Iran to continue boosting defense capabilities: Minister

Iran NA

Iran will continue enhancing its defense capabilities, Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan said on Saturday.

Speaking at a local ceremony, Dehqan said that defense capabilities and national authority constitute Iran’s two major power elements.

Iran’s move towards realizing its revolution ideals under the guidelines of its leadership has forced the enemies to retreat, the commander added.

He underlined that the enemies are monitoring all Iran’s programs and movements.

They are looking for a chance to penetrate the country’s decision-making centers, the minister said.

The enemies particularly the United States and its allies are mulling annihilating elements of Iran’s power, Dehqan added.

He noted that the US has targeted Iran’s national economy in order to weaken the elements of the Islamic Republic’s power including the defense capablities and national authority.

Elaborating on the enemies’ economic war aginst Iran, the defense minister said that enemies imposed oppressive sanctions against us to deny Iran access to technology while they prevented other countries to improve ties with the Islamic Republic.

Calling Islmophobia, Iranophobia and Shiaphobia parts of the enemy’s psychological war against Iran, he said that the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies have created religious wars in the region in a bid to guarantee the security of Israel.

Unfortunately some ignorant, dependent states of the region are equipping the terrorists in the same way the US does, the commander added.

Hibatullah's Roots Were Non-Political And Reclusive

ToloNews

From a reclusive, non-political family in Kandahar, that fled the country during the civil war, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada has risen to become the Taliban's new leader.

But just who is this man and where does he come from? TOLOnews' correspondent Abdullah Hamim finds out.

Hibatullah was born in Panjwai district in the southern province 56 years ago. But fleeing the civil war, his family went to Pakistan.

A number of tribal elders in Panjwai, however said Hibatullah's family lived in Safid Rawan village for five decades. His father, Mullah Mohammad Akhund, was a religious scholar at a local mosque.

"We know the family of the Taliban's new leader. They lived here in Safid Rawan village 50 years ago. He was born here. His family was very kind. Hibatullah spent most of his childhood days here in this area," said
Haji Din Mohammad, a tribal elder from Panjwai.

His father was a cleric for many years at the Malook mosque and the family was not involved in politics, according to the tribal elders.

The elders said Hibatullah's family were well mannered and well behaved towards others but that they kept to themselves and did not participate in tribal assemblies and sessions, which were held to solve and discuss the villagers' problems.

Taliban last week confirmed former leader Mullah Mansour's death and appointed Hibatullah as his successor.
Hibatullah himself is a cleric and was the Taliban's top judge and a deputy under Mansour.

Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mohammad Yaqub, the elder son of the Taliban's founding leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, will serve as Hibatullah's top deputies.

Hibatullah reportedly lives in Ghaus Abad area in Quetta city in Pakistan.
Some critics said they believe that Hibatullah will further the Taliban insurgency.
Meanwhile, it is said that Hibatullah's appointment as the Taliban's new leader was done without consulting Mullah Rassoul, the leader of a divided faction of Taliban insurgents.

Anonymous hackers continue attacks on Iran’s official websites

Trend News Agency

An anonymous hacking group continues attacks on Iran's official websites, the country's Ghanoon newspaper reported May 28.

The group hacked websites of Iran's culture ministry, the legal deputy of the judiciary, as well as the interpreting administration of the judiciary on May 27, according to the report.

The websites were recovered later, suffering "no damages", Iranian media outlets reported citing officials.

The attacks against Iranian official websites started May 25, as the group which calls itself DAES hacked the website of the Statistical Center of Iran sending the website down for a short time, and posting a message of its own on the main page.

Iranian media outlets reported that the hackers were "outside of Iran", but little was known about them.

There were speculations that the hacker group is linked to Saudi Arabia. The DAES, which has officially claimed responsibility for the cyber attacks, wrote on the main page of the hacked websites that it is not linked with the "Islamic State" terrorists group, aka Daesh, and is only "one Sunni Muslim."
As DAES sounds like Daesh, it could be mixed up with the Arabic name of the "Islamic State" terrorist group.

Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported May 26 that two Saudi statistical websites were hacked just a day after Iran's statistics center was hacked, which raised the speculation in some Iranian media that a Saudi-Iranian cyber war is already going on.

Can America Ever Escape Its Failing Foreign Policy?

John Allen Gay

America’s current foreign-policy framework has produced a string of failures. Iraq and Afghanistan were expensive messes; Libya and the Balkan interventions, destabilizing wars of choice; we’re plainly overextended in Europe and can never seem to realize our long-promised pivot to Asia. Many of our allies carp about the need for U.S. “leadership” and growing threats in their neighborhoods while spending pittances on their own defense; at the same time, the publics in the same countries appear to resent our efforts to defend them. We have amassed all the downsides of empire, while seeing few of its benefits. And within many Washington foreign-policy circles, the solution to the problems our approach has created is to double down. Indeed, while most public discussion has focused on the shortcomings of one major party’s candidate for the presidency, few seem concerned that the other major party is poised to nominate a candidate who was an enthusiastic cheerleader for all of the serious foreign-policy blunders I listed above. Perhaps the United States simply has no alternative to its current strategy.

Not so, argues Stephen Walt. In a keynote address to the Charles Koch Institute’s Advancing American Security conference today in Washington, D.C., the Harvard professor made a bracing case for a different direction, a U.S. foreign policy far more restrained than today’s adventurism yet far more engaged than the isolationism of, say, Sakoku-era Japan. By remaining aloof from many of the world’s friction points, the United States would be able to invest more in its own affairs, building a firmer foundation of national power.

In Walt’s view, the United States enjoys advantages that almost no other great power in history has had. We are separated from all other major states by two vast oceans, and enjoy unquestioned supremacy in our entire hemisphere. We have the world’s largest and most dynamic economy, which underwrites the world’s strongest military. We can resort to nuclear weapons in the event that all these fail to protect us. We face few serious existential threats from other states.

U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High

Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly 30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age group except older adults. The rise was particularly steep for women. It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans, sending a signal of deep anguish from a group whose suicide rates had been stable or falling since the 1950s.

The suicide rate for middle-aged women, ages 45 to 64, jumped by 63 percent over the period of the study, while it rose by 43 percent for men in that age range, the sharpest increase for males of any age. The overall suicide rate rose by 24 percent from 1999 to 2014, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, which released the study on Friday.

The increases were so widespread that they lifted the nation’s suicide rate to 13 per 100,000 people, the highest since 1986. The rate rose by 2 percent a year starting in 2006, double the annual rise in the earlier period of the study. In all, 42,773 people died from suicide in 2014, compared with 29,199 in 1999.
“It’s really stunning to see such a large increase in suicide rates affecting virtually every age group,” said Katherine Hempstead, senior adviser for health care at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who has identified a link between suicides in middle age and rising rates of distress about jobs and personal finances.

Researchers also found an alarming increase among girls 10 to 14, whose suicide rate, while still very low, had tripled. The number of girls who killed themselves rose to 150 in 2014 from 50 in 1999. “This one certainly jumped out,” said Sally Curtin, a statistician at the center and an author of the report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html?_r=3 

Analysis: Recent twin elections in Iran ’undemocratic’

Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras,

Analysts have concluded that any elections under the rule of the mullahs in Iran would be depleted of any transparency and thus undemocratic. The new analysis says that recent Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections carried out last month in Iran have been illegitimate and must not be viewed as democratic.

