Should Trump Add Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to His New ‘Extreme Vetting’ EO?

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A massive terrorist attack this week may cause President Trump and his advisers to rethink the scope of the second edition of his coming executive order on “extreme vetting.”

Pakistan suffered a massive blow at the hands of the Islamic State terror group Thursday when a suicide bomber self-detonated at a Sufi shrine, killing at least 88 and wounding hundreds more. Pakistani security forces have responded, killing more than 100 militants in the day after, according to the Hindustan Times. As chaos continues to unfold inside the country, President Trump has to evaluate whether to accept visa applicants from Pakistan.

Pakistan is dealing with a current wave of terror that its security forces have thus far been unable to quash. Several terrorist groups operate inside the country, including the Islamic State, Taliban, the Haqqani network, al-Qaeda, and countless others. There are also troubling issues concerning Pakistan’s harboring of terrorist leaders and Islamic militants.

Notably, neither Pakistan nor Saudi Arabia – the two most popular countries of origin concerning foreign terrorist attacks in the United States – were on the list of countries included in President Trump’s temporary travel ban executive order (affecting Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan, and Somalia). It is unclear which countries will be affected by the president’s next “extreme vetting” order.

Since 1975, the U.S. has seen 14 Pakistani nationals charged with terrorist-related activites inside the country. The most recent case of a Pakistani committing terrorism in the United States involved Tashfeen Malik, one of the perpetrators of the 2015 terrorist attack in San Bernardino that killed 14 people and injured 22 others.

Pakistan was also the home base for Osama bin Laden as he plotted international terror operations against America. The deceased al-Qaeda leader’s compound in the city of Abbottabad was located a mile away from a military academy, leading experts and officials to speculate whether Pakistani intelligence knew about his whereabouts.

The country of origin of the most foreign-born terrorists in America is Saudi Arabia, which was also not on Trump’s original list. Most infamously, 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia is one of the top bankrollers of international terror and allows for radical Islamist entities to grow within its borders.

President Trump has promised to roll out his latest national security/immigration executive order next week. Will he add Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to his new moratorium? (For more from the author of “Should Trump Add Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to His New ‘Extreme Vetting’ EO?” please click HERE)

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Mystery Deepens in North Korea Princeling Assassination

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What do we really know about the sudden death of an exiled North Korean princeling? Aside from heated media speculation and an instant “it’s-gotta-be-Pyongyang” reaction from Seoul’s spy agency, not much.

As the investigation continues, the mystery of just what happened to the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he waited for a flight in a Malaysian airport only deepens. Was Kim Jong Nam poisoned? Are the two female suspects trained killers or dupes? How can we be sure that North Korea, which seems the obvious culprit, was even involved?

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service — no friend to Pyongyang — and eager reporters across Asia have assembled a dramatic, almost cinematic profile of the last hour of Kim’s life. But there’s still a surfeit of unanswered questions. (Read more from “Mystery Deepens in North Korea Princeling Assassination” HERE)

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Why the Melted Fuel Under Fukushima Could Poison Our Planet With Nuclear Radiation for 1000s of Years

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Six years ago, an absolutely devastating tsunami caused a triple meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power facility. It was the worst environmental disaster in all of human history, and even though six years have passed since that time, nobody knows where the three melted cores are. Just recently, authorities believe that they spotted some melted fuel underneath reactor 2, but even from a distance the level of nuclear radiation that was detected was being described as “unimaginable”. Essentially what we are talking about are three enormous “dirty bombs” that are continuously emitting tremendous amounts of nuclear radiation into the air, water and soil. Some of the radioactive elements that are being released have half-lives that are measured in tens of thousands of years, and so the poisonous effect of these “dirty bombs” could potentially be with us for generation after generation.

Personally, I don’t know why the big mainstream news outlets in the U.S. are almost entirely ignoring Fukushima these days. Fox News did a story on the “unimaginable” radiation at Fukushima just a few days ago, but that was about it.

