CIA Gathered Intelligence on Weapons to Syria: Benghazi Report

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

A leading Republican wants to expand the House investigation into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack by adding a Senate probe, as a new House Intelligence Committee report Friday concluded that the initial CIA assessment found no demonstrations prior to the assault and a primary purpose of the CIA operation in eastern Libya was to track the movement of weapons to Syria.

The report described the attack as “complex” with the attackers affiliated with Al Qaeda. It also said the initial CIA assessment concluded there were no demonstrations outside the State Department Consulate in Eastern Libya.

Referring to the House Select committee Chairman, and the Democratic ranking member, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, said the current House investigation should be expanded.

“(Republican) Trey Gowdy and (Democrat) Elijah Cummings have done a good job,” he said. “I can’t imagine the U.S. Senate not wanting to be a part of a joint select committee. We’ll bootstrap to what you’ve done, but we want to be part of discussion,” Graham told Fox News. “What I would suggest to (incoming Senate majority leader) Mitch McConnell is to call up Speaker Boehner and say ‘Listen, we want to be part of this’.”

Graham, along with his two Republican colleagues, Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, have been outspoken advocates of a special investigation, because they say then-acting director of the CIA Mike Morell misled them about his role in crafting the so-called media talking points that blamed an opportunistic protest gone awry for the assault.

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US Announces Release of 5 Guantanamo Prisoners

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

The Obama administration has released five Guantanamo Bay prisoners after an administration task force determined they no longer posed a threat.

The Department of Defense announced Thursday that three of the men were sent to Georgia and two to Slovakia for resettlement. The Pentagon identified the three now former prisoners resettled in Georgia as Abdel Ghaib Ahmad Hakim, Salah Mohammed Salih Al-Dhabi and Abdul Khaled Al-Baydani. The two sent to Slovakia were Hashim Bin Ali Bin Amor Sliti and Husayn Salim Muhammad Al-Mutari Yafai.

Hakim was the first prisoner from Yemen to be released since 2010. Yemenis make up the majority of men cleared for release because the U.S. is reluctant to send prisoners to the unstable country.

The group was among dozens of low-level prisoners at Guantanamo who were determined to no longer pose a threat by an administration task force in 2009.

Their release brings the total prison population to 143, about 100 fewer than when President Barack Obama took office pledging to close the detention center.

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ISIS Planning Gold, Silver Currency to Displace Dollar, International Banking

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Photo Credit: DailyMail

Photo Credit: DailyMail

ISIS wants to introduce its own currency and plans to bring back solid gold and silver dinar coins, it has emerged.

The Middle East terror group apparently wants to introduce its own Islamic currency as part of its attempts to solidify its makeshift caliphate.

Militants are said to want to bring back the original dinar, which is an ancient currency from early Islam, and religious figures in Mosul and Iraq’s Nineveh province have apparently announced its return in mosques.

The currency known as the dinar, which once consisted purely of gold and silver coins, is today used by a variety of countries, but the coins are created from different materials to the originals.

However, the jihadi group is understood to be planning to return to the original gold and silver coins, which were first introduced during the Caliphate of Uthman in 634 CE.

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Passenger Stuck with $1,171 Wi-Fi Bill on Singapore Airlines Flight

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Photo Credit: Singaporeair.com

Photo Credit: Singaporeair.com

A Canadian man who racked up a $1,171 Wi-Fi bill on a recent Singapore Airlines flight says it’s official: He has to pony up and pay the full amount.

Jeremy Gutsche, chief executive of Toronto-based innovation consultancy Trend Hunter, says he unwittingly accrued the charges on a flight last week from London to Singapore.

Gutsche says he signed up for a 30 megabyte Internet plan, which cost $28.99, and was aware that he would be responsible for data beyond that limit. But he was stunned when he learned upon landing that viewing some 155 pages — mostly checking email and uploading a PowerPoint document — had resulted in $1,142 of overage fees, he said in a blog post and on Twitter.

