The former director of Norway’s Nobel Institute revealed this week that he regrets the committee’s decision to give the 2009 Nobel Peace award to President Obama.
Geil Lundestad, director at the institute for 25 years, said in his just-published memoir that he and the committee had unanimously decided to grant the award to Mr. Obama just after his election in 2009 more in hopes of aiding the American president to achieve his goals on nuclear disarmament, rather than in recognition of what Mr. Obama had already accomplished . . .
“[We] thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn’t have this effect,” he told the Associated Press in an interview.
The award so early in his term appeared to take the Obama White House by surprise, and Mr. Lundestad said U.S. officials privately asked if a Nobel Prize-winner had ever skipped the awards ceremony.
Normally the Nobel committee’s decision regarding recipients remains private, and Mr. Lundestad’s frank and revealing remarks regarding internal decisions have caused a stir in Norway, detailing the politicking and compromises that have gone into determining the annual laureate. (Read more from “Nobel Panel Saw Obama Peace Prize as ‘Mistake,’ New Book Claims” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-16 23:52:352015-09-16 23:52:35Nobel Panel Saw Obama Peace Prize as ‘Mistake,’ New Book Claims
A powerful magnitude-8.3 earthquake hit off Chile’s northern coast Wednesday night, causing buildings to sway in the capital of Santiago and bringing flooding from small tsunami waves in some shore towns . . .
Authorities had issued a tsunami alert for Chile’s entire Pacific coast, and the tremor was so strong that people on the other side of the continent, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, reported feeling it.
Numerous strong aftershocks, including one measuring 7.0 magnitude and three above 6, rattled the region after the first major tremor since a powerful quake and tsunami killed hundreds in 2010 and leveled part of the city of Concepcion in south-central Chile. (Read more from “3 Dead After Strong Quake Rattles Chile Capital, Causing Some Tsunami Flooding” HERE)
Nearly two months after debris from the vanished Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 washed up on Reunion Island, a large object reportedly floating off the island has piqued the interest of French officials there.
An Air France pilot reported seeing “a white object” floating in the Indian Ocean on Tuesday morning about 70 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of the French island, said Siva Vadivelou, assistant director of the French Civil Aviation Authority on Reunion.
The Air France flight was at an altitude of 3,000 meters, or about 9,800 feet, the office of the island’s prefect said. Because of the altitude, “it must be a voluminous object for the pilot to see it,” Vadivelou said.
Authorities diverted a merchant ship to the area and flew an aircraft over it at low altitude, but nothing was found Tuesday, according to the prefect’s office.
French investigators said this month that debris that washed up on the island in July — an airplane flaperon — was from MH370, a Boeing 777 that disappeared with 239 people aboard in March 2014 while on a flight scheduled from Malaysia to China. (Read more from “Pilot Spots Large Object off Reunion, Aviation Authorities Say” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-16 23:50:052015-09-16 23:50:05Pilot Spots Large Object off Reunion, Aviation Authorities Say
A private industry IT security firm tells Fox News that personal data stolen over the span of several high-profile U.S. cyber breaches is being indexed by China’s intelligence service into a massive Facebook-like network.
According to CrowdStrike founder Dmitri Alperovitch, Chinese hackers are using information gained from the breaches of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, as well as intrusions into the Anthem and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield health insurance networks, to build a complete profile of federal employees in what the company calls a “Facebook of Everything.”
“That can now be used to embarrass you publicly and force you to work for the Chinese government,” Alperovitch told Fox News. “It’s, in effect, a private version of Facebook with much more detail about your life than even Facebook has that the Chinese now have access to.” Current and former intelligence officials echoed the assessment.
As Fox News has reported, the most sensitive information stolen in the OPM breach was lifted from what is known as the Standard Form 86, or SF-86. The 127-page security clearance application is essentially a road map to your life. It contains highly detailed information on everything from where an applicant lived and worked, to personal references, family members, friends and associates, as well as drug history and intimate health information.
What’s startling is the fact that virtually all government employees and contractors who hold the top echelon of U.S. security clearances were impacted by the OPM breach, even the Director of the FBI. James Comey joked at an intelligence and national security summit last week that had his SF-86 been stored in a strongly encrypted database “maybe someone wouldn’t be reading it today.” (Read more from “China Reportedly Compiling ‘Facebook’ of US Government Employees” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-15 23:54:522015-09-15 23:54:52China Reportedly Compiling ‘Facebook’ of US Government Employees
The 15 Chechens looking to cross the border from Turkey to Syria didn’t strike Abdullah as particularly important or unusual.
It was early summer in 2012, and as a smuggler based in the Turkish border town of Killis, Abdullah, who’d fled his home village in Syria because of fighting on the outskirts of Aleppo, was used to secretive groups of foreigners – journalists, aid workers and many recently aspiring jihadists – hiring him to cross Turkish military lines at the border while avoiding what was then still a significant Syrian government presence in northern Syrian . . .
The 15 men had reached Abdullah through a network of contacts that were funneling new fighters to northern Syria, and Abdullah recalled they said they were going to Syria to assist in the fight against Assad. They were quiet, disciplined and for the most part spoke only a bit of crude formal Arabic.
Only later did Abdullah realize that the network that funneled these men to him was the beginnings of the Islamic State, and that one of the 15 would turn out to be the most important non-Arab figure in the Islamic State hierarchy, a former American-trained noncommissioned officer in the special forces of the nation of Georgia, who’d led his men heroically during the 2008 Russian invasion of his homeland . . .