To me, it is certainly newsworthy that nuclear radiation inside reactor 2 at Fukushima is at the highest level ever recorded…

Radiation levels inside a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant have hit a record high, and are the worst since the plant suffered a triple meltdown nearly six years ago. The latest readings now pose a serious challenge as officials prepare to dismantle the stricken facility.

Radiation levels inside the containment vessel of reactor No. 2 at Fukushima has reached 530 sieverts per hour—a figure described by experts as “unimaginable.”

Previously, the highest level of radiation measured at Fukushima was 73 sieverts per hour, and just a small fraction of that amount would be fatal to most humans…

Needless to say, this plant is not fit for human life. Just one dose of a single sievert is enough to cause radiation sickness and nausea. Exposure to four to five sieverts would kill about half of those exposed to it within a month, while a single dose of 10 sieverts is enough to kill a person within weeks.

At 530 sieverts per hour, the radiation is so intense that even robots can only last for a couple of hours in that environment. The Japanese hope to eventually remove the melted fuel from these reactors someday, but first they have to figure out if it is even possible.

And the truth is that the level of radiation in reactor 2 may actually be far higher than 530 sieverts per hour. That is because the recent reading was taken “some distance from the melted fuel”…

The 530 sievert reading was recorded some distance from the melted fuel, so in reality it could be 10 times higher than recorded, said Hideyuki Ban, co-director of Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center.

Experts are also warning that the levels of radiation may be much higher than 530 sieverts per hour in reactors 1 and 3. Nobody knows, because the melted fuel in those reactors has not even been located yet.

Even though so much time has gone by, there is still very much an urgency to this crisis. In a newly published article, Mike Adams of Natural News explained why this is the case…

In effect, Fukushima has become the world’s largest dirty bomb, and the remaining fuel rods could explode (achieve criticality) at any moment. Even right now, the radiation is so intense that robots built to explore the wreckage can only survive for a few hours before their circuits are destroyed. Thus, there’s almost no scenario in which Japan, Tepco or anybody in the world figures out how to clean up the wreckage, reclaim the melting fuel rods and reestablish control over the nuclear reactions that are still ongoing.

You can’t even successfully build a containment vessel on top of it all because the melting nuclear fuel has already burned a massive hole in the floor and is melting its way into the ground water.

What most people don’t understand is that the melted nuclear fuel under Fukushima is going to be with us for a very, very long time. Some of the fuel rods contained plutonium-239, and plutonium-239 has a half-life of approximately 24,000 years…

Do they think a one-meter hole magically appears in nuclear containment vessels due to random chance? No, it’s melting fuel rods, you morons. And some of that fuel is MOX fuel, which contains plutonium-239 that boasts a half life of 24,000 years. So sometime in the year 26000 A.D. the Fukushima nightmare will be HALF as toxic as it is right now. What a wonderful, progressive future to look forward to, eh?

Plutonium-239 is one of the most dangerous substances known to humanity. As nuclear expert Steven C. Jones once explained, it would not take much plutonium-239 to kill every man, woman and child on the entire planet…

To give one an example of how lethal radiation is, one pound of plutonium evenly distributed into everyone’s lungs would kill every man, woman and child on Earth. There are literally “tons” of radioactive plutonium (among other radioactive elements) that have been released into the air and ocean environments since March 11th. Another critical fact to remember is that radioactive plutonium, for example, remains lethal (killing life) for thousands years as it has a half-life of 24,000 years. Some other radioactive elements such as uranium have a half-life of 4.47 billion years.

And remember, more radioactive material is being released from Fukushima every single day. The following comes from an interview with Kevin Kamps, the radioactive waste monitor at Beyond Nuclear…

There are claims that “it’s all contained, don’t worry about it.” It is indisputable that there is a daily flow of radioactively contaminated groundwater into the ocean. The figures something like 80,000 gallons per day of relatively low-level radioactive waste water. Then you’ve got those storage tanks – we’re talking 800,000 tons of highly radioactive water stored in tanks. Every day they pour a hundred tons of water on each of these three melted down cores. Sometimes they lose those tanks. They leak, they overflow – it is an ongoing catastrophe.