The report by the Brussels-based International Committee In Search of Justice (ISJ), entitled 'A Study of 2016 ‘Elections’ in Iran,' provides insight on the make-up of the theocratic dictatorship and how each branch of government is under the direct authority of the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

'As opposition parties remained banned and even many current members of the Majlis and former officials of the Islamic Republic were not allowed to stand as candidates, the recent ballot was clearly not democratic, but an ’election within a selection’ of the ruling clique,' the 14-page report says in its conclusion.
'The controversial nuclear agreement created major tensions within the Iranian elite, and the continued costly participation in the war in Syria has become ever more difficult to sustain. Hence, the regime needed the February elections to produce a clear, near-unanimous result in favour of a strong leader, to be able to command and steer the country in difficult times. But Ayatollah Khamenei, fearing a repeat of the 2009 uprisings, did not risk interfering in the final tally. As a result, the internal fracture widened, and Khamenei failed to regain full control.'
'Meanwhile, the Rouhani/Rafsanjani faction, decimated in the filtering process, will have only a few more members in the Assembly of Experts. Additionally, the new Majlis members are not bound to follow their lead, so for leverage they will have to continue to rely on conservatives as well, as they do now under current Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani.'

'There was no clear winner in these elections, and both sides claim victory, which can only lead to more disputes and further destabilisation of the system. Therefore, one of the conclusions that can be drawn is that the Iranian system as a whole became weaker and more unstable as a result of these elections.'

'The economy, widely seen by analysts as a main issue in these elections, will remain a key factor. The Iranian economy is in dire straits. President Rouhani tried to present the nuclear deal at home as an opportunity to gain foreign investment and improve the lives of ordinary Iranians. However, after nearly three years in power, he has not affected that change, and his administration is feeling growing pressure.'

'A very costly involvement in Syria and Iraq -- with up to 60.000 Iranian-sponsored forces involved -- drains the Iranian economy. The very powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) -- entirely under Khamenei’s lead -- asserts widespread control of the national economy through an elaborate network of public and affiliated firms. Both sides, Rouhani/Rafsanjani and Khamenei’s hardliners, are on the same page regarding the foreign policy in Syria and Iraq, as they both see these two countries as Iran’s buffer defence zone. Hence, the costs of the involvement in foreign wars will stay high, despite the fact that the depressed oil market and the slow investment will halt the growth of the Iranian economy.'

'The internal repression is unlikely to decrease. ’Hardliners’ and ’reformists’ alike have as their main priority the preservation of the Islamic Republic regime. Increasing executions and inhuman punishments will, therefore, inevitably remain a gloomy part of the everyday life of the Iranian people. As Ann Appelbaum wrote in her Washington Post opinion: ’Regimes that need violence to repress their citizens do not make reliable diplomatic partners. Any ruling clique that fears popular revolt will always, at the end of the day, tailor its foreign policy to the goal of keeping itself in power,’' the report added.

ISJ is a non-profit NGO in Brussels whose membership includes elected parliamentarians, former officials and other dignitaries with an interest to promote human rights, freedom, democracy, peace and stability. Its President is Dr. Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a former Vice-President of the European Parliament. ISJ’s campaigns have enjoyed the support of over 4000 parliamentarians on both sides of the Atlantic.

Inside the government's secret NSA program to target terrorists

Relentless attacks on American military personnel at the height of the Iraq war made the U.S. intelligence community confront a dire problem: They needed real-time intelligence to take Al Qaeda off the battlefield and dismantle its bomb-making factories.

This realization was the start of a highly secretive program, developed by the National Security Agency, to put NSA specialists on the battlefield in order to send “near real-time” intelligence to the troops so they could avoid ambushes and root out insurgents. For the first time, going in depth with Fox News, senior NSA leadership is speaking publicly about that program, called the Real Time Regional Gateway or RT-RG.
"Starting in 2005, we started seeing a big uptick in casualties caused by IEDs [improvised explosive devices] and ambushes," NSA Deputy Director Rick Ledgett told Fox News. The RT-RG program created to combat those attacks, he said, “was really a complete change in how we provided signals intelligence support to the tactical war fighter.”

The program, parts of which were classified until now, has dispatched thousands of NSA experts into war zones since 9/11. It has put those experts – from an agency most-known for its controversial surveillance programs – at grave risk across multiple theatres. But in the process, officials say, RT-RG has saved the lives of fellow Americans.

Col. Bob Harms, one of the first people on the ground for the NSA at Baghdad's Camp Victory, said the goal was to “get in front of our adversaries.”

Exclusive images shared with Fox News from Camp Victory show the basic set-up, which took traditional streams of intelligence and married it up with information gathered from raids – for instance, taking satellite images and combining that with on-the-ground information about an insurgent’s movements and contacts, to pinpoint threats.

Some of the most useful information came from captured operatives – information known in the intel world as "pocket litter." Harms said this included “pattern of life” details including “when do they go to sleep, where do they go to sleep, where do they work and those types of things."

The NSA's goal was to compress the timeline for crunching all this information from a period of weeks or days, to just hours or minutes. Think of it like a phone app -- but instead of giving directions, it's flagging threats.

"[Battlefield commanders] would actually feed us information … so that we could give them a roadmap to the next site,” Harms explained.

Ledgett said the program harnessed big data, in a way that it could be used immediately on the battlefield. Ledgett said RT-RG "integrated hundreds of pieces of information," and then software was developed to draw connections that could "put things on graphical displays" so it was easy for analysts and operators to understand.

"It might connect something like a phone number to a location, to an activity and display that to an analyst who could then, via radio, contact a convoy and say, ‘Hey looks like there's an ambush waiting for you at this point -- go left or go right or take an alternate route,’" he said.

Asked about collateral damage – the accidental killing of civilians -- Ledgett said the program reduced those numbers because targeting data was drawn from multiple sources. No further specifics were offered.
Retired Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox News military analyst, said the program "gave a tool to brigade commanders, who were spread out all over the battlefield, something that they never had before."
It also took NSA experts out of the office and placed them in the field, to work side-by-side with special operations.

"We needed to be coffee-breath close in order to have that shared situational understanding," Harms said.
The program extended from Iraq to Afghanistan, and then other conflict zones that the NSA will not publicly identify. The statistics, declassified for this report, are sobering.

"Since 2001, we've deployed 5,000 NSA people to Iraq and 8,000 to Afghanistan -- and in total, 18,000 to hostile areas around the world," Ledgett said. "When the operational community embraces you that way and says ‘I want you on my team and I want you there with me’ … that's a pretty significant statement of value."
The deployments came with risk. Since 9/11, 24 names have been added to the NSA’s memorial wall, which pays tribute to fallen employees. Among them is NSA technical expert Christian Pike, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2013 working with the Navy SEALs.

"I'm sorry, I get a little emotional about this one," Ledgett said, taking a pause during the interview as he described a cabinet in his office with memorial cards for James T. Davis, one of the first Americans killed in Vietnam; NSA’s Amanda Pinson, killed by an IED in Iraq while providing signals intelligence support; and Christian Pike. Pike was also a family friend.

This Saturday is Armed Forces Day – and what was a ground-breaking NSA program a decade ago is now widely used by the war fighter.

Ledgett said one of the commanding generals in Iraq during the surge credited the NSA with helping take over 4,000 insurgents off the battlefield.

“There was an intense effort here … How do we drive those losses down?” Ledgett said. "Our job was to get the information to the people who needed it."

EgyptAir Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo 'disappears from radar'

An EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo has disappeared from radar, the Egyptian airline says.

It says there are 56 passengers, seven crew members and three security personnel on board Flight MS804.
The Airbus A320 was flying at 37,000ft (11,300m) when it went missing over the eastern Mediterranean. An official said the plane lost contact with radar at 02:45 Cairo time (00:45 GMT).
EgyptAir says search and rescue teams have been deployed.

EgyptAir says the plane disappeared about 10 miles (16km) into Egyptian air space and the relevant authorities have been notified.

