Sunday, 26 March 2017
Thursday, 23 March 2017
U.K.'s May Condemns London Attack
British Prime Minister Theresa May condemned the car and knife attack in London as "sick and depraved," adding that it was an attack on democracy that was doomed to fail. May was speaking in the evening of March 22, after an attacker killed at least four people in what the police called a "terrorist incident."
Life As The Wife Of A Russian Dissident
Anastasia Zotova married Ildar Dadin in a Russian detention facility where he was being held for taking part in unauthorized protests. For the next year, she fought for his release amid reports that he was being tortured. (Yulia Vishnyevets, RFE/RL's Russian Service)
Thanks to RadioFreeEurope/Radio Liberty
Huge Fire At Ukrainian Military Depot
Some 20,000 people were evacuated after explosions and a fire overnight at a military depot at Balaklia, in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine.
Russia Agrees To Repay Soviet-Era Debt To Bosnia
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Russia have signed an agreement to settle Moscow's $125.2 million Soviet-era debt to the Balkan country.
Bosnia's Finance Ministry said the deal signed on March 22 in Moscow will make Bosnia the only ex-Yugoslav republic to collect the debt in cash.
The full amount is expected to be transferred by the end of May, but the timing depends on how speedily the Bosnian parliament ratifies the deal.
Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said Moscow will make payment within 45 days of the deal taking force.
In 2003, Russia took over the responsibility for the Soviet Union's debt to the former Yugoslavia, estimated at $1.3 billion. The debt arose mainly from business deals under which communist Yugoslavia provided the Soviet Union with consumer goods.
Moscow has already cleared the portions of debt claimed by other Yugoslav successor states, repaying them in goods and services.
JOKE OF THE MONTH - Efficiency of Russian Weapons Proved by Fight Against Terror in Mideast – Putin
Efficiency of Russian weapons was proved by fight against terrorism, for example, in Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday, adding that the analysis of practical use of defense technologies would improve the quality of military equipment.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The president added that Russian military equipment was used for humanitarian purposes – for example to demine the liberated cities of Aleppo and Palmyra and to neutralize terrorists’ chemical weapons. Putin pointed at the efficiency of mobile medical complexes and other Russian military products.
"The capabilities of Russian weapons, their reliability and efficiency are seen in the fight against terrorism in Syria, counteracting terrorism in the entire Middle East region. Using aircraft and air defense systems in the real combat situation provides air and engineer staff, air defense crews as well as developers of Russian military production with absolutely priceless experience. I want to thank them for their active work and prompt reaction to the remarks emerging during the use of military vehicles," Putin said at the session of the Commission for Military Technology Cooperation.
Putin also called for analyzing the usage of military technologies and improving methods of military training.
"Such an approach will also promote the development of ties in the system of military technology cooperation, increasing the quality of the country’s military products," he added.
Russia launched its military operation in Syria on September 30, 2015, at the request of the Syrian government.
NB - It should be noted that what Russia calls Efficiency and targeted bombing is commonly referred to by Civilised Nations as Carpet Bombing!
John Browne, Blog Owner
HOW PUTIN'S MOUTH PIECE RT SEE'S IT -'Ill-Advised Policy': Shadow of Brussels Bombings Falls on London
On Wednesday, a man drove at people with a car in London and then tried to enter the Parliament building armed with a knife, before being shot down by the police. As a result of the incident, four people, including a police officer and the attacker, were killed and 40 others were injured.
London police believe they have identified the perpetrator, but will not name him publicly at this point.
Shortly after the incident, British media reported that the attacker was identified as Abu Izzadeen, born Trevor Brook, known for his links to terrorism. However, ABC reported, citing Izzadeen's lawyer, that he was still in jail and, therefore, could not have committed Wednesday’s carnage.
Wednesday’s attack came exactly a year after the March 22, 2016 explosions in Brussels and the start of an antiterrorist conference in Washington.
Britain in trouble
Wednesday’s attack came 12 years after a series of early morning explosions (three in the London Underground and one on a bus) left 52 people dead. Police later said that the terror attack, the bloodiest in UK history, had been organized by al-Qaeda.
Shortly after, police found a car packed with 16 explosive devices in Luton, a town some 40 kilometers from London. The jihadists also had a bomb-making facility in Leeds and planned a series of nightclub explosions in London.