Are you starting to understand how serious this is?

Once nuclear material escapes from Fukushima, it literally gets distributed all over the planet.

That means that it is getting into our air, our water and our food supply.

And I find it extremely interesting that the EPA was moving to dramatically raise the “safe limits” on radioactivity in our drinking water right at the end of the Obama administration. The following comes from a Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility press release dated December 22, 2016…

“Following Japan’s Fukushima meltdown in 2011, EPA’s claims that no radioactivity could reach the U.S. at levels of concern were contradicted by its own rainwater measurements showing contamination from Fukushima throughout the U.S. well above Safe Drinking Water Act limits. In reaction, EPA prepared new limits 1000s of times higher than even the Fukushima rainwater because ‘EPA experienced major difficulties conveying to the public that the detected levels…were not of immediate concern for public health.’”

Why in the world would the EPA do that?

Here are some more of the details…

The documents obtained by PEER revealed that the EPA plans to raise maximum allowable limits of iodine-131, cobalt-60 and calcium-45 to more than 10,000 times the levels allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Others would be hundreds or thousands of times higher under the new guidelines.

The agency’s justification for withholding the new proposed limits from the public until after the proposal had been adopted was that it wanted to “avoid confusion.”

Radioactive material is also getting into our food supply. If you love to eat fish this next item may be a bummer, because it is being reported that radiation from Fukushima was recently found in salmon off the coast of Oregon…

Fish contaminated by radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan have been detected 6,000 miles away of the US west coast.

Salmon carrying traces of caesium 134 particles – the so-called fingerprint of the Fukushima – were found by researchers in the seas off Oregon.

One we eat something that has been contaminated, radioactive material will often migrate to key organs in our body, and once it is there it can poison us indefinitely. In a previous article I included a quote from author Helen Caldicott, the author of “Crisis Without End: The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe“. I am including the quote once again in this article because it is absolutely imperative that we all understand the danger that we are facing…

Internal radiation, on the other hand, emanates from radioactive elements which enter the body by inhalation, ingestion, or skin absorption. Hazardous radionuclides such as iodine-131, caesium 137, and other isotopes currently being released in the sea and air around Fukushima bio-concentrate at each step of various food chains (for example into algae, crustaceans, small fish, bigger fish, then humans; or soil, grass, cow’s meat and milk, then humans). After they enter the body, these elements – called internal emitters – migrate to specific organs such as the thyroid, liver, bone, and brain, where they continuously irradiate small volumes of cells with high doses of alpha, beta and/or gamma radiation, and over many years, can induce uncontrolled cell replication – that is, cancer. Further, many of the nuclides remain radioactive in the environment for generations, and ultimately will cause increased incidences of cancer and genetic diseases over time.

The amount of cesium-137 that has been released at Fukushima is equivalent to hundreds of Hiroshima bombs.

But because we can’t see, touch, taste or hear the danger, to many people it may not seem real.

Nuclear radiation is a silent killer, and unless a miracle happens the consequences of the Fukushima nuclear disaster will be felt for generations to come. (For more from the author of “Why the Melted Fuel Under Fukushima Could Poison Our Planet With Nuclear Radiation for 1000s of Years” please click HERE)

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Obama Abandoned Syria’s Christians. Now Trump Can Save Them.

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The Trump administration stated that it wants to eradicate ISIS and protect persecuted Christians in the Middle East. If it’s to have any real hope of accomplishing these crucial goals, the president and his team need to work with America’s allies who are already succeeding on the ground: the Federation of Northern Syria, which coordinates efforts of Kurdish, Arab, Syriac Christian and other resistance groups.

The Syriac-Assyrian Christian co-president of the Federation is appealing to the Trump administration to send support to the brave Christian fighters in Syria — whom President Obama refused to help. The Syriac-Assyrian Christian forces there are fighting bravely, but in desperate need of military and humanitarian aid, as can be seen in the new video below, which was provided as an exclusive to The Stream. Supporters of Syrian Christians hope Christians in the U.S., and this new Administration, will support them in ending ISIS and bringing freedom to the Middle East.