The search operation is being co-ordinated with the Greek authorities.

In a later update, EgyptAir said that three children were among those on board the plane.
Aviation analyst Alex Macheras told the BBC that Airbus A320s were regularly used for short-haul budget flights and had "an amazing safety record".

The EgyptAir aircraft left Paris at 23:09 local time on Wednesday (21:09 GMT) and was scheduled to arrive in the Egyptian capital soon after 03:00 local time on Thursday.

In March, an EgyptAir plane was hijacked and diverted to Cyprus. The attacker later surrendered and all hostages were released.

Last October, a Russian passenger plane flying from Sharm el-Sheikh crashed over the Sinai peninsula killing all 224 people on board. Officials in Moscow later said the aircraft was brought down by an explosive device.

Islamic State militants said they had bombed the plane.

Report: NSA Tapped Phone Of Russian Crime Boss To Probe For Putin Ties

refrel

Documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden suggest that the spy agency eavesdropped on a Russian mob kingpin in an effort to determine his possible ties to President Vladimir Putin.

According to an internal NSA newsletter published by the website The Intercept, the NSA in 2002 or 2003 successfully tapped the phone of Vladimir Kumarin, the reputed head of the notorious Tambov crime syndicate whose influence in St. Petersburg in the 1990s earned him the moniker "Night Governor."

The newsletter, published by The Intercept on May 16 states, says the State Department submitted a request to the NSA for intelligence on Kumarin "to learn whether there were any links" between the Tambov syndicate and Putin, who served as deputy mayor in St. Petersburg in the 1990s.

The website was co-founded by Glenn Greenwald, one of two American journalists who received secret NSA documents from Snowden. The document referencing Kumarin was among the first batch of internal NSA newsletters spanning a nine-year period that The Intercept plans to publish.

Putin has long been alleged to have maintained ties to organized-crime groups that flourished in St. Petersburg, where he grew up and began his political career, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed these claims.

Kumarin, who now goes by the last name Barsukov, is currently serving a 14-year prison sentence after being convicted on gang-related charges in 2009.

According to the NSA newsletter published by The Intercept, analysts from the NSA’s Signals Intelligence Directorate "had their work cut out for them" with the State Department’s 2002 request because the agency "had neither Mr. Kumarin's phone number nor a sample of his voice."

The document, dated May 5, 2003, states that the NSA ultimately achieved "success" in the operation thanks to "many months of target development" and was able to issue intelligence reports based "on the intercept of Kumarin’s telephone."

The contents of those reports remain unclear.

A State Department official, when questioned by RFE/RL on May 17 about The Intercept report, said: "As a matter of policy the Department of State does not comment on specific intelligence allegations."

As experts on Russian organized crime have noted, the Tambov syndicate and other gangs were so entrenched in economic and political life in St. Petersburg in the 1990s that it was virtually impossible to conduct public affairs without dealing with them.

A Spanish judge this month issued international arrest warrants for several current and former Russian government officials and other political figures closely linked to Putin in connection with crimes committed in Spain, including murder, weapons and drug trafficking, extortion, and money laundering.

The Spanish documents target alleged members of the Tambov syndicate and another well-known crime group in St. Petersburg, the Malyshev gang. Both groups emerged as racketeering gangs comprised largely of former athletes during the twilight of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

Saudi to open ‘biggest’ security surveillance centre in Middle East

MEE

Saudi Arabia is planning to launch a new security surveillance centre which local media reported on Sunday will be the “biggest and most modern” in the Middle East.
The Saudi Gazette reported that the new National Centre for Joint Security Operations will have access to 18,000 security surveillance cameras, which will be “linked to smart applications” accessed by 1,600 newly trained officers.

It is not known when the centre will officially open, but the gazette said the Road Security Control is already operating from the new premises.

Authorities will gradually make “911” the number to call for any Saudi with a security related problem – anyone who calls will be passed to the new security centre “within seconds”.

All the officers who will manage the centre are fluent in English, according to the gazette, which added that they were trained abroad without revealing specifically where.

The centre will have “two giant screens” where images from the 18,000 security cameras will appear, which the gazette said would make it the biggest in the region.
The centre was previously known as the Command and Control Centre, and dealt solely with coordinating security services; the new centre will integrate all security related matters into one centralised body.

U.S. sees China boosting military presence after island-building spree

Reuters

China is expected to add substantial military infrastructure, including surveillance systems, to artificial islands in the South China Sea this year, giving it long-term "civil-military bases" in the contested waters, the Pentagon said on Friday.
In its annual report to Congress on China's military activities in 2015, the U.S. Defense Department estimated that China's reclamation work had added more than 3,200 acres (1,300 hectares) of land on seven features it occupied in the Spratly Islands in the space of two years.

It said China had completed its major reclamation efforts in October, switching focus to infrastructure development, including three 9,800 foot-long (3,000 meter) airstrips that can accommodate advanced fighter jets.

"Additional substantial infrastructure, including communications and surveillance systems, is expected to be built on these features in the coming year," the report said.
"China will be able to use its reclaimed features as persistent civil-military bases to enhance its presence in the South China Sea significantly."

The report comes at a time of heightened tension over maritime territories claimed by China and disputed by several Asian nations. Washington has accused Beijing of militarizing the South China Sea while Beijing, in turn, has criticized increased U.S. naval patrols and exercises in Asia.

The Pentagon report said China was focusing on developing capabilities to counter outside intervention in any conflict, but appeared to want to avoid direct confrontation with the United States in Asia, given the potential economic damage.
At the same time, "China demonstrated a willingness to tolerate higher levels of tension in the pursuit of its interests, especially in pursuit of its territorial claims," the report said.

MILITARY CHIEFS TALK

The Pentagon disclosed on Friday that the U.S. military's top officer, Marine General Joseph Dunford, had proposed an effort to "bolster risk reduction mechanisms" to his counterpart, the Chinese Chief of the Joint Staff Department, General Fang Fenghui.
Dunford's spokesman, Captain Greg Hicks, said in a statement that both sides agreed the talks, which took place by video conference on Thursday, were a valuable way to "manage both cooperative and contentious issues, and avoid miscalculation."

The Pentagon's report cautioned that China was committed to sustaining growth in defense spending even as its economic growth cools and to pursuing objectives increasingly distant from China's shores.

Abraham Denmark, deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia, told a briefing that China's 2015 defense spending was higher than it publicly disclosed and had reached $180 billion, compared with an official Chinese of $144 billion.

The report pointed to China's November announcement that it was establishing a military facility in Djibouti. It said China was also expected to establish naval logistics hubs in countries with which it shares interests, including Pakistan.

The U.S report renewed accusations against China's government and military for cyber attacks against U.S. government computer systems, a charge Beijing denies. It said attacks in 2015 appeared focused on intelligence collection.

"Targeted information could inform Chinese military planners' work to build a picture of U.S. defense networks, logistics, and related military capabilities that could be exploited during a crisis," the report said.

It also cautioned that the actions and skills needed for the intrusions carried out to date "are similar to those necessary to conduct cyberattacks."

Why Egypt's media has turned on President Sisi

Dr. H.A. Hellyer

When Egypt’s former defense minister, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, ascended to the presidency in 2014, nearly all of Egypt’s media stood faithfully by him. That same media was vigorously opposed to the former elected president, the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammad Morsi, whom the military under Sisi had forcibly overthrown following mass protests in 2013 — and rarely voiced criticism of Sisi in the first months of his presidency.

Almost two years later, the scene is quite different. Relations between Egypt’s media and the government have deteriorated so severely that, last week, Egyptian police were accused of raiding the headquarters of the Journalists Syndicate (the professional union responsible for protecting, defending, and accrediting journalists and editors for all private and state-run print media) and arresting two journalists, sparking substantial demonstrations.

