Friday April 18th 2014
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Bomb kills at least 14 in Syria
A car bomb has exploded outside a mosque in the central Syrian city of Homs, killing at least 14 people.
The explosion occurred as worshippers left the Bilal
al-Habshi mosque in the neighbourhood of Akrama after attending Friday
prayers, state TV reports.The area is largely populated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority Alawite sect.
Homs has been a key battleground between government forces and rebels, with large parts of the city in ruins.
Earlier this week, the army launched another major offensive to recapture opposition-held areas in Homs' Old Quarter.
'Theatre of death' Syrian state TV blamed Friday's bombing on what it called "terrorists", and said the casualties included woman and children.
Ukraine crisis: turning points
MOSCOW – An agreement struck by the U.S., the European Union, Russia and Ukraine has raised hopes for defusing the Ukrainian crisis, which has strained East-West ties to a degree unseen since the Cold War. The deal Thursday in Geneva came after the four parties held talks together for the first time since Ukraine's turmoil began nearly five months ago. A look at how the Ukrainian crisis has evolved:HOW IT ALL STARTED
After years of preparation for a partnership agreement with the 28-nation EU, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych stepped back from the pact in late November in favor of pursuing closer ties with Russia.
The move sparked protests in Kiev, on the Ukrainian capital's main square, which grew to hundreds of thousands of people after a brutal police crackdown. The demonstrations were peaceful for weeks, but turned violent in mid-January after Yanukovych pushed through repressive laws aimed at stifling the protests. The violence culminated in February as about 100 people died from sniper fire in central Kiev.
Following the bloodshed, Yanukovych signed a Europe-brokered peace deal on Feb. 21, but fled the capital hours later as police withdrew and protesters overtook control of the city. He ended up sheltering in Russia.
Japan To Arm Remote Yonaguni Island, Risks Angering China
Defence Minister to break ground on base on westernmost island
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Radar station, near disputed islets, risks raising tension with China
(Adds comment from Chinese government, paragraphs 14-15)
TOKYO,
April 18 (Reuters) - Japan is sending 100 soldiers and radar to its
westernmost outpost, a tropical island off Taiwan, in a deployment that
risks angering China with ties between Asia's biggest economies
already hurt by a dispute over nearby islands they both claim.
Japanese
Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera will break ground on Saturday for a
military lookout station on Yonaguni, which is home to 1,500 people and
just 150 km (93 miles) from the disputed Japanese-held islands claimed
by China.
The mini-militarization of Yonaguni -
now defended by two police officers - is part of a longstanding plan to
improve defence and surveillance in Japan's far-flung frontier.
Building
the radar base on the island, which is much closer to China than to
Japan's main islands, could extend Japanese monitoring to the Chinese
mainland and track Chinese ships and aircraft circling the disputed
crags, called the Senkaku by Japan and the Diaoyu by China.
"We
decided to deploy a Ground Self-Defense Force unit on Yonaguni Island
as a part of our effort to strengthen the surveillance over the
southwestern region," Onodera said this week. "We are staunchly
determined to protect Yonaguni Island, a part of the precious Japanese
territory."
US freeing Iran funds as Tehran cuts uranium stockpile
The United States is to
release frozen Iranian funds, saying Tehran has kept commitments made
under an interim deal over its nuclear programme.
It said $450m (£270m) would be made available in light of a report by the world's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA.On Thursday the agency said Iran had neutralised half of its higher-enriched uranium stockpile.
The six-month deal saw Iran agree to scale back its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.
World powers are concerned Iran is seeking the capability to build nuclear weapons, a charge Iran strongly denies.
Talks have started on turning the temporary agreement, which came into effect in January, into a permanent one. The interim deal is due to expire on 20 July.
'Not seeking war' Iran has diluted half of its higher-grade enriched uranium stockpile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a confidential report.
This will be seen as a positive sign by the West, as it lengthens the time Iran would need to make a nuclear bomb, says the BBC's Bethany Bell in Vienna.