Fake News and Turkish Propaganda Target Syrian Christians

One big obstacle to this goal is “fake news” and propaganda, circulated by those who support (knowingly or not) the intolerant policies of Turkey’s autocratic, Islamist government — which will do almost anything to prevent the long-stateless Kurdish people from obtaining real autonomy. The Turks fear that any progress for Kurds in Iraq or Syria will stir up the millions of Kurds whom Turkey represses within its borders. Yet the Kurds have proved one of the few forces on the ground willing to protect Syriac Christians, Yazidis, and other oppressed minorities, as I learned from my experience in and with the area and have reported here at The Stream. In fact, the Kurds have formed a self-governing region (the Federation of Northern Syria) which grants Christians, women, and Yazidis real political participation—which they lack elsewhere in the region.

The Nation Swallows the Turkish Government Line

According to a highly misleading article in the leftist magazine The Nation, the Federation is little more than a fig leaf for the Kurdish militia, the YPG — which it alleges has been driving away the Arab population as well as dissident Kurds and others on a massive scale. According to the same article, the YPG is actually controlled by Iran and has a hidden agreement with both the Assad regime and ISIS. As evidence for this elaborate conspiracy theory, the article cites many anonymous sources. The reporter did some ‘fact finding’ of his own, but seems to have only traveled to Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan (KRG), which is controlled de facto by Turkey and its allies.

One interesting accusation he makes is that that the YPG allowed ISIS to take the whole region around Kobane, and only put up a token defense in the city center, in order to make sure that the fighting cleansed the area of Arabs. By this reporter’s account, the YPG is a masterful, diabolically cunning organization, which can predict and precisely control the outcomes of a shifting, chaotic battlefield — something that any military officer would know is quite impossible.

The use of evidence by the article in The Nation is interesting in its own right. It is widely known that it is not possible to do independent research among refugees in Turkey. Free journalism does not exist in Turkey anymore; just ask the hundreds of journalists languishing in prison for “thought crimes.” Turkey is furthermore a self-declared enemy of the YPG, and is the only country that has declared the YPG a terrorist organization. This means that anyone doing research in Turkey among refugees related to the YPG will be strictly monitored. Turkey’s secret police will send ‘witnesses’ to the reporter and manipulate his research. Finding ‘people who fled the YPG’ in Turkey is a strange thing in its own right, since Turkey blocked the border with the Federation and regularly kills those who try to cross.

Erasing the Syrian Christians Who Fight for Freedom

The Nation article contradicts the facts on the ground. The author suggests that the Kurdish YPG acts as the only fighting force in the Federation of Northern Syria (North-East Syria). This is simply untrue. I myself have been in Syria at the bases of both the Syriac-Assyrian forces and the Arab forces who cooperate with the YPG in the larger structure of the Syrian Democratic Forces. They are not in this for the show, as this video demonstrates very clearly:

The idea that the Arabs themselves would support Kurdification by driving Arabs out of the area is obvious nonsense. The multi-ethnic reality of the Syrian Democratic Forces is intentionally omitted from The Nation piece because it makes nonsense of the author’s premise. Would Arabs, Kurds and Syriac Christians drive away their own families and peoples? It would mean a constant war inside these areas, which is clearly not happening. The reverse is true: these peoples work together in governance and defense in a unique multi-ethnic alliance.

The key report on which the reporter relies, from the Syrian Network for Human Rights and Amnesty International, repeats the same false storyline: Kurds driving Arabs away. But independent journalists have debunked this charge, including its principal accusation — the so-called “Hajjia massacre.” This independent research also showed how unreliable are Syrian sources who work under the control of Turkish media minders. After probing questions, Amnesty International admitted that it spent far less time on research than stated and already retracted its ‘ethnic cleansing’ claim. Other independent research has demonstrated how such propaganda is manufactured and used by Turkey and its allies. Finally, if the Federation drives away Arabs, why would Arabs from Iraq flee to the Federation and be taken in there and cared for as refugees?