And while the size of these protests is insignificant compared with the scale of the ones that brought down Egypt’s longtime ruler, Hosni Mubarak, in the 2011 Egyptian revolutionary uprising, the demonstrations are nonetheless indicative of how much the relationship between the Egyptian government and the press has deteriorated in just a few short years.

From loyal supporters to increasingly vocal critics: Sisi’s troubled press relations
Egyptian media were extremely supportive of the post-Morsi establishment, and that continued through the presidential election of 2014 and beyond. Relations between that extant part of Egypt’s media arena (pro-Islamist media had been shut down immediately after Morsi’s arrest — he remains imprisoned to this day) and the Muslim Brotherhood had been mutually recriminatory for a variety of reasons during Morsi’s year in office.

Following his removal, a cacophony of ultranationalist voices dominated the discussion, seeing Sisi as a savior against what they identified as an existential threat from the Muslim Brotherhood.

But the media’s adoration of Sisi gradually began to wane as the economic situation failed to pick up sufficiently. Egypt’s tourism industry, a cornerstone of the country’s economy, has suffered tremendously from the political upheaval that began in 2011, and many Egyptians supported Sisi in the belief that he would restore the order and stability necessary to revive the tourism industry and improve the economy more generally.

But security threats have continued to rock Egypt’s tourism industry — including, most prominently, the ISIS attack that brought down a Russian passenger airliner departing Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh resort town in late 2015. Many countries, including the UK and Russia (whose citizens represent a massive proportion of Egypt’s foreign tourists), suspended flights into the country’s tourist hotspots following that attack.

The government’s inability to address such problems quickly and effectively is likely to have disappointed many Egyptians — including those in the media — who’d hoped things would generally start to get better under Sisi.
The government’s relationship with the media further soured following the death of Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni earlier this year. Regeni had been doing research on Egypt’s labor movements — a politically sensitive issue in Egypt — when, on January 25, he went missing. His tortured body surfaced more than a week later in a ditch just outside of Cairo.

Although one Egyptian state agency alleged a "criminal gang" that specialized in "abducting foreigners while posing as policemen" was to blame for Regeni’s murder, a number of Egyptian columnists who had formerly been generally supportive of the government began expressing suspicion that the state’s security establishment was involved in Regeni’s abuse and demise. In Italy, public opinion was openly and overwhelmingly convinced of that link, resulting in quite strained relations between Rome and Cairo.

In a country where police brutality had been an energizing factor in the 2011 uprising, a nerve had again been struck in Egypt. For many years, rights organizations inside and outside Egypt, such as the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights and the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, have highlighted the need for security sector reform. The lack of transparency in the handling of the Regeni case by the authorities further eroded the government-media relationship.
This latest crisis erupted over a couple of uninhabited islands in the Red Sea
But it was Sisi's decision to transfer control of two islands to Saudi Arabia — and the surge of nationalistic sentiment and anger that followed — that sparked the current crisis.

The sovereignty of these two uninhabited islands, located in the Red Sea between Saudi Arabia and Egypt, had been disputed by the two countries but had been under Egyptian control for decades. Then, during a five-day visit by the Saudi king to Egypt in mid-April, Sisi suddenly announced he was handing the islands over to Saudi control following negotiations.

Those discussions, however, had been wholly out of the public eye, and the public — including many in the media — reacted with shock and outrage at the abrupt news that the islands had been seemingly summarily handed over. Several thousand protesters took to the streets across Cairo and elsewhere in Egypt for several weeks. Egypt’s security services responded to the protests the way they often do: with tear gas and arrests.

Then on April 30, an Egyptian court issued a media gag order on cases of protesters arrested in demonstrations over the transfer of the islands, further angering the media. The next day, two journalists who were vigorously opposed to Sisi’s decision over the islands held a sit-in in the Journalists Syndicate headquarters — an establishment that many believed, with good reason, to be off-limits to the state’s security forces.

That’s because professional syndicates in Egypt have historically been treated as more or less inviolate. Egypt’s constitution affirms the independence and democracy of each professional syndicate and states that "no intervention from administrative authorities in its affairs is permitted."

In February, for instance, the Doctors Syndicate held an impromptu demonstration against the state over police abuse of doctors. Despite a highly controversial protest law that makes legal public protest incredibly restricted, if not impossible, that demonstration did not meet a crackdown from security forces. Most assumed that was because the demonstration had taken place at the syndicate.
This time, however, things went differently. On May 1, Egyptian state security forces entered the Journalists Syndicate headquarters and arrested the two journalists — an unprecedented move in the 75-year tenure of the syndicate — accusing them of being involved in inciting illegal protests against the state.

The response from the journalist profession was swift and severe — drawing almost universal condemnation, with even state-owned newspapers publishing strongly worded editorials denouncing the Interior Ministry’s move against the syndicate.

Private newspapers like al-Dostour, which have hitherto been pro-Sisi, have run headlines such as, "Disaster lies in state policy of running the country with a security mind-set." Journalists came out in force and tried to assemble at the syndicate.
On May 4, a day after World Press Freedom Day, the Journalists Syndicate publicly adopted a number of resolutions calling for, among other things, the dismissal of the state’s interior minister, an apology from the president, the release of all journalists from imprisonment for publication crimes, and a general conference to discuss a general strike by all journalists.

By any standard, the declaration was a daring one.

The Interior Ministry in 2013, following the toppling of Morsi from power, had managed to somewhat rehabilitate itself — it openly sided against the Muslim Brotherhood, which was eventually banned as a terrorist organization by the Egyptian state, and many within the pro-state media establishment declared the ministry as having learned its lesson post-2011.

Police brutality and the need for security sector reform, after all, were two of the most animating demands of the 2011 revolutionary uprising.

Today, the Interior Ministry is being mocked across the media spectrum — for no less than having mistakenly leaked its media strategy to journalists via normal press release email lists.

The strategy revealed that the ministry expected there would be "a strong campaign" by the media in solidarity with the syndicate and in defense of press freedoms, and that the ministry would try to gain public support by claiming the syndicate sought to be "above the law" and that it was "hiding criminals." The leaked strategy was widely spread over social media, and journalists and citizens alike mocked, and attacked, the ministry for its approach.

On May 6, the ministry declared that it would no longer email press releases (probably a good call), and that all communication with the media would happen via social media channels like Twitter and Facebook — presumably to stop such a mistake from happening again. It also imposed a "media gag" on discussions of the incursion into the syndicate, pending investigations.

The gag was roundly ignored.

A sign of rising discontent with Sisi?

The momentum behind this crisis has not yet run its course — and it’s unclear where it’s headed. There is little evidence to suggest a repeat of the kind of widespread mobilization we saw back in 2011, as the opposition to state authorities is fragmented, and there does not appear to be sufficient appetite for any upheaval, particularly after such a tumultuous period as the one after the downfall of Mubarak.

At the same time, though, there is growing dissent over the security sector as well as, crucially, the economy. The same issues that led to the revolutionary uprising of 2011 remain, and have intensified.

Egypt’s police and other security agencies have been in need of major, serious reform for years — under Sisi as well as all his predecessors in living memory. The issue is not a new one, but it requires political will, which as yet has not been forthcoming.
There has been no suggestion from Sisi that this is about to change — on the contrary, Sisi has been vigorous in his support of the security establishment, identifying problems as evidence of isolated occurrences rather than as systemic issues.

Egypt continues to face a number of substantial security problems, including a stubborn ISIS presence in the Sinai, as well as radical militant elements manifesting in other parts of the country. The security establishment is vested with the responsibility to respond to those challenges, and no other sector is able to replace it.