A series of riots that engulfed northern London in August 2011 laid bare the Muslim migrants’ failure to integrate into British society and the law enforcement’s failure to respond in a timely manner to disturbances caused by angry Muslim youths.
On May 22, 2013 two machete-wielding British citizens of Nigerian descent slaughtered army drummer Lee Rigby in London and on August 2, 2016 a woman was stabbed to death and five people were wounded by a 19-year-old Norwegian of Somali descent.
Symbolic coincidence
Experts were quick to notice the coincidence between Wednesday’s attack in London, the first anniversary of the deadly explosions in Brussels, which killed 32 people, and the start of an international antiterrorist conference in Washington.
It looks like the terrorists sneer at the security measures taken in the West and demonstrate that no place in Europe, no matter how well secured, is immune to their attacks.
The problem is that many Muslims living in Britain embrace radical Islam and hundreds of their men and women have joined the ranks of jihadist militants fighting in Syria and Iraq, RT wrote.
Moreover, the number of “disloyal” Muslims inside Britain could run into tens of thousands.
In February 2017, five teenagers were arrested in London on charges of planning to joint their jihadist brethren fighting in Syria and Iraq and stage a series of terror attacks in the UK.
On March 6, 2017 The Daily Express wrote that during the past four years the British security agencies had prevented 13 terrorist attacks.
Scotland Yard counter-terror chief Mark Rowley said earlier this month that police are concerned about "everything from fairly simple attacks with knives or using vehicles all the way through to the more complex firearms attacks."
As safe as it may look against the backdrop of deadly terrorist attacks in Paris, Nice, Brussels and Berlin, the United Kingdom could now be in for more tragic events like the one than happened in London on Wednesday.
Echo of ill-advised policy
In Moscow, Sergei Zheleznyak, a member of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, blamed Wednesday’s tragedy in London on what he described as “the terrible echo of the ill-advised migration policy of the majority of European countries used to taking orders from Washington and Brussels.”
How many more people will have to die before politicians in London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels realize the need to jointly fight the terrorist threat?” Zheleznyak wondered.
Alexander Mikhailov, FSB Major-General (Retired) and President of the Russian Anti-Terror Fund agreed, saying that Britain is facing a threat even the entire Western world is unable to deal with alone.
“There is more to this problem than just Daesh propaganda. Europe is actively introducing anti-religious values like a tolerant attitude toward sexual minorities. Local Muslims refuse to accept this and some of them resort to terrorism to vent their anger,” Mikhailov told RT.
Lessons of Belgium attacks learned (almost)
Exactly a year ago, on March 22, 2016, 32 people were killed and dozens were injured in Daesh-organized attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station.
The attacks came even though Belgium had raised its terrorism alert to “serious and imminent” following the November 2015 carnage in Paris.
In response, the Belgian government proposed a raft of new counterterrorism laws and regulations. However, some of them, including on the use of additional security measures during a state of emergency, increasing the duration of pretrial detention to 72 hours from 24 now and measures preventing the radicalization of young people in mosques, were either voted down in parliament or have not yet taken effect.
The government did announce a €400 million ($432 mln) investment in terror-prevention measures though, and terror suspects can now have their passports suspended or annulled altogether.
The government also introduced a system of video monitoring of license plates of vehicles, stepped up border controls and banned the sale of SIM-cards for cellphones to people without identification documents.
A new terror attack possible
Still, many of the police officers stationed at Brussels’ Zaventem airport think that attacks like the ones that happened last year could happen again.
“Security at Zaventem is one big flop. Today a man with a bomb will have no problem getting inside,” one of them told the local media on condition of anonymity.
Others admitted that with the existing security system at the airport a new terror attack remained a possibility.
“There are two officers “armed” with a metal detector manning the entrance. They don’t check everyone’s baggage and, besides, they never use metal when making a bomb,” another officer told RT.
Swedish MPs Hold First War Drill in Decades Amid Security Concerns
In line with Sweden's somewhat hectic war preparations, manifesting itself in a rollback to a draft army and serious military budget hikes, the Swedish parliament has held its first war drills in two decades.
A delegation of about 50 Swedish lawmakers from both left-wing and ring-wing parties united in the drills which rehearsed the course of actions in the event of the threat of war or an outright conflict. The drill was held in an undisclosed location in near Stockholm, where the selected MPs rehearsed their actions to replace parliament if were war declared.