The One Piece of Syria Where Christians and Women are Free

My own experience of the last three years proved to me that the caricature of the Federation as a one-party, tribal state is simply untrue. I have been cooperating with a Syriac-Assyrian party there and met with the representatives of several other parties who are active in the area. The reality that I witnessed in the area is that Kurds, Arabs and Syriac-Assyrian Christians, men and women, cooperate in governing The Federation and defending it with its Syrian Democratic Forces.

Why are people leaving the Federation? The real reason for the vast majority of departures is mentioned in The Nation story itself: the crippling economic blockade imposed by Turkey and the KRG. I remember sitting down with a priest there whose only complaint was that people were leaving due to economic deprivation. The reason that Turkey and the KRG maintain this blockade is simple: they do not want multi-ethnic cooperation, democracy and especially freedom to come to the Middle East. The culture of domination and oppression serves them well and they do not want to see deep, bottom-up change that leads to freedom and real human rights. They do not favor freedom of religion, or women working freely as legal equals of men — two realities inside the Federation of Northern Syria, but in few other places in the Middle East.

This is why the accusations that the Federation of Northern Syria is actually driven by Iran, supports the Assad regime and cooperates with ISIS (all at the same time!) are so clearly ‘fake-facts.’ Ask yourself some skeptical questions:

Why would Iran support freedom of religion and freedom for women?

How can Iran support the YPG and fight against its sister-organization PJAK at the same time?

Why would ISIS cooperate with its most effective enemy?

If the Assad regime cooperates with the Federation, why did it bomb the Federation’s forces in Hassakeh until the Russians and U.S. pressured it to stop?

Why are pro-Assad agitators so angry at me when we disseminate information on the Federation of Northern Syria to interested Christians in Europe?

All these forces — Assad, ISIS, Iran, and Turkey — are united on just one point: opposing the growth of home-grown Western-style freedom in the Middle East. But it is only the emergence of such freedom that can save the region from its grim cycle of war, oppression and terrorism.

The Trump Administration Can Save Syria’s Christians

This is why the US needs to act now and act fast. With the Obama administration’s approval, Turkey has moved into Syria with forces who chant anti-American slogans, and boast of driving all Christians out of Syria. Now Turkey wants to attack the Federation with this army, just at the moment when the SDF is surrounding Raqqa, the capital of ISIS. Christian-hating Turkish forces want to destroy the Kurds and Syriac-Assyrian Christians in northern Syria under the pretext of attacking ISIS. On February 13, the Institute for the Study of War issued an urgent warning that Turkey threatens to halt U.S. anti-ISIS operations in Syria.

The Trump administration should see through Turkey’s screen of propaganda that its real allies in the region are the freedom-loving Kurds, Syriacs, Arabs and Yazidis who work and fight together as brothers — in a region too often splintered along tribal and religious lines. (For more from the author of “Obama Abandoned Syria’s Christians. Now Trump Can Save Them.” please click HERE)

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Special Ops Chief: US Troops Have Killed 60,000 ISIS Militants the Past Two Years

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U.S. military forces have killed 60,000 Islamic State militants over the past two years, according to a U.S. Special Operations Commander.

On Tuesday, while speaking at a defense conference near Washington D.C., Army Gen. Raymond Thomas said the figure is substantially higher than the one reported at the end of last year – when U.S. officials said they had killed 50,000 ISIS fighters.

“I’m not into morbid body count, but that matters,” Thomas said at the National Defense Industrial Association’s annual Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict conference, according to the Military Times. “So when folks ask, do you need more aggressive [measures], do you need better [rules of engagement], I would tell you that we’re being pretty darn prolific right now.”

But Defense Department Spokesman Christopher Sherwood told Fox News that death tolls are not a proper measure of “effectiveness” in the fight against ISIS.