But as the challenges continue, and especially if they intensify, the need for the security forces to engage constructively, rather than counterproductively, increases. Recommendations to engage with different strategies in the Sinai, for example, have come from a slew of quarters — including Cairo’s allies.

Abjuring certain fundamental freedoms, including the independence of the press, on the altar of "security" is not a recipe for sustainable stability. One need only think back to 2010, when Mubarak’s regime made that same mistake, leading to the revolutionary uprising in 2011.

The Egyptian state under the Sisi presidency isn’t as cohesive as the Mubarak regime was, but the buck does stop at the presidency. By any realistic assessment, the long-term health of the state depends not on repudiating the need for security sector reform but on making it a priority.

If such a step continues to be ignored, as part of a wider course correction within the state, then the crisis with the Journalists Syndicate is only likely to be one of many more to come.

Bring Back the USIA, and Defeat ISIS

James K. Glassman

From the mountains of Colorado (Aspen Institute) to the canyons of New York (Tony Blair-Leon Panetta Commission) to the conference rooms of Washington (Homeland Security Advisory Council) to various get-togethers at CENTCOM and the State Department.

Intense concern about constraining ISIS on the Internet – the objective of all these conclaves – is certainly justified, and good ideas abound. The problem is that it’s doubtful we’ll succeed until we’ve got the right structure in place. I am not someone who believes that the proper bureaucratic set-up solves all problems, but it’s evident that you can’t get anything accomplished until there is someone in charge who has responsibility, authority, resources, the backing of the president and clear objectives.
The current system provides exactly none of these.

In 2006, President George W. Bush issued an executive order that gave the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs – then, Karen Hughes, and shortly thereafter, me – the “interagency lead” for strategic communications, mainly directed at Al Qaeda. The order didn’t mean that I could tell the Defense Department and the Central Intelligence Agency what to do, but it did mean that I could take the lead in coordinating the efforts of all government agencies in non-violent efforts against terrorism.

I had the support of the President, National Security Advisor Steve Hadley, and, of course, my immediate boss, Condoleezza Rice. They understood that we couldn’t defeat terrorism without engaging the current destructive ideology through a war of ideas. We had little in the way of resources – though DoD chipped in – but we built a structure that was working.

In the great tradition of administration succession, however, the new leaders at the State Department and the White House dismantled what we had, then spent the next seven years rebuilding it.

But in order to build a soft-power infrastructure that lasts, I’m afraid it’s time to do something I rejected out of hand when I served on the Djerejian Commission in 2003: that is, resurrect the United States Information Agency.

Well, not exactly the USIA. What we need is smaller and more agile than the institution that played a critical role in defeating communism in the Cold War. This new USIA needs to make use of the huge capacity of the private sector to develop and disseminate narratives.

USIA met its demise in 1999 after years of having its funding remorsely reduced. Its functions were merged into the office that I later ran at State, but public affairs officers at the embassies reported to geographic bureaus. What public diplomacy lacked, as a result, was an esprit de corps, a feeling of purpose, and a decent budget. My guess is that all of those things could reemerge in a revived USIA because the simple formation of the new agency would provide drama and focus.

The new agency would need a chief with the confidence of the president – like Edward R. Murrow under Kennedy or Charles Z. Wick under Reagan – and the funds to conduct serious research and to contract with people who know how political theory, regional history and sociology, policy development, and the ability to communicate.

If such an agency existed today, its first assignment should be to mount a ferocious campaign to deter future recruits to ISIS. How? By showing impressionable young people the truth about being an ISIS fighter (or “wife”) through the testimony of former ISIS members who managed to get away. Not three or four videos posted on YouTube but hundreds, distributed through dozens of social media channels.

The agency would also have to work with our military and its allies to grab ISIS deserters when they leave Syria, Iraq, or Libya and, rather than putting them on trial, letting them tell their stories directly to camera.

We also need to battle the ISIS ideology in the same way we battled communism: taking it seriously and ripping it to shreds. And we need to provide productive pathways for potential ISIS recruits to travel – alternatives to violence as a way to find meaning in their lives.

But it all starts with will – and structure. One of the reasons that so many smart people are holding conferences about how to defeat ISIS on the Internet is the fear that the next attack on the U.S. is right around the corner. That may be true. But what we’ve learned from the dismantling of the USIA is that using soft power to achieve national-security ends is not an on-again, off-again endeavor. It needs to be sustained over long periods with significant investment. The Chinese, the Russians, and the Iranians have already figured this out. We should too.

Jerusalem Day And Ramadan On The Same Evening – A Recipe For Conflict?

theyeshivaworld

Jerusalem Day (Yom Yerushalayim) is marked by a grand parade, the Flag Parade from town center that converges on the Kosel Plaza marking the liberation of the city from Jordanian occupation in 1967.

This year, that event falls on the first evening of Ramadan and the Ir Amim (עיר עמים) organization has already requested that police prohibit the Jerusalem Day marchers from using their regular route via the so-called Muslim Quarter of the city. The organization in its letter explains that if Jews carrying flags pass through as Muslims head to evening prayers conflict is certain and such a situation must be avoided.
The parade has become an annual tradition for tens of thousands, who march while singing and dancing as they head to the Old City from city center, culminating at the Kosel. There have been incidents and skirmishes in recent years as marchers passed through the Muslim Quarter streets. Adding to Israel Police’s headaches is the timing, that this coincides with Ramadan this year. Officials have yet to respond to Ir Amim’s letter.

According to Ir Amim, “the parade is characterized by racist behavior and any violent encounter between Jews and Muslim might lead to an explosion”. In addition, the organization cites the logistical reality of the narrow streets in the Muslim Quarter and the simple fact there will not be sufficient room.

Jerusalem City Hall has announced the Flag Parade is not a local city event and therefore the decision must be made by Israel Police and not City Hall.

Why the media will lift Trump up and tear Clinton down

David Roberts

It now seems all but certain that the presidential election will see Donald Trump face off against Hillary Clinton.

We find ourselves at the tail end of a brief period of clarity. For the past few months, virtually everyone outside of the 40 percent of Republican primary voters who carried him to victory has agreed that Trump is not fit to be president.

Marco Rubio called him a "con man." Mitt Romney called him "a phony, a fraud." Cruz called him an "amoral pathological liar" and said if he is elected "this country could well plunge into the abyss." Lindsey Graham said Trump would lead to "another 9/11." David Brooks called him "epically unprepared to be president." George Will said that "his running mate will be unqualified for high office because he or she will think Trump is qualified." The house organ of conservatism, National Review, condemned him in florid terms. A Super PAC was created just to stop him.

As Cost emphasizes, the issue here is not (merely) ideological — it's about basic fitness and competence. A man with Trump's temperament and habits could do real, lasting, no-joke damage as the leader of the free world.

Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, has demonstrated a basic level of competence. She understands how policy and government work. She's not openly racist; she hasn't encouraged street violence. There's no risk that she would disrupt the international order or cause an economic crisis out of pique.

That's a really, really low bar. But it's the only bar she has to clear in this contest. Almost irrespective of what you think of Clinton's politics or her policies, she is manifestly more prepared to run the federal government than Donald Trump.
The number of people who recognize this elemental fact about the election, however, has probably already reached and passed its peak. It will decline from here on out. The moment of clarity is already ending.

The political ecosystem needs two balanced parties to survive

Why is clarity passing? Because it appears Trump is actually going to be the Republican nominee. It's really happening. And the US political ecosystem — media, consultants, power brokers, think tanks, foundations, officeholders, the whole thick network of institutions and individuals involved in national politics — cannot deal with a presidential election in which one candidate is obviously and uncontroversially the superior (if not sole acceptable) choice. The machine is simply not built to handle a race that's over before it's begun.

