Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Russian Military Stages Biggest War Games Since Soviet Times
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily NewsRT
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

160,000 servicemen, 1000 tanks, 130 planes and 70 ships are taking part in Russia’s biggest military drill since Soviet times. The war games will continue in the country’s Far East until July 20.

The maneuvers are the latest in series of surprise military checks which performed by Russia, in an effort to reveal and oust flaws in the country’s defense program.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu received an order to test the battle readiness of the Eastern command, which unites military forces in the Far East and Trans-Baikal. The request was received from President Vladimir Putin at 01:00 local time (21:00 GMT) on Saturday, July 13.

Following the order, 160,000 servicemen were put on high alert and began advancing toward the training sites.

According to the Defense Ministry, around 1,000 tanks and armored vehicles, 130 planes and helicopters, and 70 ships are taking part in the war games.

Military commanders in the Far East and Trans-Baikal learned of the drill’s details only after it had begun, receiving a secret parcel from Defense Minister Shoygu.

“The main purpose of the activities is to check the readiness of the military units to perform assigned tasks and evaluate of the level of personnel’s training and technical preparation as well as the level of equipment of units with arms and military equipment,” the defense ministry said in statement.

The statement noted that the drill would require some units to travel more than 3,000 kilometers from their usual deployment sites. Seven hundred flat wagons and 50 railway cars were assigned to perform the transfer.

The ground forces have been given two days to reach their destination. They have been tasked with pitching field camps, masking their positions, and organizing defense strategies upon arrival.

Muslim Brotherhood Suspends Ramadan, Egypt Inches Toward War
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily NewsIsrael Today
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood on Monday ruled that pious Muslims are permitted to break the fast of Ramadan in order to take part in the "jihad" to regain control of the country.

In a series of messages posted on the Internet, Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Badie stated that on the anniversary of the historic Battle of Badr (July 26), a new historic battle would be waged to reverse the recent ouster of President Mohammed Morsi and the Brotherhood.

For the next 11 days until that battle begins, faithful Muslims are required to maintain demonstrations in public squares, and "the ruling against those who leave [the squares] is akin to the ruling against those who flee the battle and jihad against the infidels," said Badie.

The forces of Islam's prophet Mohammed also broke the fast of Ramadan in order to prepare for the Battle of Badr, in which the Muslims defeated the tribe controlling Mecca.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian army, which quickly sided with millions of anti-Morsi protesters in deposing the president earlier this month, fought back by freezing the funds of 14 leading Islamist leaders on Sunday.

To the chagrin of a great many Egyptians, the United States and other Western powers appear to be still supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, despite the fact that a majority of Egyptians say the group won the last election via deceit and fraud. Over the weekend, both Germany and the US called on Egypt's interim rulers to release Morsi, who is currently being held in a military barrack.

In a worrying sign of how quickly the situation could spiral out of control, Islamic militants on Monday opened fire on a bus in the Sinai town of El Arish, killing 3 people and wounding another 17.

The Egyptian army has, with the cooperation of Israel, significantly increased its activity in Sinai in an effort to root out Islamic terrorist organizations deeply embedded there.

Many Casualties in Surging Egyptian Army - Islamist Sinai Hostilities. Two Flashpoints Near Israeli Bo
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The last ten days have seen dozens killed and hundreds wounded in battles between Egyptian security forces and a coalition of increasingly aggressive Islamist Salafists and Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami fighters, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report. The Egyptian military has clamped a news blackout on the Sinai battlefield.

In the latest incident Monday, July 15, rocket-propelled grenades blew up a bus carrying workmen to the Multinational Force-MFO based at Al Gora near the North Sinai town of El Arish. According to official sources, three of the passengers were killed and 17 injured. Unofficial estimates were as high as 13-20 dead. The attackers shouted Allahu Akbar when the bus blew up.

debkafile reports that further, unknown numbers of Egyptian soldiers and Islamist assailants were killed in a gunfight nearby. The Salafists were trying to plant explosives along the road connecting the town of Sheih Zweid to the MFO encampment. Many of them died when gunshots detonated the explosives they were holding. 

