Boeing C-17 military transport jets, the BBC reports. The shipments of highly enriched uranium have been delivered to the US since 2016 as part of London’s commitment to the Nuclear Security Summit that took place in Washington that year.

SOURCE: ZERO HEDGE
Analysts have studied a report from North Korea's Korean Central News Agency, which was accompanied by a few images, and determined that the "projectile" fired by North Korea Saturday morning, was, in fact, a short-range ballistic missile.

In addition to images released by KCNA, independent analysts managed to capture images of the launch.

Our friends at @planetlabs got a shot of a North Korean short-range ballistic missile just after launch at 10:54 am local time. @DaveSchmerler found it. pic.twitter.com/aIZ0Dcc1u1

— Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) May 5, 2019
Lucky shot! Captured by @planetlabs Planetscope satellite at 0154 UTC (1054 local) on Saturday as it overflew Wonsan, North Korea. pic.twitter.com/g5QgVI8hJf

— Martyn Williams (@martyn_williams) May 5, 2019

WHEN ERIK PRINCE arrived at the Four Seasons resort in the Seychelles in January 2017 for his now-famous meetings with a Russian banker and UAE ruler Mohammed bin Zayed, he was in the middle of an unexpected comeback. The election of Donald Trump had given the disgraced Blackwater founder a new opportunity to prove himself. After years of trying and failing to peddle a sweeping vision of mercenary warfare around the world, Erik Prince was back in the game.

One day after the Pentagon issued a new report dramatically hyping China as a grave threat to the United States, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is said to be planning a major anti-China speech during his visit to Finland on Monday.

Monday’s speech is expected to be a major US policy speech on the Arctic, and territorial claims therein. Pompeo is expected to spin China as threatening the entire Arctic, and will reject Chinese claims to be a “near-Arctic state” because of its interest in using the area as a shipping route.

The focus of Pompeo’s attack on China, however, is likely to be totally distinct from the Arctic, and just a continuation of the flurry of vague allegations that the Pentagon started with in its own report, part of a broader US policy to portray China as a major enemy and threat to American dominance worldwide.

Throughout the spring and summer of 1963, the leaders of the United States and Israel – President John F. Kennedy and Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol – were engaged in a high-stakes battle of wills over Israel’s nuclear program. The tensions were invisible to the publics of both countries, and only a few senior officials, on both sides of the ocean, were aware of the severity of the situation

In the lead-up to the 1967 Six Day War, Israel hid a plutonium core in an old British-built police station outside the town of Gedera, with plans to turn it into a functioning nuclear bomb if necessary, according to testimony from a former Israeli official who guarded the site, which was published Wednesday.

The article was published as part of a new series on the nuclear aspect of the Six Day War in the Nonproliferation Review, a journal run by the Middlebury Institute of International Studies that describes itself as focusing on the “causes and consequences of the spread of weapons of mass destruction.”

Earlier, the Department of Energy formally rejected a request for information on the size of the US nuclear weapons stockpile by the Federation of American Scientists, breaking with nearly a decade of practice.

The United States has close to 3,800 nuclear warheads,1,300 of which are deployed on ballistic missiles, 300 located at strategic bomber bases across the US, another 150 as tactical nukes at bases across Europe, and 2,050 more in reserve, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has calculated.

In its 'United States nuclear forces, 2019' report, the non-profit indicated that the US also has approximately 2,385 warheads which are retired and slated to be dismantled before 2030. If the retired warheads are included, the total US nuclear arsenal amounts to approximately 6,185 warheads stored across 24 locations in 11 US states, as well as five European countries.

The Following text is Section 5 of

The 70 Years of NATO: From War to War,
by the Italian Committee No War No NATO

*

Documentation presented at the International Conference on the 70th Anniversary of NATO, Florence, April 7, 2019

In the course of the next two weeks, Global Research will publish the 16 sections of this important document, which will also be available as an E-book.