There are entire classes of professionals whose jobs are premised on the model of two roughly equal sides, clashing endlessly. The Dance of Two Parties sustains the consultants and activists.

Paul Mitchell ‏@paulmitche11 That giant clicking sound is 10,000 Republican consultants and activists deleting their #NeverTrump tweets.

Dana Bash Verified account ‏@DanaBashCNN Trump campaign now being flooded with offers from seasoned operatives to help the campaign, Rick Wiley tells me.
It sustains the party hacks and grifters.

Reince Priebus Verified account ‏@Reince.@realDonaldTrump will be presumptive @GOP nominee, we all need to unite and focus on defeating @HillaryClinton #NeverClinton

Fox News ✔ ‎@FoxNews.@newtgingrich: "@realDonaldTrump may turn out to be the most effective, anti-left leader in our lifetime." #Hannity

Ari Fleischer ✔ ‎@AriFleischer There's a lot about Donald Trump that I don't like, but I'll vote for Trump over Hillary any day.

Sean Hannity ✔ ‎@seanhannity.@BobbyJindal: "Today we have got two choices. It's either @realDonaldTrump or @HillaryClinton." #Hannity
And it sustains the media, which is what I want to discuss below.

Among all these classes of professionals, all these institutions, that whole superstructure of US politics built around two balanced sides, there will be a tidal pull to normalize this election, to make it Coca-Cola versus Pepsi instead of Coca-Cola versus sewer water.

The US political system knows how to play the former script; it doesn't know how to play the latter. There's a whole skein of practices, relationships, and money flows developed around the former. The latter would occasion a reappraisal of, well, everything. Scary.

So there will be a push to lift Donald Trump up and bring Hillary Clinton down, until they are at least something approximating two equivalent
choices...........................The campaign press requires, for its ongoing health and advertising revenue, a real race. It needs controversies. "Donald Trump is not fit to be president" may be the accurate answer to pretty much every relevant question about the race, but it's not an interesting answer. It's too final, too settled. No one wants to click on it.

What's more, the campaign media's self-image is built on not being partisan, which precludes adjudicating political disputes.

How does that even work if one side is offering up a flawed centrist and the other is offering up a vulgar xenophobic demagogue?..................

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AMERICANS ON MUSLIMS IMMIGRATING TO USA

“We have to be careful. We’re allowing thousands of people to come into our country, thousands and thousands of people being placed all over the country that frankly nobody knows who they are. They don’t have documentation in many cases. In most cases. We don’t know what we’re doing. Let’s see what happens. This could be a very serious problem for the future,” -Trump.

Despite facing a substantial media backlash after he made the comments in December last year, polls taken immediately after the remarks showed that a majority of Americans supported a temporary ban on Muslim immigration.
How do voters feel about Trump’s proposal?

Fox News poll (Dec. 18, 2015 ) found 50 percent of voters favor Trump’s ban, while 46 percent are opposed.

However, when Trump’s name is removed from the question, support for the plan goes up five points and opposition goes down six: 55 percent favor the unnamed proposal, while 40 percent oppose it.

So while voters favor the “Trump” ban by a 4-point margin -- that increases to 15 points when the same ban is not associated with Trump.

EAST AFRICA: Anthrax Plot Signed By "Daesh"

Joshua Meservey

Kenyan police announced this week that they had arrested a man interning at a Kenyan hospital who was planning a major anthrax attack on the country. Police in neighboring Uganda arrested two alleged accomplices, and Kenyan police are still searching for two others they claim were involved in the plot.

Authorities believe the man, Mohammed Abdi Ali, is part of an Islamic State-linked East African terror network that has been radicalizing East Africans and facilitating their travel to Libya, Iraq, and Syria, where the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is most active.

Not enough information has been released to determine how serious the plot was. There have been no reports that any anthrax was recovered, and it is unclear if Ali had access to the dangerous substance. We also do not know how strong his links were to ISIS. Moroccan authorities have warned previously that ISIS is trying to build biological weapons , as well as launch a chemical attack in Europe as it has already done in Iraq and Syria.

Whatever the true story, ISIS does have alarming influence in Kenya and other East African countries. Kenyan authorities estimate that at least 20 Kenyans, many of them university students, have gone to fight for ISIS. Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, and almost certainly other East African countries have had citizens leave for ISIS as well.
ISIS also developed official support in East Africa for the first time late last year. Abdiqadir Mumin, a senior official in al-Shabaab—a prominent al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist group in Somalia that has networks throughout East Africa—and 20 of his followers declared allegiance to ISIS in October 2015.

Alarmingly, a former senior Somali intelligence official claims that the number of ISIS fighters has swelled since then to 150 today, and says they are receiving weapons and supplies from ISIS through nearby Yemen.

There have been other signs of ISIS’ presence in the region. In April, ISIS claimed its first attack in Somalia—a bombing of a vehicle belonging to the peacekeeping mission in the country. Two weeks later, it claimed a second attack, this time on Somali government troops. Also in April, a different group calling itself “Jahba East Africa” pledged itself to ISIS. Nothing has been heard from it since, however, so it may exist in little more than name only at the moment.

ISIS still faces significant hurdles in Somalia. The Somali government claims its commandos recently overran an ISIS training camp in southern Somalia. Al-Shabaab also remains entrenched in the country, and ISIS’ repeated overtures to al-Shabaab to forsake its affiliation with al-Qaeda and join ISIS have been rebuffed. In fact, al-Shabaab has hunted down and killed a number of its fighters who were agitating for the group to switch allegiances. It appears the pro-ISIS faction inside al-Shabaab is mostly comprised of younger fighters, while the older leadership, including al-Shabaab’s emir, Ahmad Umar, is determined for now to remain in the al-Qaeda fold.
Al-Shabaab could shift allegiances if it believed ISIS was a better deal, but that is unlikely at the moment. The group would probably have made the jump earlier if it was going to, when ISIS was at its zenith rather than now when it is suffering setbacks in Iraq and Syria. The war in Yemen has also revived al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, historically al-Shabaab’s strongest link to al-Qaeda, giving the Somali terrorists even more incentive to remain with al-Qaeda.

ISIS’ apparent growing strength in East Africa is of deep concern whether or not al-Shabaab switches over. ISIS’ presence likely portends increased radicalization and more terrorist attacks in a fragile region already unable to suppress al-Shabaab’s violence. The war against terrorism in East Africa may well be entering an even deadlier phase.

DAESH: IN MECCA?

JP 

According to the report, the Saudi police, in collaboration with the Kingdom's security forces, besieged Wadi Numan, a Mecca suburb, where a group of five ISIS fighters had been hiding.

The Saudi security forces captured Thursday morning an ISIS cell on the outskirts of the holy city of Mecca, Jawal Watani, a prominent Saudi news page on Twitter reported.

According to the report, the Saudi police, in collaboration with the Kingdom's security forces, besieged Wadi Numan, a Mecca suburb, where a group of five ISIS fighters had been hiding.

Saudi security forces deployed helicopters to back up forces on the ground, fearing that the terrorists, refusing to hand themselves over to the police, would throw bombs on them.

During the operation, two ISIS fighters were killed by security forces, while two others committed suicide.

According to Saudi sources, the cell busted was preparing to attack a base of the emergency forces, located five kilometers from where the ISIS fighters resided.

The operation came shortly after the Saudi security forces arrested Ukab Atibi, a member of the ISIS cell that had carried out a suicide attack on a mosque used by members of a local security force in southwest Saudi Arabia in August 2015.