A Singapore Airlines spokesman said Monday the airline had been in contact with Switzerland-based OnAir, the provider of the WiFi service, on Gutsche’s behalf.

But the airline ultimately told him that he must pay the full amount, according to Gutsche. Asked about the apparent resolution to the charges, the Singapore Airlines spokesman said he could not provide any details about the carriers’ discussions with Gutsche.

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Defense: Guantanamo Detainee Is Soldier, Exempt From War Crimes Charges

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Photo Credit: REUTERS

Photo Credit: REUTERS

A U.S. military lawyer for a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee described as an al-Qaida commander said on Monday he may be classified as a soldier under international war rules – and therefore exempt from prosecution – so charges against him should be dropped.

Marine Lt. Col. Tom Jasper asked a judge to dismiss multiple charges against Abd al Hadi al-Iraqi, accused of commanding attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, killing civilians and conspiring to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Jasper said Article 5 of the Third Geneva Conventions of 1949 might classify Hadi al-Iraqi as a “lawful combatant” and, as a prisoner of war, grant him immunity from prosecution for lawful acts of war.

“The bottom line, sir, is that at this point Hadi al-Iraqi could not be tried by this tribunal,” Jasper told the judge during the hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison that was shown over closed-circuit television at Fort Meade, Maryland, media center.

More evidence and hearings are needed to define Hadi al-Iraqi’s status, Jasper said.

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ISIS Claims Beheading US Aid Worker

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Photo Credit: © Sera / Handout, EPA

Photo Credit: © Sera / Handout, EPA

By Ramadan Al-Fatash and Anne K Walters, dpa.

The Islamic State extremist group released a video on Sunday purporting to show the aftermath of the beheading of US hostage Peter Kassig, triggering an international outcry.

The video shows a masked fighter clad in black with a severed head lying on the ground that he claims is that of Kassig, a 26-year-old US aid worker captured by militants in Syria in October last year.

US President Barack Obama later confirmed the death in a statement offering condolences to the family.

The killing is the fifth execution of a Western hostage by Islamic State militants.

Kassig, a former Army Ranger, founded the aid group SERA (Special Emergency Response and Assistance) that was focussed on operating in areas where other groups were unable to work. The group provided medical training and logistical support as well as coordinated aid deliveries, but had “temporarily ceased its operations” due to the security situation in Syria, according to the group’s website.

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Peter Kassig death: A new Isis video, but a different ending. What could it mean?

By DAVID USBORNE.

The Islamic State extremist group released a video on Sunday purporting to show the aftermath of the beheading of US hostage Peter Kassig, triggering an international outcry.

The video shows a masked fighter clad in black with a severed head lying on the ground that he claims is that of Kassig, a 26-year-old US aid worker captured by militants in Syria in October last year.

US President Barack Obama later confirmed the death in a statement offering condolences to the family.

The killing is the fifth execution of a Western hostage by Islamic State militants.

Kassig, a former Army Ranger, founded the aid group SERA (Special Emergency Response and Assistance) that was focussed on operating in areas where other groups were unable to work. The group provided medical training and logistical support as well as coordinated aid deliveries, but had “temporarily ceased its operations” due to the security situation in Syria, according to the group’s website.

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Cardinal Raymond L. Burke Demoted by Pope Francis for Orthodox, Pro-Family Views

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Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a high-ranking Vatican Cardinal, was relegated by Pope Francis from his position of overseer of the highest judicial authority in the Roman Catholic Church, second only to the supreme ecclesiastical judge of the Pope himself, to a no-responsibility figurehead position running a charity. Suggested as being at the heart of the move is the Cardinal’s strong, conservative views, especially in opposition to gay rights and abortion.