*
Contents

1. NATO is born from the Bomb
2. In the post-Cold War, NATO is renewed
3. NATO demolishes the Yugoslav state
4. NATO expands eastward to Russia
5. US and NATO attack Afghanistan and Iraq
6. NATO demolishes the Libyan state
7. The US/NATO war to demolish Syria
8. Israel and the Emirates in NATO
9. The US/NATO orchestration of the coup in Ukraine
10. US/NATO escalation in Europe
11. Italy, the aircraft carrier on the war front
12. US and NATO reject the UN treaty and deploy new nuclear weapons in Europe
13. US and NATO sink the INF Treaty

With the Senate planning this week to “process” President Trump’s veto of the War Powers Act challenge to the Yemen War, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took the reins to try to defend US involvement in Yemen as in America’s best interest.

Pompeo’s argument centered on the idea that the US was obliged to help Saudi Arabia defend itself from retaliatory fights, now that the Saudis had launched a war and provoked that retaliation.

On top of that poor argument for an obligation, Pompeo relied on what the administration seems to believe is the most compelling argument, even if it is wholly based on a lie. He argued that the whole war was Iran’s fault, and not intervening would make Iran happy.

One day after reports that President Trump was pushing for a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia and China, the Russian Foreign Ministry has issued a statement confirming that they, too, are willing to negotiate on the matter. China has yet to directly respond.

Yesterday’s report suggested that Trump’s primary goal for any treaty was to place new limits on Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Russia’s Deputy FM Sergei Ryabkov said that Russia wants a joint statement of all three nations repudiating any use of nuclear weapons.

Talk of new nuclear negotiations is a surprise after the US unilaterally withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Many feared this would usher in an era where disarmament talks just didn’t happen.

View image on Twitter

New York Times Opinion

We apologize for the anti-Semitic cartoon we published. Here’s our statement.

"We are deeply sorry for the publication of an anti-Semitic political cartoon last Thursday in the print edition of The New York Times that circulates outside of the United States, and we are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again," the opinion section tweeted Sunday.

"Such imagery is always dangerous, and at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, it's all the more unacceptable," continued the apology, which was widely shared on Twitter.

When the war in Syria was recently declared decisively over, there were few correspondents or witnesses to turn to for a credible look at exactly what happened during eight years of conflict. The questions were many, but I could count on one hand those worth putting them to. Among these was Sharmine Narwani, whose work I have long counted distinctly thorough and honest amid coverage that — in her view as well as mine — hit a new low by way of collapsed professional standards and abandoned ethics. Narwani’s pieces, written for a variety of publications, consistently reflect her hard work on the ground — work nearly no one else did. She is eyes wide open and beholden to no national interest or media slant.

You returned from Syria just last week — this after going in several times last year. The intervening months were important, given the war has just ended. What have you been seeing on the ground?

Around 48,400 animals, — namely pigs, monkeys, and guinea pigs — were killed in experiments conducted at the secret Porton Down laboratory in Wiltshire between 2007 and 2017, the Sunday Mirror reported. The Ministry of Defence supported the practice as being life-saving for British troops.

Porton Down reportedly tested experimental body armour by blasting animals covered in it with various explosives. It also tested poisonous substances, gases, and nerve agents on animals.

The news was not well received by animal rights groups, with Animal Aid slamming the experiments for causing “extreme suffering and death”, calling them morally unconscionable. The NGO stated that such experiments are unnecessary and noted that the number of killed animals is “alarming”.

The White House is in intense talks on options for the US president to pursue a deal building on the New START Treaty, which expires in 2021, officials have told CNN.

US President Donald Trump is eying a new potential signature foreign policy achievement: a grand nuclear deal with Russia and China, according to CNN.

"The President has made clear that he thinks that arms control should include Russia and China and should include all the weapons, all the warheads, all the missiles", a senior White House official told CNN.

Donald Trump prides himself on being a great dealmaker. “Deals are my art form. I like making deals, preferably big deals”, he has been known to say. Now the US president is said to be publicly hinting that a deal is on his agenda.

The United States is deploying missile defense systems near Russia’s borders with the goal of obtaining the potential to deliver a surprise nuclear strike on Russia, First Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operations Department Lt. Gen.Viktor Poznikhir said on Wednesday.