Hillary Clinton Should Concede to Bernie Sanders Before The FBI Reveals Its Findings

HuffPost Blog

"Millions of Democrats are voting for a presidential candidate linked to an FBI criminal investigation. These voters either don’t know there’s been a year-long FBI investigation of Clinton’s emails, don’t care, or would vote for Clinton even she faced Espionage Act indictments. Potentially our next Commander in Chief will be interviewed by the FBI soon, as will her top aides. This state of affairs would never take place in any other leading democracy, but American politics is unique."..................

What happens if Clinton wins the nomination, and the FBI recommends indictments after July 25, 2016?

If the FBI recommends indictments, and the DOJ indicts Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party would be handing Donald Trump the White House by nominating the former Secretary of State. I explain in this YouTube segment why Clinton should concede the Democratic nomination to Bernie Sanders, before the political ramifications of a contested convention, and before the FBI discloses its findings.

First, there used to be a time in American history when Bernie Sanders would be the only choice for Democratic nominee. Not long ago, an FBI investigation meant the end of a presidential campaign. Clinton would have been forced to conceded at any point in U.S. history before 2016, linked to a criminal FBI investigation.

Unfortunately, the inept Republican Party, combined with Bill and Hillary Clinton’s uncanny ability to circumvent scandal, have made even FBI investigations morally relative. Because of Ken Starr, Benghazi hearings, and the notion that anything Republicans advocate must either be a conspiracy, or some plot to harm Hillary Clinton, voters simply roll their eyes at controversy. I addressed why only Hillary Clinton is capable of enduring these issues during my CNN New Day appearance.

Second, millions of loyal Hillary supporters would still vote for Clinton, even if the FBI recommended Espionage Act indictments. Since “gross negligence” can be used to prosecute Clinton under the Espionage Act, and since convenience wasn’t the reason for owning a private server, indictments are likely. Also, if indictments become a reality, the fracture within the Democratic Party, caused by people who’d still vote for a candidate facing criminal indictment, would be irreparable. The rest of the world would either be laughing, or in disbelief, that Clinton decided to continue her campaign for the presidency (with supporters still loyal), even with the threat of jail time. Rest assured, even more Bernie supporters would refuse to vote for Clinton, if her campaign continued its quest for the White House, alongside criminal indictments.

Then there’s the likelihood of criminal charges. Every “legal scholar” or pundit defending Clinton assumes that merely convenience, or absent-mindedness, was the reason for a private server. Since there was almost certainly political utility involved in circumventing U.S. government networks, the DOJ has intent and motive to indict Clinton.

Israel Stops Four Tons of Rocket Chemicals From Being Smuggled Into Gaza

TheTower

Four tons of a chemical used to manufacture long-range rockets were stopped from being smuggled into Gaza, Israeli security announced Tuesday.
Security forces seized the ammonium chloride before Passover at the Nitzana border crossing between Israel and Egypt. The crossing is also used to facilitate the shipment of goods into Gaza.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, said they believe that the smuggler is a Gaza-based Hamas supporter who used his importing license to bring the material in for use in Hamas’ weapons facilities.
The four tons of ammonium chloride, which is usually used in fertilizers but can also be used to make explosives, had the potential to be employed in the production of hundreds of rockets. The chemicals were hidden within a 40-ton shipment of salt. Security forces had been on high alert because of unusually high levels of salt imports recently, the Israel Tax Authority said in a statement.
“Ammonium chloride is defined as a dual-use substance and its passage into the Gaza Strip requires a permit since it is liable to be used by Gaza-based terrorist organizations—such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad—in the production of long-range rockets,” they added.
The agency noted that “dozens of attempts to smuggle items and materials that are prohibited from importation into the Gaza Strip—such as sulfuric acid, diving suits, rocket propulsion fuel components, polyurethane, sulfur, fiberglass rolls and specially coarse coal for use in iron smelters and metalwork—and which are suspected of being for use by local terrorist organizations” have been stopped by the Israeli government.
At the same time, Israel allowed more than 10,000 truckloads of goods to be delivered to Gaza in the month of March, according to the NGO Gisha.

Obama and the European Union

George Friedman (Founder and Chairman of Geopolitical Futures, a global analysis company.)

"European integration was an American idea. If the European Union falls apart, it is hard to see how NATO survives, even in its current state," 

US President Barack Obama has re-emphasized the importance of the European Union, saying it was one of the most important inventions of the past 70 years. This claim comes after he told the British public that they should vote to stay in the EU, to the anger of those supporting an exit. They felt that Obama was interfering in British internal affairs by taking sides in a domestic dispute. Obama claimed that given historical US involvement in Europe, in wars and recovery, this was justified.

A distant second after the more important question of why Obama is involving himself, is whether he thinks his opinion actually matters. Assuming he understands that his views matter in Britain about as much as British Prime Minister David Cameron’s opinion on the Republican primaries matters in the US, we need to think through what Obama is trying to do, since he clearly knows that he carries little weight in the matter, and might actually alienate British voters.

To begin at the beginning, European integration was an American idea. While Paul-Henri Spaak and Robert Schuman may have thought of the idea, it was the Marshall Plan that first had increased European integration as one of its goals. The Americans believed that their mission was to revive Europe and that the infusion of money wasn’t enough. Creating a harmonized economic structure was central to the recovery, so the United States pressed for some form of integration.

France resisted integration at first because it was not prepared, so soon after the war, to collaborate with Germany. The British rejected the idea because they felt they had a special relationship with the United States given the wartime alliance, and didn’t want to be tossed in with the rest of Europe, particularly the French.

It was Charles de Gaulle who finally embraced the idea, but not for economic reasons. His reasons were geopolitical. Europe was fragmented, the east was occupied by the Soviets and the Americans were an overwhelming presence. De Gaulle knew that Europe could not counterbalance the Americans or Soviets, but he believed that Europe could balance between them. Economic integration with Germany, along with smaller European states, would put France in the position of the leading European power, as Germany would play a subordinate role. Best of all, the British would not join this formation, which meant that France’s only rival in Western Europe would stay outside. He saw this as the path to resurrecting French influence. Out of this, over the course of decades, the EU emerged in the form of the Maastricht Treaty. Europeans and Americans both tend to forget the American role and the French calculation that got this rolling.

All this happened prior to such clarifying events as the Berlin Blockade by the Soviets. This led to the American strategy of containment, and alongside that, the creation of NATO. American strategy was to hem in the Soviet Union from the North Cape of Norway to Turkey. The military containment was to be complemented by an increasingly productive and prosperous Europe. Psychologically, the contrast between a prosperous Western Europe and an impoverished Eastern Europe would weaken the Soviet position and strengthen the American. But more important, a prosperous Europe meant that it could support a European military component inside NATO. It was the American plan that the Europeans play the primary role in defending against a Soviet attack while the United States would provide some forces stationed there, massive reinforcements and, of course, a nuclear deterrent.

For the United States, European prosperity was a critical factor behind the strength of NATO. This was the idea behind the Marshall Plan, and it is why the United States was always pleased to see European economic integration. But there was another reason – Germany. The United States, like the European powers, did not want to see Germany re-emerge as a major power. But it wanted Germany to be able to at least support itself, and ideally, field a substantial force against the Soviets. Germany would be the battlefield in any US-Soviet conflict because of geography.

The US wanted a prosperous Germany, but one whose prosperity was tied up in a system of integration that took away German room to maneuver. The US had fought two wars against Germany and while American casualties were far less than others in Europe, they still were deep in the American mind. So the United States wanted a strong but constrained Germany. The US was prepared to see Europe recover enough to be a strong economic competitor to the United States, so long as the Soviets were blocked by German forces and Germany was constrained in a web of prosperity.
Now, the integration that the United States put into motion is threatening to collapse, Germany is the dominant European power, but other EU countries are increasingly ignoring it, and Russia is active to the east. The structure the US created after World War II is coming apart.