Under the agreement, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium to no more than "low-level" 5%, stop enriching uranium to 20% and eliminate its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium.
French president's top aide resigns over accusations of past conflict of interest
PARIS – The French president's top adviser has resigned following allegations of a past conflict of interest, striking a new blow to the already unpopular Francois Hollande.
Aquilino Morelle — Hollande's political adviser and head of his communication staff — announced his resignation Friday, an official in president's office said.
Hollande's approval rating has recently hit a new low of 18 percent despite a cabinet reshuffle three weeks ago.
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Navy’s New Railgun Can Hurl a Shell Over 5,000 MPH
The U.S. Navy is tapping the power of the Force to wage war.
Its latest weapon is an electromagnetic railgun launcher. It uses a form of electromagnetic energy known as the Lorentz force to hurl a 23-pound projectile at speeds exceeding Mach 7. Engineers already have tested this futuristic weapon on land, and the Navy plans to begin sea trials aboard a Joint High Speed Vessel Millinocket in 2016.
The massive railgun that needs just one sailor to operate it relies on the electromagnetic energy of the Lorentz force—the combination of electric and magnetic forces on a point charge—for power.
The Navy likes the weapon for several reasons, not the least of which it has a range of 100 miles and doesn’t require explosive warheads. That makes it far safer for sailors, and cheaper for taxpayers. According to the Navy, each 18-inch projectile costs about $25,000, compared to $500,000 to $1.5 million for conventional missiles.
“[It] will give our adversaries a huge moment of pause to go: ‘Do I even want to go engage a naval ship?’” Rear Admiral Matt Klunder told reporters. “Because you are going to lose. You could throw anything at us, frankly, and the fact that we now can shoot a number of these rounds at a very affordable cost, it’s my opinion that they don’t win.”
The Navy’s been talking about using railguns for the past ten years. The Office of Naval Research launched a prototype
Of course the Army is interested in having one too, and the Pentagon is in general interested in many aspects of the technology. In July, the Navy will display the electromagnetic railgun prototype at San Diego Naval Base.
“Frankly, we think it might be the right time for them to know what we’ve been doing behind closed doors in a Star Wars fashion,” said Klunder. “It’s now reality. It’s not science fiction. It’s real and you can look at it.”
Pakistani towns left in the dark for not paying electricity bills
Clampdown aims to end free-for-all culture and debt problem in energy sector that forces companies to shut off power
The miseries of summer have come early for Pakistanis living in towns where people have grown used to getting their electricity for free. As the government gets tough on electricity thieves, scores of towns in the impoverished provinces have been hit by power cuts weeks before soaring temperatures traditionally push demand far beyond supply."The electricity has just disappeared," said Sheraz Khan, a resident of Bannu, one of the ramshackle cities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.
With power off for almost the entire day, Khan is regretting his decision to invest in a car battery he hoped would store a little power to cover the periods of what is known as "load shedding", in which electricity is completely shut off to avoid total system failure.
Across the province, people complain of sleepless nights in hot houses, food going off as refrigerators thaw, and children unable to do homework in the dark.
The cause of their distress is Pakistan's energy minister, who is implementing a tough policy that cuts off communities where most people do not pay their bills.
"If towns don't pay, we shut them off," said Khawaja Asif, the man responsible for fixing Pakistan's failing power system. "I am getting all these complaints from [other members of parliament] saying: 'We haven't had any electricity in my area for the last week,'" he said. "I sit down with them and say: 'In these places 92% of people are not paying their bills.'"
In recent years summer electricity riots have caused added strife in a country already battered by violence from Islamist militants, separatist groups and criminal gangs. "In summer there will be problems," predicts the minister. "The people will come out and burn our offices, but we will not succumb to this blackmail."