But analysts of extremist groups said Batirashvili’s impact has been far greater than the small numbers of Muslims in Georgia would suggest. Since he swore allegiance to the Islamic State in 2013, thousands of Muslims from the Caucasus have flocked to Syria to join the extremist cause. (Read more from “U.S. Training Helped Mold Top Islamic State Military Commander” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-15 23:53:172015-09-15 23:53:17U.S. Training Helped Mold Top Islamic State Military Commander
The US has warned North Korea to refrain from “irresponsible provocation” after the communist state said its main nuclear facility had resumed normal operations.
The reactor at Yongbyon has been the source of plutonium for North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme.
The White House said North Korea should “focus instead on fulfilling its international obligations”.
The reactor was shut down in 2007 as part of a disarmament-for-aid deal.
But Pyongyang vowed to restart it in 2013, following its third nuclear test and amid high regional tensions. (Read more from “US Warns North Korea Over Nuclear Plant ‘Provocation'” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-15 23:48:562015-09-15 23:48:56US Warns North Korea Over Nuclear Plant ‘Provocation’
By Kenneth Chan. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has no plans to drastically increase the number of Syrian refugees permitted to resettle in Canada.
During a Q&A session on his Facebook page this morning, Harper maintained that a thorough security screening process is needed for each refugee being considered entry given the risk that a terrorist could slip through.
“The situation in Syria and Iraq is troubling. Laureen and I were touched, just like all Canadians, at the pictures from last week,” Harper wrote on Facebook. “But, to help we must ensure we screen every potential refugee carefully.”
“We have been clear that we are willing to take more people, but we must be sure we are helping the most vulnerable. We cannot open the floodgates and airlift tens of thousands of refugees out of a terrorist war zone without proper process. That is too great a risk for Canada.”
The security screening used by the federal government includes the use of a time and labour-intensive biometric system, which will be expanded to the visa applications of all tourists, students, immigrants, migrant workers and refugees by 2018. (Read more from “This Country Is Refusing to Take Syrian Refugees” HERE)
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Mexico Opening Door to Syrian Refugees
By Brandon Darby. Prominent Mexican officials are calling on their president to open the doors for 10,000 Syrian refugees, though thousands of Mexicans per year are fleeing their cartel-controlled nation and its violence and seeking asylum in the United States. The move comes on the heels of Mexico accepting 30 Syrian students. Other nations south of the porous U.S.-Mexico border have already opened their doors for people fleeing the Middle East.
Considering the Mexican government’s inability to govern its own territory and the willingness of Mexican officials to accept cash bribes, one could question whether their screening process would exclude potentially dangerous individuals. Even in the case of an individual being identified having a connection to a terrorist organization, a wealthy benefactor or ally of the individual could simply pay off a decision-maker and get the individual through.
An article posted by the GlobalPost.com built a case for Mexico opening the doors for Syrians. They wrote:
GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Mexico has a proud history of welcoming refugees fleeing war and persecution around the world . . .
Senators of all political stripes on Thursday implored President Enrique Peña Nieto and his government to allow in as many Syrian refugees as possible.
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-15 00:25:122015-09-15 00:25:12Another Country Is Refusing to Take More Syrian Refugees
Debt ratios have reached extreme levels across all major regions of the global economy, leaving the financial system acutely vulnerable to monetary tightening by the US Federal Reserve, the world’s top financial watchdog has warned.
The Bank for International Settlements said the wild market ructions of recent weeks and capital outflows from China are warning signs that the massive build-up in credit is coming back to haunt, compounded by worries that policymakers may be struggling to control events.
“We are not seeing isolated tremors, but the release of pressure that has gradually accumulated over the years along major fault lines,” said Claudio Borio, the bank’s chief economist.
The Swiss-based BIS said total debt ratios are now significantly higher than they were at the peak of the last credit cycle in 2007, just before the onset of global financial crisis.
Combined public and private debt has jumped by 36 percentage points since then to 265pc of GDP in the the developed economies. (Read more from “BIS Fears Emerging Market Maelstrom as Fed Tightens” HERE)
Egyptian security forces killed 12 Mexicans and Egyptians and injured 10 “by accident” on Monday, mistaking a tourist convoy for militants they were chasing in the country’s western desert, the ministry of interior said . . .
A joint force from the Egyptian police and military was chasing militants in the country’s vast western desert, which borders Libya, when it inadvertently opened fire on the convoy.
The convoy was made up of four four-wheel drive vehicles, the Egyptian interior ministry said in a statement, and there will be an investigation into how and why the tourists entered an off-limits area.
Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto condemned the attack on his Twitter account, describing it as a tragic incident and demanding a full investigation . . .
Egypt’s tourism ministry spokesman told state news agency MENA the convoy was at an off-limits site and was using unlicensed cars. The convoy was taking part in an unapproved safari, he said. (Read more from “Egypt Security Forces Accidentally Kill 12, Including Mexican Tourists” HERE)
China reacted angrily on Friday following a call by America’s top intelligence official for cyber security against China to be stepped up, and said the United States should stop “groundless accusations”.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the United States must beef up cyber security against Chinese hackers targeting a range of U.S. interests to raise the cost toChina of engaging in such activities . . .
China routinely denies any involvement in hacking and says it is also a victim.
“Maintaining cyber security should be a point of cooperation rather than a source of friction between both China and the United States,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.
“We hope that the U.S. stops its groundless attacks against China, start dialogue based on a foundation of mutual respect, and jointly build a cyberspace that is peaceful, secure, open and cooperative.” (Read more from “China Tells U.S. To Stop ‘Groundless’ Hacking Accusations” HERE)
The former director of Norway’s Nobel Institute revealed this week that he regrets the committee’s decision to give the 2009 Nobel Peace award to President Obama.