With it, NATO is threatening to come apart. NATO is built on the assumption that there is a common interest among the European countries and the United States. The problem of the EU today is that it is not clear that European countries have a common interest. If they have competing interests on not only economic matters, but on cultural and political issues like refugee migration, then NATO will cease to function. It is not functioning well anyway. As I have written in the past, the EU has almost 200 million more people than the United States and a GDP slightly larger, yet has a small fraction of the effective military power of the United States.

If the European Union falls apart, it is hard to see how NATO survives, even in its current state. If that happens, the direction of Germany’s foreign policy is a huge unknown, matching the huge unknown of Russia. In a certain sense, the geopolitical reality of Europe is still in place. Germany is powerful, with unknown intentions. Russia is economically fragile but militarily possibly potent. And France and Britain have little trust in each other or resources to act. The situation is far from 1914 or 1939. Still, the configuration of nation-states is familiar.

From the American point of view, this is the worst-case scenario. Germany is freed of constraint not by its will but because of the failure of the EU. Russia, rather than facing a united alliance, is facing fragmented and squabbling European states. And the United States is facing its old question. Should it withdraw from trying to manage Europe and leave it to its own devices, or should the US remain involved through NATO, which is more a liability to the United States than an asset.

Obama is an American president and he is facing, in the distance, the potential for the re-emergence of the old Europe that twice drew the US into wars. His policy, which has been the policy of every president since Harry Truman, is to play a significant role in Europe and to maintain the architecture it crafted 70 years ago. And that explains why he doesn’t want the EU to collapse.

Unanswered in this is why he thinks announcing US desires will matter in the least. The US has tolerated the imbalance in NATO with only formal complaints. It has already accepted the rise of Germany, which was inevitable anyway. And it will involve itself against Russia under any circumstances. Obama has named no consequence for the Europeans from the US if the EU fails, nor is there any he can name. But it is understandable why he speaks up, however impotently, persuading only those who already agree with him.

The world that was created in the 1940s is coming apart. A Europe made up of separate nation-states has been a dangerous place for the US Retaining the European Union is desirable given American history. It may be desirable given European history. That doesn’t mean it can be preserved.

Panama Papers: More Names Revealed

German News

The new BND Bruno Kahl gets sucked into the Panama Papers. Kahl was Supervisory Board of Bundesdruckerei, as a whistleblower, the Panel wanted to warn of an offshore deal Bundesdruckerei. The Supervisory Board ignored the warning. It is puzzling why Kahl despite this sensitive matter to be head of the service now.

The new BND Bruno Kahl, who is also a close friend of Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, has since 2011, the Supervisory Board of Bundesdruckerei, which reports to the Federal Ministry of Finance. Observers in the European services puzzle why a man who appears indirectly in the Panama Papers, is lifted in such a sensitive position.
Bundesdruckerei is said to have used a front company in Panama for its operations in Venezuela, according to the Panama Papers. In the years 2012 and 2013, an informant turned to the Supervisory Board of Bundesdruckerei to inform members of dubious dealings Bundesdruckerei, reports the Mirror.

But Kahl and the other board members did not want to listen to informants . Instead, let Bundesdruckerei inform the informants through a lawyer that he never intended to resume contact with her ​​or the Supervisory Board. On the Supervisory Board of Bundesdruckerei also August Hanning, of from 1998 to 2005 BND chief and under the cooperation between the BND and NSA was carried out at the spying of data on a large scale sitting. The NSA wiretapping scandal played Hanning down. "I want to make it clear that, of course, you have to expect that anyone who communicates openly, is monitored," citing him the FAZ.

In connection with the business of Bundesdruckerei in Panama also Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble refused to contact the informant who had previously turned to Kahl, Hanning and the other board members. "It is intolerable that the finance minister has just announced full-bodied in the public wanting to take action against tax havens, and must give a day later to have in his subordinate Bundesdruckerei ignored evidence of the use of shell companies", Sahra Wagenknecht said the incident ,
The Finance Ministry announced in a statement a little later: "The facts are known and was also the subject of prosecutorial investigations and external and internal investigations Bundesdruckerei (...) evidence of illegal or even criminal conduct have not been found."

Bruno Kahl was from 1 December 2010 until December 26, 2012 Vice Chairman of the Board of TLG Immobilien. He was a member of the Supervisory Board of WestLB AG successor Portigon Financial Services, reported Bloomberg. He is currently Head of Department VIII (privatization, investments and federal property) in the Federal Ministry of Finance.

ISIS Targeted by Cyberattacks in a New U.S. Line of Combat

The United States has opened a new line of combat against the Islamic State, directing the military’s six-year-old Cyber Command for the first time to mount computer-network attacks that are now being used alongside more traditional weapons.

The effort reflects President Obama’s desire to bring many of the secret American cyberweapons that have been aimed elsewhere, notably at Iran, into the fight against the Islamic State — which has proved effective in using modern communications and encryption to recruit and carry out operations.

The National Security Agency, which specializes in electronic surveillance, has for years listened intensely to the militants of the Islamic State, and those reports are often part of the president’s daily intelligence briefing. But the N.S.A.’s military counterpart, Cyber Command, was focused largely on Russia, China, Iran and North Korea — where cyberattacks on the United States most frequently originate — and had run virtually no operations against what has become the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world.

A review of what should be done to confront the Islamic State is on Mr. Obama’s agenda on Monday, when he is scheduled to attend a conference in Hanover, Germany, with the leaders of Britain, France, Italy and Germany. Of these efforts, the cybercampaign is the newest. It is also the one discussed in least detail by officials of many countries, and its successes or failures are the most difficult to assess from the outside.

The goal of the new campaign is to disrupt the ability of the Islamic State to spread its message, attract new adherents, circulate orders from commanders and carry out day-to-day functions, like paying its fighters. A benefit of the administration’s exceedingly rare public discussion of the campaign, officials said, is to rattle the Islamic State’s commanders, who have begun to realize that sophisticated hacking efforts are manipulating their data. Potential recruits may also be deterred if they come to worry about the security of their communications with the militant group.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter is among those who have publicly discussed the new mission, but only in broad terms, and this month the deputy secretary of defense, Robert O. Work, was more colorful in describing the effort.

“We are dropping cyberbombs,” Mr. Work said. “We have never done that before.”
The campaign has been conducted by a small number of “national mission teams,” newly created cyberunits loosely modeled on Special Operations forces.

While officials declined to discuss the details of their operations, interviews with more than a half-dozen senior and midlevel officials indicate that the effort has begun with a series of “implants” in the militants’ networks to learn the online habits of commanders. Now, the plan is to imitate them or to alter their messages, with the aim of redirecting militants to areas more vulnerable to attack by American drones or local ground forces.

In other cases, officials said, the United States may complement operations to bomb warehouses full of cash by using cyberattacks to interrupt electronic transfers and misdirect payments.

The fact that the administration is beginning to talk of its use of the new weapons is a dramatic change. As recently as four years ago, it would not publicly admit to developing offensive cyberweapons or confirm its role in any attacks on computer networks.

That is partly because cyberattacks inside another nation raise major questions over invasion of sovereignty. But in the case of the Islamic State, officials say a decision was made that a bit of boasting might degrade the enemy’s trust in its communications, jumbling and even deterring some actions.

“Our cyberoperations are disrupting their command-and-control and communications,” Mr. Obama said this month, emerging from a meeting at the C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., on countering the Islamic State.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered broad outlines of the new campaign against the Islamic State, which is also known as ISIS or ISIL, during a news conference in February.

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