“References to enemy killed are estimates, not precise figures,” Sherwood told Fox News via email. “While the number of enemy killed is one measure of military success, the [U.S. military] coalition does not use this as a measure of effectiveness in the campaign to defeat ISIS.” (Read more from “Special Ops Chief: US Troops Have Killed 60,000 ISIS Militants the Past Two Years” HERE)

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A New Dawn for the Middle East? Trump Promises Closer and Stronger US-Israel Relations

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THE WHITE HOUSE — President Donald Trump committed to a strong U.S.-Israel partnership Wednesday in his first meeting as president with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Unlike his predecessors, the president said he was willing to embrace a variety of solutions for the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Still, President Trump insisted that America would not define parameters for a peace deal between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people. Contrary to the rigid two-state solution demands of the Obama administration and past presidents, Trump said he would review all available options for peace.

“I’m looking at two state and one state. And I like the one that both parties like. I can live with either one,” Trump said at the joint press conference with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu agreed, claiming that policymakers need to get away from “labels” and get down to “substance” in negotiations.

Critics of the two-state solution note that it would essentially empower the terrorist group Hamas in Gaza and the terror-supporting Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. Other solutions for peace bring more countries and disputed territories into the fold, allowing for other actors to have a stake in the fate of the Palestinians.

Trump asked Netanyahu to “hold back on settlements a little bit,” referencing Israeli building projects in disputed territories. However, he did not suggest that the “settlements” in any way infringed upon a peace deal. Obama not only demanded Israel stop building settlements, he and his officials blamed the housing projects for the lack of peace in the entire region.

Netanyahu said he was looking forward to working with America to stop global jihadist movements.

“Under your leadership, I believe we can reverse the rising tide of radical Islam … Israel stands with you and I stand with you,” the Israeli prime minister said.

The two leaders agreed that one of the biggest obstacles to peace was the Palestinians’ practice of resorting to hatred and incitement. Both Netanyahu and Trump touched upon the fact that Palestinians are taught from an early age to not recognize Israel’s existence.

“The Palestinians have to get rid of some of the hate that they’re taught at a young age. They’re taught tremendous hate. I’ve seen what they’re taught,” Trump commented. Netanyahu added: “They continue to call for Israel’s destruction inside their schools, inside their mosques, inside their textbooks. You have to read it to believe it.”

The president did not commit to moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. He did say, however, he was looking “very, very strongly” into the matter.

By and large, Trump and Netanyahu started things off on the right foot. The two leaders openly stated a deep appreciation for the other’s humanity and accomplishments. Netanyahu defended Trump from a hostile question insinuating that his November election victory was to blame for the rise of anti-Semitism worldwide. Trump welcomed his “friend” in Netanyahu and promised to uphold the “unbreakable bond” between the two nations. (For more from the author of “A New Dawn for the Middle East? Trump Promises Closer and Stronger US-Israel Relations” please click HERE)

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Moscow Issues Its First Nuclear Challenge to Trump

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Almost right out of the gate, the Trump administration is facing its first arms control challenge from Moscow.

Russia has reportedly deployed its new cruise missile in an apparent violation of the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, in effect since 1988.

The treaty prohibits the possession of ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Russia’s ground-launched SSC-8 cruise missile has been under development and testing for several years.

Russia initially violated the treaty by testing the missile during Barack Obama’s presidency. Despite becoming aware of this apparent violation, the Obama administration did not take any forceful action to bring Russia back into compliance with the treaty, merely sending President Vladimir Putin a letter of concern in July of 2014.

The Obama administration was less than forthcoming in discussing challenges that the treaty violation poses for the United States and its allies. The State Department’s annual compliance reports prior to July 2014 wrongly led Americans to believe there was no reason for concern over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, even though the missile has reportedly been tested as early as 2008.

The Trump administration must do better.

The missile range limit of 500 kilometers is significant for U.S. allies in Europe situated close to the Russian borders and to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave that borders Poland and Lithuania. The presence of Russian intermediate-range missiles would considerably complicate any U.S. efforts to defend its allies in the Baltics and Central and Eastern Europe should Russia decide to violate their territorial integrity.

Such a scenario is not as far-fetched as it might seem. Russia has a recent history of violating other nations’ sovereignty and territorial integrity. It also periodically issues nuclear threats against the North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies and conducts military exercises that simulate nuclear strikes against Poland.