Calling Cardinal Burke “hardly one of the Pope’s favorites,” theColumbus Dispatch on Nov. 9 said the Argentine pontiff and Holy Father reduced Burke to a “ceremonial position of chaplain for the Knights of Malta, a charity group.” Burke previously served as the Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

Burke has been in the Pope’s peripheral for a few years. In late 2013, Francis passed on renewing Cardinal Burke’s position on the Congregation for Bishops council – a powerful Vatican establishment that oversees the appointment of Bishops. Burke, an outspoken opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, once famously prevented John Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, from receiving communion because Kerry was an open advocate for abortion.

In response to his being replaced on the Bishop Congregation council last year, Burke said: “One gets the impression, or it’s interpreted this way in the media, that [Pope Francis] thinks we’re talking too much about abortion, too much about the integrity of marriage as between one man and one woman. But we can never talk enough about that.”

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Obama Pledges $3B to Aid . . . Climate Change (P.S. It will be spent by the United Nations)

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

The United States will give $3 billion to a U.N.-established fund to help poorer vulnerable countries prepare for a changing climate and develop cleaner energy, President Barack Obama announced Saturday.

The United Nations is trying to raise at least $10 billion for its Green Climate Fund to help developing nations adjust to rising seas, warmer temperatures and more extreme weather. It also would help the nations come up with energy sources that limit or reduce heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from coal, oil and gas.

Obama said the money would help farmers plant more resilient crops, governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions and communities to develop better defenses against storm surges and other climate-related changes.

But Obama said combatting climate change cannot be the work of government alone. “Citizens— especially young people like you — have to keep raising your voices, because you deserve to live your lives in a world that is cleaner and healthier,” he said while announcing the pledge during a speech at a university in Brisbane, Australia.

The American pledge would be the biggest to date and would double contributions to $6 billion, according to international environmental groups.

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China and the United States Are Preparing for War

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Photo Credit: FP

Photo Credit: FP

At a Nov. 12 news conference in Beijing, General Secretary of the Communist Party Xi Jinping and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed to notify the other side before major military activities, and to develop a set of rules of behavior for sea and air encounters, in order to avoid military confrontations in Asia. “It’s incredibly important that we avoid inadvertent escalation,” Ben Rhodes, a U.S. deputy national security advisor, was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying. An “accidental circumstance,” he said, could “lead into something that could precipitate conflict.”

Should we really be worried about war between the United States and China? Yes. Over the last four decades of studying China, I have spoken with hundreds of members of China’s military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and read countless Chinese military journals and strategy articles. Chinese military and political leaders believe that their country is at the center of American war planning. In other words, Beijing believes that the United States is readying itself for the possibility of a conflict with China — and that it must prepare for that eventuality.

Tensions are high not just because of Beijing’s rapidly expanding military budget, or because the United States continues to commit an increasingly high percentage of its military assets to the Pacific as part of its “rebalance” strategy. Rather, the biggest problem is Chinese opacity. While it’s heartening to hear Xi agree to instruct the PLA to be more open with regard to the United States, it is doubtful this will lead to any real changes.

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Dengue Fever Researchers in Military Weigh Infecting Volunteers

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Photo Credit: Associated Press

Photo Credit: Associated Press

Scientists at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research are considering resurrecting a research program that would infect healthy people with dengue fever, the potentially deadly mosquito-borne disease that has no specific drug treatment.

The tests raise ethical issues, but advocates say they are offset by the need to halt the dramatic growth in the disease. As many as 50 million people a year are infected with dengue, a 30-fold increase in the last 50 years. The disease causes 22,000 deaths each year, mainly among children, the World Health Organization says.

“Here you’re way out on the end of the risk-benefit spectrum,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. “It’s ethical to do it, but you have to go in with your eyes wide, wide open.”

The purpose of such a study, known as the “human infection” or “human challenge” model, is to see which viral strains cause mild dengue illness in people. The strains that make people sick are used to test potential vaccines and drugs, possibly leading to prevention and treatment of the disease.

The human-infection model is commonly used by researchers and drug and vaccine makers to study other diseases, like malaria, flu and infectious diarrhea. But the stakes are higher with dengue because there is no antiviral medication available to treat it.

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