"The deployment of missile defense systems near our borders creates a powerful strike potential for the US enabling it to deliver a surprise [the attacked party won’t be able to strike in response] missile and nuclear strike on Russia," the general told the Moscow Conference on International Security.

By developing the global missile defense system Washington also seeks to gain the potential to deliver such a strike without a response against any undesirable country, he noted.

The Russian Embassy in Washington has prepared an accurate 121-page report, THE RUSSIAGATE HYSTERIA: A CASE OF SEVERE RUSSOPHOBIA.https://washington.mid.ru/upload/iblock/3c3/3c3d1e3b69a4c228e99bfaeb5491ecd7.pdf

Everyone should read this report. It documents the fake news, lies, violations of diplomatic standards and international law, and gratuitous aggressive actions taken against Russia during the period beginning May 18, 2016 and continuing through the issuance of the Mueller Report.

Without explicitly saying so, the report shows that neither the US government nor the American media has a nanoparticle of integrity. Both are criminal organizations that are willing to risk war with Russia in their pursuit of narrow politicized agendas.

This is important information for Americans and the rest of the world to have. Every person, every government and every private organization that supports Washington’s Russophobic policies is contributing to the growing threat of nuclear war.

It amounts to a matter of taste; how you prefer the emperor to behave. Such is political life in the late-stage American Empire. Both major parties offer nothing but the same – hyper-military interventionism and the quest for global hegemony – in the charade of choice each election cycle. The question, as 2020 approaches, is whether we can expect more of the same from the Democratic and Republican candidates for president. Of course, the use of this label, emperor, will undoubtedly make many a reader squirm and/or dismiss this piece.

A former US Marine was arrested in connection with an "especially violent" raid on the North Korean embassy in Madrid, Spain.

Christopher Ahn - a member of a group which seeks the overthrow of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was expected to be arraigned on Friday in a Los Angeles federal court, according to Reuters, citing a law enforcement official and a source close to the group.

According to El Pais and El Confidencial, the group is tied to the CIA - however there has been no corroboration of this outside of their reporting. The CIA has denied any involvement, however Spanish government sources say their response was "unconvincing."

El Pais called the attack "especially violent."

As Washington’s grip on global affairs continues to loosen and more countries reject the western development model, the current order will progressively weaken clearing the way for a multipolar world badly in need of a new security architecture. Western elites, who are unable to accept this new dynamic, continue to issue frenzied statements expressing their fear of a future in which the United States no longer dictates global policy.
At the 2019 Munich Security Conference, Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger, underscored many of these same themes. Here’s an excerpt from his presentation:

“The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was… Not only do war and violence play a more prominent role again: a new great power confrontation looms at the horizon. In contrast to the early 1990s, liberal democracy and the principle of open markets are no longer uncontested….

Vietnam is again seeking justice for the victims of Agent Orange, inspired by the multimillion-dollar verdicts against Monsanto in California. The biotech firm had supplied the US military with the chemical during the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam Association of Victims of Agent Orange (VAVA) has written a letter to a US court asking that it restart a class-action lawsuit by Agent Orange victims against American chemical firms, including Monsanto, which the Eastern District Court of New York dismissed in 2004, claiming a “lack of evidence” and asserting that “herbicide spraying.. did not constitute a war crime pre-1975.”

North Korea is flexing its muscles. On Thursday, the nation announced that it had test-launched a new “tactical guided weapon” — but kept the details vague.

The weapon is unlikely to be a long-range ballistic missile that could jeopardize peace talks, according to the Associated Press. Rather, given the fact that the announcement came with new demands for ongoing negotiations with the U.S., the tests were likely intended as a display of military strength.

Guessing Game
South Korean experts suspect that the new weapon was some sort of cruise missile, per the AP‘s attempt to learn more. Had the weapon been a longer-range missile that could pose a threat to the U.S. or other nations, then North Korea may have put at risk its ongoing effort to lift sanctions that other countries have imposed on it.