Gen. Philip Breedlove, commander of Supreme Allied Command Europe and of U.S. European Command, said NATO allies are “concerned” over the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty issue and argued that violations “can’t go unanswered.”

For its part, Russia accuses the United States of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty violations. But Russian accusations are baseless. U.S. missile defense systems do not violate the treaty because the treaty itself contains an exception for them.

Neither do U.S. drones violate the treaty, as they are simply not mentioned by the treaty at all.

The Trump administration has a range of options to respond to the Russian treaty violations. Purely diplomatic measures to address the violation first begun during the Obama administration may not be sufficient.

Historically, arms control tends to limit how the United States learns about military systems and their interactions in a broader context. This is why terminating the treaty is a viable option.

Currently, Moscow is doing whatever it deems necessary to its strategic interest regardless of the treaty, while the United States continues to abide by it. The administration should not ponder any future arms control initiatives and nuclear weapons reduction agreements at least until this issue is resolved. (For more from the author of “Moscow Issues Its First Nuclear Challenge to Trump” please click HERE)

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Iran Defeats U.S. Navy in Defiant Animated Film

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A full-length animated film depicting an armed confrontation between Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the U.S. Navy is soon to open in Iranian cinemas, amid rising tensions over President Donald Trump’s hardening rhetoric against Tehran.

The director of the “Battle of Persian Gulf II”, Farhad Azima, said that it was a remarkable coincidence that the release of the film – four years in the making – coincided with a “warmongering” president sitting in the White House.

“I hope that the film shows Trump how American soldiers will face a humiliating defeat if they attack Iran,” Azima told Reuters in a telephone interview from the city of Mashhad in eastern Iran.

The 88-minute animation opens with the U.S. Army attacking an Iranian nuclear reactor, and the U.S. Navy in the Gulf hitting strategic locations across the county.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a powerful branch of the Iranian military, retaliates with full force, raining ballistic missiles on the U.S. warships. (Read more from “Iran Defeats U.S. Navy in Defiant Animated Film” HERE)

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North Korea Suspected Behind Murder of Leader’s Half-Brother: U.S. Sources

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The U.S. government strongly believes that North Korean agents murdered the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Malaysia, U.S. government sources said on Tuesday.

American authorities have not yet determined exactly how Kim Jong Nam was killed, according to two sources, who did not provide specific evidence to support the U.S. government’s view.

A South Korean government source also had said that Kim Jong Nam had been murdered in Malaysia. He did not provide further details.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said it could not confirm the reports, and the country’s intelligence agency could not immediately be reached for comment.

In Washington, there was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Trump administration, which faces a stiff challenge from a defiant North Korea over its nuclear arms program and the test of a ballistic missile last weekend. (Read more from “North Korea Suspected Behind Murder of Leader’s Half-Brother: U.S. Sources” HERE)

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Russia Sends Spy Ship Near US Coast, Deploys Banned Missiles at Home, Officials Say

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A Russian spy ship was spotted patrolling off the East Coast of the United States on Tuesday morning, the first such instance during the Trump administration — and the same day it was learned the Kremlin had secretly deployed controversial cruise missiles inside Russia and flew within 200 yards of a U.S. Navy destroyer, U.S. officials told Fox News.

The Russian ship was in international waters, 70 miles off the coast of Delaware and heading north at 10 knots, according to one official. The U.S. territory line is 12 nautical miles.

It was not immediately clear where the ship is headed.

Later Tuesday, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that Russia had deployed ground-launched cruise missiles to two locations inside the country in December. The New York Times first reported that the Obama administration had previously seen the missiles — then in a testing phase — as a violation of a 1987 treaty between the U.S. and Russia that banned ground-launched intermediate-range missiles.

But Russia has pressed ahead with its program, apparently testing a Trump administration which has sought better ties with Moscow — but is also fresh off the loss of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned Monday night in the wake of a scandal surrounding his communications with Russia. (Read more from “Russia Sends Spy Ship Near US Coast, Deploys Banned Missiles at Home, Officials Say” HERE)

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