In the event of war, the Advisory Council have have the authority to convene a special War Delegation empowered to make decisions in lieu of parliament.
The drill included party leaders Anna Kinberg Batra of the Conservative Party, Annie Lööf of the Center Party, Jimmie Åkesson of the Sweden Democrats, Jan Björklund of the Liberals and Jonas Sjöstedt of the Left Party. Speaker Urban Ahlin declined to disclose the details of the maneuver for security reasons, yet commented that "it all went really well."
The last time the Swedish lawmakers held such an exercise was in 1997. Allegedly, the drill had been planned since 2014, however, the hostile situation in the world in general and the Baltic region in particular prompted the exercise.
"The worsening of the global environment played its part," Urban Ahlin told the Swedish tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet, adding that the drill would have been postponed "for a few more years" if Sweden found itself in a safer environment.
Earlier this month, Sweden announced plans to bring back conscription after roughly a decade of having a voluntary-based army, and to dust off its approximately 65,000 Cold War-era shelters to be used in the event of a nuclear war. Additionally, Sweden has been bolstering its military budget after two decades of consequently slashing its defense expenditure due to a larger focus on peacekeeping operations abroad.
These measures were justified with the need to respond to global security challenges, including what was called Russia's "assertive behavior" in the Baltic region, as well as the conflict in eastern Ukraine and Crimea's re-unification with Russia, which Swedish politicians insist on referring to as "annexation."
Last time Sweden waged a war on its territory was the Finnish war (1808-1809), which ended in disaster for Stockholm. As a result of the war, Sweden lost the eastern third of its Baltic domains (today's Finland), which were incorporated in the Russian Empire as the Grand Duchy of Finland. After the subsequent offensive campaign against Norway in 1814, Sweden has effectively avoided war for two centuries.
At Least 10 Egyptian Soldiers Killed in Counterterror Raid in Sinai
Ten members of the Egyptian security forces were killed in a blast during a counterterrorism raid in Sinai, an armed forces spokesman said.
The jihadist insurgency in northern Sinai started in 2013, shortly after the Egyptian army led by current President Abdel Fattah Sisi has overthrown then-president Mohamed Morsi. Police and security forces have been the target of deadly attacks by Islamists in the area.
Sinai’s militants pledged allegiance to Daesh in November 2014, taking the name of Wilayat Sinai.
Most of the attacks by the group were carried out in North Sinai, but it also claimed responsibility for attacks in other regions, including the country’s capital Cairo.
"While chasing terrorists, two army vehicles were hit by explosive devices which led to the killing of three officers and seven members of … the armed forces. Fifteen members of the terrorist group were killed and seven others were arrested during the raid," the spokesman said in a statement.
Indian Navy Saves Its Massively Damaged Guided Missile Frigate Betwa
India's Ministry of Defense document shows that more than two dozen accidents have been reported involving naval warships and submarines since 2011.
India has saved its most spirited ship that tipped over at a Mumbai dockyard last December. Defense sources say that INS Betwa, a guided missile frigate, is back on even keel. The Indian Navy hopes that the ship will be operational by 2018. The Indian Navy has spent approximately three million dollar in the process. Winner of the Indian Navy's "most spirited ship" award for the year 2016 had tipped over on December 5 during undocking evolution and it was suspected that the dock-block mechanism had failed. The accident had left two sailors dead and 14 injured.
"The ship was made upright on Tuesday night and is now floating on even keel. The condition is good. There is some water inside which is being pumped out," Navy Spokesperson Capt DK Sharma said. The ship would now be moved to a nearby dock either Hughes or Duncan.
US-based Resolve Marine Group had been contracted by the Indian Navy to bring the ship to level position as it lacked crane big enough to lift the big ship. Resolve Marine Group had also salvaged the Indian Navy submarine Sindhurakshak that sank in the Mumbai Naval Dockyard on August 14, 2013. However, the submarine has not been able to perform its operations at full capability till date.
The 126.5-meter highly-prized 3,850-ton guided missile frigate Betwa had been commissioned in 2004. INS Betwa can sail with a speed of 27 knots and is armed with anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes.
New Chinese Military Base in Africa Presents Security Concerns for US
China’s first non-domestic military outpost is slated to be finished by the end of the summer, according to Marine General Thomas Waldhauser, who said the base presents security concerns to the US.