Our sources disclose that since the fall of the Muslim Brotherhood in Cairo on July 3, Egyptian troops confront surging Islamist violence at four current flashpoints in Sinai, two near the Israeli border.

One is the Rafah area south of the Gaza Strip where the Salafists are tackling Egyptian forces engaged in blocking the smuggling tunnels running contraband into the Palestinian enclave.
The commander of Egypt’s Second Army, Gen. Ahmed Wasfi, is convinced by incoming intelligence that the Muslim Brotherhood unseated two weeks ago in Cairo and its Libyan allies are conniving with the Salafist Bedouin of Sinai and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami of the Gaza Strip to stage a violent uprising against the Egyptian army and security forces in Sinai.

The events of the past 24 hours confirm him in this conviction. Saturday, July 13, the Egyptian army intercepted and destroyed three arms convoys crossing from Libya into Egypt on their way to the Gaza Strip. The next day, armed Salafists conducted a multiple onslaught on Egyptian Border Police camps, checkpoints and patrols opposite the Israel region of Halutza.

The residents of Bnei Netzarim, Naveh, Yevul, Dekel, Avshalom and Sdeh Avraham were told to stay in protected areas and local security squads placed on alert, in case the Salafist assailants stormed across the border to attack Israeli targets.

Overnight, the IDF bolstered military units in the area. In the process, an Israeli Hermes 450 drone crashed while on surveillance duty over the embattled area. The Israeli Air Force reported that a technical fault caused the drone to fly out of control.
All Sunday, the Egyptian army sent extra forces to bolster the engineering units engaged in destroying the smuggling tunnels carrying arms, fighters and consumer goods into the Gaza Strip for more than a decade, which provided the Hamas-ruled regime with a major source of revenue. Orders from the high command in Cairo were to step up the pressure on Hamas and Jihad Islami. And so, the Egyptian army targeted a number of tunnels on the Rafah border used to smuggle fuel to Gaza. Without gas, their combat mobility will be sharply reduced.

Bulldozers were used to remove several machines pumping fuel into the Gaza Strip through the tunnels.

Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh tried appealing to Egyptian intelligence chiefs in Cairo to stop the operation. He was fobbed off with junior officers who said they were not competent to make decisions in the matter and would pass his request to higher authority.
The El Arish area has become the most dangerous of all the four flashpoints: There, the heavily concentrated Egyptian force is battered by constant assaults. They are hemmed in by thousands of Salafist gunmen. Any officer, soldier or vehicle trying to exit their fortified compound runs the gauntlet of roadside bombs, anti-tank weapons, hand grenades and heavy machine gun fire.
Fighting is raging at two more locations: the central mountains of Jabel Halal and along the Egyptian-Israeli border opposite Israel’s southern air base of Ovda.

Let the Headlines Speak
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily NewsFrom the Internet
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Typhoon Soulik kills three in China's Guangdong region
Three people have died after Typhoon Soulik hit China's southern Guangdong province, state media say. The storm, which has already killed two others in Taiwan, forced a further 20,000 people to flee their homes, the Xinhua news agency reports. Some 300,000 people have already been evacuated from eastern China amid warnings of floods and landslides.  

India floods: More than 5,700 people 'presumed dead'
The government in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand has said that more than 5700 people missing after last month's devastating floods will now be presumed dead. Their families will be given financial compensation. Earlier, authorities had confirmed that some 600 people had died.  

China's economic growth at 7.5% in April to June period
China's economic growth slowed in the April to June period, the second straight quarter of weaker expansion. The world's second biggest economy grew by 7.5% compared to the previous year, down from 7.7% in the January to March period, data showed.  

Legal Fears Slowed Aid to Syrian Rebels
A string of cautionary opinions from administration lawyers over the last two years sheds new light on President Barack Obama's halting and ultimately secretive steps to provide military support to rebels in Syria's deadly civil war.  