Iranians carry 'death to Israel' signs as Rouhani tells crowd he supports dialogue
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the Islamic Republic had the might to deter any attacks as its military displayed a range of drones and missiles at an annual parade in Tehran, state television reported on Friday.Chanting "God is Greatest", troops paraded missiles carriers, some bearing banners saying "Death to America" and "Death to Israel", armored personnel carriers and unmanned surveillance aircraft as well as small submarines with men wearing aqua-lungs alongside.
Unlike hardline predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Rouhani did not use his speech to lash out at the United States and Israel, which Tehran refuses to recognize.
"We told the world during the (nuclear) talks and we repeat that we don't support any aggression ... We support dialogue," Rouhani said in the live broadcast.
"We don't attack any country and don't want war but we will firmly confront any aggression against Iran," he said, as helicopters and fighter jets flew overhead and parachutists landed in the parade area in the south of the capital near the shrine of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Rouhani, whose election in June paved the way for a major thaw in ties with the West, was referring to the talks with six major powers to hammer out a permanent agreement aimed at resolving the decade-old nuclear standoff.
US court approves plan to sell Iran assets in Manhattan
NEW YORK: A federal judge has approved plans to sell a 36-storey Manhattan office building and other properties owned by Iran nationwide in what will be the largest terrorism-related forfeiture ever, a prosecutor said on Thursday.
US attorney Preet Bharara said Judge Katherine Forrest approved the deal between the US government and 19 holders of more than $5 billion in terrorism-related judgments against the government of Iran, including claims brought by the estates of victims killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The deal calls for the Manhattan building and other forfeited assets to be sold by the US
Bharara said the settlement is an important step toward "completing what will be the largest ever terrorism-related forfeiture and providing a substantial recovery for victims of terrorism."
"From the very beginning of this case," Bharara said in a release, "this office sought to dismantle Iran's slice of Manhattan an office tower on Fifth Avenue both to end Iran's illegal sanctions-violation and money-laundering schemes and to provide a means of compensating victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism."
Besides September 11 victims, the settling creditors include families and estates of victims of the 1983 terrorist bombings of US Marine Barracks in Beirut, the 1996 terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and terrorist attacks in Israel and elsewhere.
The government said buildings also will be sold in Queens and in Houston, Carmichael, California, Catharpin, Virginia and Rockville, Maryland.
Prosecutors said funds will be drawn from bank accounts formerly in the name of entities that served as fronts for the Iranian government. The properties' estimated total worth wasn't provided on Thursday.
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President Barack Obama is using $100 million in taxpayer cash to help keep Detroit’s pension funds afloat, contradicting his administration’s commitment to avoid a bailout.
The federal $100 million is being described as “blight remediation,” but it allows the city’s new managers to reshuffle more cash into the city employees’ pension funds, which were looted by city and union officials for several decades.
The stealth bailout was exposed by the Detroit Free Press, which said the $100 million would be taken from the so-called “Hardest Hit Fund.” That fund was created by the administration in 2010 to counter the disastrous implosion of the federally-inflated
White House officials have consistently tried to downplay public concerns that he would bailout the city.
“To have floated [a bailout] would have given false hope and taken people’s eye off the important task ahead so what we tried to do was make clear that the federal government — we did not have tools at our disposal that could be helpful to Detroit,” Gene Sperling, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said in February. (RELATED: Judge orders Detroit bankruptcy to be withdrawn, claims ‘it’s not honoring the president’)On Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney declined to comment about the report. “Well, I haven’t seen the reports so I’m afraid I can’t
But Obama is facing a tough midterm election, and he is being pressured by his union allies to top up the pensions funds.
The funds were drained by unconventional practices, including the periodic payout of funds to employees in years when the funds’ value were boosted by Wall Street investments.
Dick Morris: Democrats Conspiring to Rig Electoral College, Law Passed in 9 States So Far
(News Max) – A
The plan involves an Interstate Compact where states would commit to
The Electoral College will become a vestigial anachronism.
SPECIAL: Join the Tea Party REVOLUTION! The Obama Regime must be dismantled!