The 90-acre naval base is located a mere four miles from the headquarters of US African Command, Camp Lemonnier, in Djibouti, where some 3,000 to 4,000 US personnel are stationed at any given time.
Under Waldhauser’s watch, the US hopes to keep tabs on what China does and does not do at the new base. Waldhauser recently requested an audience with Djibouti President Ismail Omar, to whom he "expressed [US] concerns about some of the things that are important to us about what the Chinese should not do at that location."
The US uses Camp Lemonnier base as a hub for highly secretive operations, Defense Tech reported. For instance, the camp was involved in the January 29 raid in Yemen that killed Navy Seal Team 6 member William “Ryan” Owens, as well as 14 Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants and at least 25 civilians.
Both the Chinese and US military in the region will likely seek to address the issue of Somali pirates. The marauders have been virtually absent from the Horn of Africa since 2013, according to data from Office of Naval Intelligence, but popped back up on the radar Monday after buccaneers raided an oil tanker and its Sri Lankan crew.
"The question wasn’t really if an attack was going to happen, the question was when," John Stee, head of the Horn of Africa desk at the Oceans Beyond Piracy non-governmental organization, said. "The one thing that’s not really been addressed is the real root cause of this, which is poverty."
Chinese investors have poured $400 million into Djibouti to build a trading port and to develop a free trade zone in the region. In addition to bolstering China’s naval presence in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea, the base will likely serve as headquarters for roughly 2,200 Chinese soldiers stationed in Africa as part of peacekeeping operations, Waldhauser noted.
Kosovo is Being Assisted in Creating a National Army: By Whom and Why?
In an interview with Sputnik Serbia, Milovan Drecun, chairman of the Serbian parliament's Committee for Kosovo and Metohija, said NATO is behind Kosovo's push to create its own army.
Earlier this week, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci sent parliament a bill on transforming the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) into a national army.
In another development, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg spoke with Thaci and Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa via phone to express the "serious concerns of NATO allies" about Kosovo's militarization, the news website Balkan Insight reported.
"I made clear that unilateral steps such as these are unhelpful, and I urged the Kosovo authorities to remain in close contact with Serbs in Belgrade," Stoltenberg added.
NATO has approximately 4,500 troops stationed in Kosovo, which unilaterally proclaimed independence in 2008 and is recognized by over 100 UN member states. Serbia, as well as Russia, China, Israel, Iran, Spain, Greece and other countries don't recognize Kosovo's independence.
Serbian parliament members, for their part, said that they would block amendments to Kosovo' constitution that would allow the partially-recognized southeastern European country to engage in the arms build-up.
Three years ago, Kosovo made plans for a national army, but heretofore has been unable to overcome Serbian opposition within the Kosovo parliament.
In an interview with Sputnik Serbia, Milovan Drecun, chairman of the Serbian parliament's Committee for Kosovo and Metohija, specifically underscored the importance of adhering to a relevant UN resolution on the issue.
"A KFOR mission and NATO should respect UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which does not stipulate creating Kosovo's army. Meanwhile, relevant preparations have taken place for several years now, with NATO instructors training Kosovo soldiers. Actually, NATO created this army, which is why it's clear that Thaci [should] avoid making steps that would be out of line with the position of NATO and the most influential members of the alliance," Drecun said.
He added that "NATO and the US are trying to give a kind of legitimacy to Kosovo's move [to create its army], because even for them it is unacceptable that the Serbs, the second most influential national community in the province, were excluded from this process."
Drecun also said that Kosovo Serbs and Belgrade should [be engaged in] more diplomatic efforts within the UN, the EU and NATO in a bid to prevent Thaci from implementing his plans.
"It is necessary to point out to everyone that the [possible] Kosovo national army would become an additional destabilizing factor in the already destabilized situation," Drecun stressed.
Meanwhile during telephone talks with Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Wednesday, Thaci warned Belgrade against interfering in the domestic affairs of the "sovereign state", but said that Vucic should make Serbian MPs support Pristina's push for creating the Kosovo army.
In separate development, the leader of Kosovo Albanians told Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty that the future Kosovo army would not pose a threat to the Balkans.
Instead, he did not think twice before pointing the finger at "the Russia's bases, MiG fighter jets and military exercises in Serbia
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