Islamic militants leave Pakistan to fight in Syria
Suleman spent years targeting minority Shiite Muslims in his home country of Pakistan as a member of one of the country's most feared militant groups. Now he is on his way to a new sectarian battleground, Syria, where he plans to join Sunni rebels battling President Bashar Assad's regime.  

Egypt Freezes Assets of Brotherhood Leaders
Prosecutors froze the financial assets of senior leaders in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, in a sign of a deepening crackdown on the group. The move against 14 of the Brotherhood's leaders came two weeks after an estimated tens of millions of protesters thronged streets throughout the country to demand the resignation of former President Mohammed Morsi, who the Brotherhood backed.  

Zimmerman lawyer to move ‘asap’ against NBC News
Last night’s not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial will enable the neighborhood-watch volunteer to resume his case against NBC News for the mis-editing of his widely distributed call to police. Back in December, Zimmerman sued NBC Universal Media for defamation over the botched editing, which depicted him as a hardened racial profiler.

BREAKING: Russia Mobilizes 160,000 Troops
After US Officials Confirm Israel Took Out Russian Missiles At Latakia Arsenal in Syria, The Most Ambitious Since 1991 Military Exercises In The Far East.

Russia Launches Largest Military Exercise in Post-Soviet Period
The Defense Ministry announced the move which is the largest surprise check of combat readiness of the Russian military in the post-Soviet period. The exercise, which involves over 80,000 servicemen, some 1,000 armored vehicles, 130 aircraft and 70 warships from the Pacific Fleet, will continue until July 20, Russian news agency, RIA Novosti reported.

Jerusalem Police Close Temple Mt to Jewish Visitors
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily Newsdebkafile
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Police sealed the Biblical shrine of Jewish Temples to Jewish visitors Monday after incidents of harassment by Muslims attending Ramadan prayers at al Aqsa shouting Allahu Akbar. The Fast of Tisha Be'Av, the annual day of mourning for the destruction of the Jewish Temple, begins begins Monday night.

Israel May Attack Iran Before U.S., PM Warns
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily NewsINN
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

Iran is moving “closer and closer” to building a nuclear weapon and Israel may have to act before the United States does, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned Sunday.

“They’re edging up to the red line. They haven’t crossed it yet,” Netanyahu said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“They’re getting closer and closer to the bomb. And they have to be told in no uncertain terms that that will not be allowed to happen.”

Netanyahu went on to say that Israel had a more narrow timetable than Washington, implying it may have to take unilateral action to halt Iran’s controversial nuclear program.

“Our clocks are ticking at a different pace. We’re closer than the United States. We’re more vulnerable. And therefore, we’ll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does,” he said.

Netanyahu said Tehran has been building “faster centrifuges that would enable them to jump the line, so to speak, at a much faster rate — that is, within a few weeks.”

Netanyahu said Iran’s nuclear policies were unlikely to change under its next president, former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rouhani, who will assume power on August 3.

“He’s criticizing his predecessor (President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) for being a wolf in wolf’s clothing. His strategy is be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Smile and build a bomb,” Netanyahu said.

Iran Attack "Not on the Table"
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily NewsINN - Ari Soffer
Categories: Today's Headlines;The Nation Of Israel

The option of an Israeli military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is essentially off the agenda, according to a senior diplomatic source cited Monday by the Ma'ariv daily. 

According to the source, Israel's military and political leadership is not determined enough to lead such a bold move. He added that the defense establishment has not proposed viable plans that would enable military containment of Iran's nuclear development program.

The report comes less than a day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Israel might have to act against Iran before the United States does, noting that the Islamic Republic could "jump" the red line of having a nuclear weapon in a matter of weeks.

In an interview with CBS News's "Face the Nation." Netanyahu claimed that Iran was "edging up to the red line. They haven't crossed it yet [but] [t]hey're getting closer and closer to the bomb. And they have to be told in no uncertain terms that that will not be allowed to happen."

Netanyahu also claimed that Israel's timetable to act on Iranian proliferation was narrower than that Washington's, implying it may have to take unilateral action to halt Iran's controversial nuclear program.

"Our clocks are ticking at a different pace. We're closer than the United States. We're more vulnerable. And therefore, we'll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does," he said.