So far, nine states and the District of Columbia, casting 136 electoral votes, have joined. This is halfway to the 270 needed to put the compact into effect. The ratifying states are: Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, Vermont, California, and Rhode Island.
Both houses in New York have passed it and it’s on Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s desk.
It has already passed in the House in Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Oregon. These states, plus New York, represent 107 votes. Combined with the others they are up to 242 votes. They need 270.
Who is pushing this?
All of those ratifying voted for Obama.
The movement is funded, in part, by the Center for Voting and Democracy, a George Soros-funded election group.
Essentially, it is an end-run around the regular constitutional amending process. Rather than securing a two-thirds majority of each house of Congress and three-quarters of the states, this
Why are Democrats pushing this plan?
Democrats usually see a smaller percentage of their people go to the polls than Republicans do.
Under the electoral vote system, they figure why beat the drums to get a high turnout in New York City when the state will go Democrat anyway? But, if it’s the popular vote that matters, the big city machines can do their thing — with devastating impact.
But are Democrats planning to go further and let noncitizens vote? If the Popular Vote Movement succeeds, there will be nothing to stop them and everything to gain by doing so.
The Constitution does not require that the franchise be limited to citizens. It’s up to the states. If the popular vote is all that matters, won’t many blue states bulk up their popular vote totals by letting noncitizens vote?
GOP Senator: If We Take Senate, We’ll Impeach Obama
The truth about Obama’s role in Benghazi has been suppressed by the media, congressional Democrats, and the White House. The president has gone to great lengths to ensure that the truth doesn’t come out, lest we see just how negligent he was during the entire affair.
CBS News told reporter Sharyl Attkisson to stop reporting on Benghazi when she came Benghazi itself is an impeachable offense, but the cover up is even more so. As one retired general stated, it looks like Congress is “full of cowards” who are too afraid to impeach Obama for his role in Benghazi. But one prominent Republican senator just called for exactly that, and it’s about time.
Report: Chicago Law Professors Hated Obama Because He Was Lazy
Most conservatives hold the view that President Obama is a liar. But it isn’t only conservatives who think that, even some Democrats agree that he is untrustworthy.Of course we know that he lied about Obamacare, numerous times. He has lied about Benghazi and the IRS targeting scandal too. But his pattern of lying dates back long before he became the President.
One of the first criticisms leveled at Obama was his hidden history. The questions about his
According to an Inspector General’s report, a staggering $6 billion dollars in State Department funds is missing—“misplaced,” in the words of Hillary Clinton. In one case, Hillary Clinton wrote a $50 million check for “services performed.” The paperwork for what exactly the “services performed” were has also been “misplaced.” Just for the Iraq Embassy in Bagdad, a staggering $2 billion is missing! Obama’s response to Hillary Clinton “misplacing” $6 billion dollars?
“What difference does it make!”
But Hillary Clinton has bigger problems than a few billion dollars missing: It has now come out that her 2008 presidential campaign was illegally funded by businessman Jeffrey Thompson, with Clinton crony and former DNC chief Minyon Moore pulling the strings.
But there’s more: court documents show that Thompson illegally funded dozens of campaigns—and guess who he supported in 2012? You guessed it: Barack Hussein Obama.
America, Barack Hussein Obama more than likely received dirty money from Thompson and therefore stole the election. Will our Attorney General, the illustrious Eric Holder, investigate Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s shadow campaigns?
yeah, when hell freezes over…
Harry Reid Named as Bribe Recipient
Would be nice to see another liberal go to jail.
Check it out:
A Utah businessman is rocking both state and national politics after claiming Utah Attorney General John Swallow helped him broker a deal with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to make a federal investigation into his company quietly disappear, the Salt Lake Tribune reports.
Jeremy Johnson was allegedly told that the price would be $600,000, and claims to have made an initial payment of $250,000 when he was slapped with a federal lawsuit. Now he says he wants his money back.
The Salt Lake Tribune points out that Johnson has no way of knowing whether the funds actually made it to Reid, even if he did make a massive payment to Reid’s alleged intermediary.
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