He went on to dismiss the idea that Iranian President-elect, Hassan Rouhani, was more "moderate" than his predecessor, claiming his veneer of moderation was just that:

"He's criticizing his predecessor (President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) for being a wolfin wolf's clothing. His strategy is be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Smile and build a bomb," Netanyahu said.

He urged the United States to make clear to Rouhani that it will not allow Iran to build a nuclear weapon, and that military force "is truly on the table."

Fukushima 2013: “Remaining Radioactive Mass”, “Dangerous Leaking Radioactive Water”
Jul 15th, 2013
Daily NewsLTEB
Categories: Today's Headlines;Contemporary Issues

The first thing to know about the danger from the radioactive mass remaining on site in the three reactors that melted down at Fukushima is that nobody knows how much radioactive material there is, nobody knows how much uranium and plutonium it contains, and nobody knows how to make it safe — so no one knows how great the continuing danger is.

In order to prevent nuclear material from being diverted to use in weapons, the International Atomic Energy Agency of the U.N. requires each country to report regularly on the volume of nuclear materials in its nuclear power plants. At Fukushima, this is currently impossible with the cores of the three reactors that melted down.

Diversion of this material to weapons use is not a problem at the moment, since the level of radioactivity is high enough to kill anyone who comes close to it, which is why it hasn’t been moved. On the other hand, it is necessary to move it in order to measure it, and even if it was movable now, the technology to measure it does not yet exist.

 Cooling the Cores Keeps Them from Burning, but Creates Radioactive Water

The Japanese Atomic Energy Agency has joined with the U.S. to develop the necessary new technology, which it hopes to begin using within a decade. The Japanese agency calls this collaboration the “world’s first” attempt at such technology, since a similar U.S. initiative to measure the melted core from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident failed.

  Watertight fuel pools are used effectively at nuclear power plants around the world, including Fukushima before the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.  Now the reactor structures are no longer watertight and TEPCO has pumped millions of gallons of fresh and “least contaminated” into the structures since then, and continues to do so.

Radioactive Water Is Dangerous, And It Has To Go Somewhere

Water used to cool nuclear fuel and waste becomes radioactive itself, as does the groundwater that infiltrates the structures. This radioactive water continues to reach the Pacific Ocean in varying quantities, as TEPCO attempts to keep it in check.

As of May 7, the Japan Times reported that TEPCO had installed 290 huge storage talks at Fukushima to hold more than 78 million gallons (290,000 tons) of radioactive water, with another 25 million gallons still uncollected.  Fukushima is generating an estimated 100,000-plus gallons (400 tons) of radioactive water every day

 TEPCO estimates that groundwater is entering the complex at a rate of at least 54,000 gallons per day. In May 2012, the Japanese government ordered TEPCO to build a wall deep into the ground around the plant to keep groundwater out, a plan that might become operational by early 2015.

TEPCO is expanding its storage capacity to about 1.9 billion gallons by clearing forest and other areas around the compound.  While this would probably suffice for another three years, the site is running out of storage space. Additionally, some of the storage tanks have begun to leak and contaminated water is leaking into the soil.

In the Nuclear Business, Truth Has a Limited Half-Life 

To address these difficulties, TEPCO is proposing to treat its radioactive water to remove some of the radioactivity, and then release the rest into the Pacific Ocean. There is local opposition to this plan, especially from fishermen.

 In July 2012, as some officials were assuring the public that fish from the Pacific were safe to eat, the Japan Fisheries Agency compiled statistics showing the opposite. As reported by a Canadian website, Vancouver’s straight.com:

“The numbers show that far from dissipating with time, as government officials and scientists in Canada and elsewhere claimed they would, levels of radiation from Fukushima have stayed stubbornly high in fish.

“In June 2012, the average contaminated fish catch had 65 becquerels of cesium per kilo. That’s much higher than the average of five Bq/kg found in the days after the accident back in March 2011, before cesium from Fukushima had spread widely through the region’s food chain.  In some species, radiation levels are actually higher this year than last.”